Rebecca Belmore

Rebecca Belmore
Born 1960
Upsala, Ontario, Canada
Nationality Anishinaabe-Canadian
Known for installation, Performance art
Awards Governor General's Award 2013
Website rebeccabelmore.com

Rebecca Belmore (born 1960) is an inter-disciplinary Anishinaabe-Canadian artist who is particularly notable for her performance and installation work.[1] Belmore currently lives in Vancouver, British Columbia (Canada).

Belmore has performed and exhibited nationally and internationally since 1986. Her work addresses history, voice and voicelessness, place, and identity. To address the politics of representation, Belmore's art strives to invert or subvert official narratives, while demonstrating a preference for the use of repetitive gesture and natural materials.[1]

She was the first aboriginal woman representing Canada at the Venice Biennale in 2005.[2] She also received Canadian Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2013.[2][3]

Life

Belmore was born on March 22, 1960 in Upsala, Ontario, Canada. Author Jessica Bradley describes Belmore's adolescence as difficult, due to "the custom ingrained through the [Canadian] government imposed assimilation, she was sent to attend high school in Thunder Bay and billeted with a non-Native family." Bradley adds that as a result of her experience as an adolescent, notions of displacement and cultural loss are "reformed into acts or objects of reparation and protest [within her various works]." [4]

Career

Rebecca Belmore has presented work in biennial exhibitions throughout her career. She has twice represented Canada at the Sydney Biennale; in 1998 in the exhibition Every Day, and in 2006 in the exhibition Zones of Contact. In 2005 she exhibited Fountain at the Canadian Pavilion for the 51st Venice Biennale.[5] In the same year she exhibited as part of Sweet Taboos at the 3rd Tirana Biennale, Tirana, Albania. In 1991, she exhibited at the IV Bienal de la Habana, Havana, Cuba.[1]

Jolene Rickard's Venice Biennale Catalogue essay[6] describes Belmore's work: "As a First Nations or Aboriginal person, Belmore's homeland is now the modern nation of Canada; yet, there is reluctance by the art world to recognize this condition as a continuous form of cultural and political exile. The inclusion of the First Nations political base is not meant to marginalize Belmore's work, but add depth to it. People think of Belmore as both Canadian and Anishinabe—l think of her as an Anishinabe living in the continuously colonial space of the Americas."

Belmore has had two major solo touring exhibitions, The Named and the Unnamed, a multi-part installation that commemorates women missing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver (2002); and 33 Pieces, Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto at Mississauga (2001).

In 2004, Belmore completed a residency with MAWA (Mentoring Artists for Women's Art) in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

In 2008, the Vancouver Art Gallery hosted Rising to the Occasion, a mid-career survey of Belmore's artistic production.[1]

In 2010, Belmore was involved in a legal dispute with the Pari Nadimi Gallery of Toronto, the latter of which sued her for punitive damages and lost future revenues to $750,000.[7][8]

In 2014, Belmore was commissioned to create an original work for the Canadian Museum for Human Rights[9] The work consists of a blanket of hand pressed clay beads, engaging the community in Winnipeg to help produce them.[2]

Performances

Select Works:[1]

Exhibitions

Select Solo Exhibitions:[1]

Awards and Honours

Bibliography

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Augaitis, Daina and Kathleen Ritter, ed. (2008). Rebecca Belmore: Rising to the Occasion. Vancouver: Vancouver Art Gallery. ISBN 9781895442687.
  2. 1 2 3 Charleyboy, Lisa (2014-03-15), First Nations artist Rebecca Belmore creates a blanket of beads, CBC News
  3. 1 2 Arts, Government of Canada, Canada Council for the. "The Canada Council for the Arts - Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts". ggavma.canadacouncil.ca. Retrieved 20 January 2016.
  4. ↑ Jessica Bradley (2006), Tanya Mars and Johanna Householder, ed., Caught in the Act: An Anthology of Performance Art by Canadian Women, Toronto, ON: YYZ Books, pp. 120–129, ISBN 0-920397-84-0
  5. ↑ Martin, Lee-Ann. "The Waters of Venice: Rebecca Belmore at the 51st Biennale". Canadian Art. Retrieved 17 March 2016.
  6. ↑ Rickard, Jolene. "Rebecca Belmore: Performing Power" (PDF). Retrieved 11 April 2015.
  7. ↑ Griffin, Kevin (2010-09-15), "Rebecca Belmore Takes Legal Case to The Street", The Vancouver Sun
  8. ↑ Lederman, Marsha (2010-09-22), "The story behind Rebecca Belmore's "I quit" performance", The Globe and Mail
  9. ↑ Sandals, Leah (2014-01-24), Rebecca Belmore to Make Major Human Rights Museum Piece, Canadian Art
  10. ↑ "Members since 1880". Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. Retrieved 11 September 2013.
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