Art Toronto 2016
October 28 – 31, 2016Ruth Cuthand
Don’t Breathe, Don’t Drink
dc3 Art Projects is excited to be one of twelve galleries chosen to present in the SOLO section of Art Toronto 2016. For our fourth year participating in Art Toronto, we are proud to present Ruth Cuthand’s Don’t Breathe, Don’t Drink – a large-scale mixed media installation exploring contamination and community.
Watching footage of the 2011 housing crisis in Attawapiskat coupled with home improvement programs on TV, Cuthand conceived a new body of work growing from her interest in infections impacting Indigenous peoples. Don’t Drink, Don’t Breathe is a celebratory dining table set in a First Nation reserve home, panelled with incendiary ‘gas board’ infamous to firefighters and ubiquitous in northern communities. A table covered in blue industrial tarpaulin, material used to create temporary shelters when reserve housing is unfit, bears beaded black mold spores magnified to heraldic emblem proportions. The table holds 94 found glass vessels: glasses, baby bottles and ‘sippy cups’ containing Giardia, Helicobacter, E. coli and other infectious vectors responsible for 94 Nations under long term boil water advisory. Walls at this celebration are hung with portraits of these and other contagions impacting the first people of our land, past present and future.
An artist of Plains Cree and Scottish ancestry, Cuthand’s practice explores the frictions between cultures, the failures of representation, and the political uses of anger. Cuthand’s beaded portraits of infectious agents significant to indigenous people, past and present, were featured in the survey show of contemporary Canadian art, Oh, Canada, at MASS MoCA in 2012, which subsequently travelled across Canada. Works from her Surviving series were recently included in the Contemporary Native Art Biennial in Montréal, organized by Art Mûr under the theme Culture Shift – Une révolution culturelle.
In 2013, Cuthand was awarded the Saskatchewan Lieutenant Governor’s Arts Award and in 2015 was named an Alumni of Influence by the College of Arts and Science at the University of Saskatchewan. Cuthand holds an MFA from the University of Saskatchewan, and lives and works in Saskatoon, SK.
Ruth Cuthand, Don’t Breathe, Don’t Drink, 2016
Dimensions variable, 94 vessels with glass beads and resin, hand-beaded blue tarpaulin tablecloth and gas board
Art Toronto Platform Speaker Series
Indigenous Contemporary Art Practice and the Art Market
Sunday, October 30, 1pm
Presented by Art Dealers Association of Canada (ADAC)
Participants:
Ruth Cuthand (Artist)
Lee-Ann Martin (Curator)
Patricia Feheley (Director Feheley Fine Art)
Sara Roque (Aboriginal Arts Officer, Ontario Arts Council)
Moderated by Rachelle Dickenson (PhD Candidate, Curator)Participants discuss the state of Indigenous contemporary practice from the perspective of the artist, dealer, curator and funder within the context of the larger art economy, and consider the past and current challenges and successes in supporting Indigenous artists in the market.
For more information, visit the Art Toronto website.
Works
Ruth Cuthand, Boil Water Advisory #3, 2016 Glass beads, resin and found glassware, dimensions variable
Ruth Cuthand, Meningitis, 2016 Glass beads, thread, backing, suede, glass, 18 x 18 in.
Ruth Cuthand, Shigellosis, 2016 Glass beads, thread, backing, suede, glass, 18 x 18 in.
Ruth Cuthand, Tuberculosis, 2011 Glass beads, thread, backing, suede, glass, 25 x 19 in.
Ruth Cuthand, H1N1, 2011 Glass beads, thread, backing, suede, glass, 25 x 19 in.
Ruth Cuthand, H5N1 Avian Flu, 2011 Glass beads, thread, backing, suede, glass, 25 x 19 in.
Ruth Cuthand, Hanta Virus, 2011 Glass beads, thread, backing, suede, glass, 25 x 19 in.
Ruth Cuthand, SARS, 2011 Glass beads, thread, backing, suede, glass, 25 x 19 in.
Ruth Cuthand, SARS, 2011 Glass beads, thread, backing, suede, glass, 25 x 19 in.
Ruth Cuthand, West Nile, 2011 Glass beads, thread, backing, suede, glass, 25 x 19 in.
