ALISON COOLEY
Arts Writer

A recent show entitled This Train: Fine Arts Alumni, 1990-2010 has been enjoying success in the Agriculture Building’s Kenderdine Art Gallery for the past month.

The show is part of a series entitled SHIFTS: Art and Art History at the University of Saskatchewan, which showcases artists from the University of Saskatchewan faculty, sessionals, staff and alumni.

This Train refers to the long history of the modernist movement in art at the University of Saskatchewan. With this show, curator Kim Ennis attempts to counter the modernist narrative, borrowing Arthur C. Danto’s idea of “the end of art.”

“The end of art is not about the end of art-making, but about the end of the story,” explained Ennis. “If modernism and the western tradition is sort of a train on a linear track, going as fast as possible towards some end, then eventually the end does come. And perhaps when that time arrives, we’ll notice that artists have continued working in all kinds of fields — on and off the train — everywhere, as they always have. And that really we’ve just been wrapped up in the story.”

In beginning to examine the artwork of alumni since 1990, Ennis looked for “all the most diverse possible examples of work,” highlighting what he referred to as “a tremendous range of very, very strong work” coming out of the fine arts program.

Bringing together such a diverse selection of artworks was fairly labour-intensive, Ennis noted.

“I began by simply finding out who all those graduates were [since 1990], which you’d think would be simple enough. But I had to do a lot of searching,” Ennis said, “in order to find what seemed to be a definitive list [of 500]. So from that list I had to narrow it down to about 20 or 30 who would actually fit in this gallery. So I began by first trying to find them. I figured if I can’t find them or find any sign of them, then they can’t be in the show… I ended up finding 150 who were continuing to make art in a public way.”

The show largely focuses on recent work. Many artists, in fact, finished new work specifically for the occasion, contributing work that had never previously been shown. Previously unseen work by artists Joanne Lyons, Marcel Piet-Hein Kerkhoff, Cate Francis, Stacia Verigin, Benjamin Hettinga and Tammi Campbell make up a significant part of the show.

In his selection of artists, Ennis also took on the task of challenging the exclusion of First Nations artists from the University of Saskatchewan’s history, featuring works by Wally Dion, Ruth Cuthand, and Judy Anderson.

“I think in recent decades that has changed very much.” Ennis explains. “I also think there’s now an attitude about making sure that people are not excluded for any reason. I didn’t really have to make any specific effort in that direction because there were such extraordinary artists that I had to draw from.”

Despite showcasing more contemporary and conceptual artistic practices in the show, Ennis warns against trying to obscure or de-legitimize the modernist tradition.

“Maybe the train has proved to be a little bit of an illusion,” he said. “But the territory of modernism, I don’t see any reason to abandon it. There’s still a lot to explore in those areas. I think there are still people working very strongly in the modernist way…. Artists will do what they will do, and historians have to make sense of it after the fact. I think probably individual artists don’t really have that much choice about it; they just do what they do.”

“People have taken on amazing careers as a result of being here. Some have started their own galleries, many work in other art schools and teach and curate and so on. Or work, sort of, in adjacent fields. It seems to me that no matter what, artists will always keep doing what they do, whether there’s a particularly favourable atmosphere, or not. There’s a great strength in artistic culture, and it will always carry on.”

This Train: Fine Arts Alumni, 1990-2010 runs until Dec. 10, from 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the Kenderdine Art Gallery.

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image: Pete Yee