Mapping a Practice

This unique exhibition will treat visitors to a far-reaching look at the work and thought of interdisciplinary artist Vera Frenkel, recipient of the 2006 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts.

Curator Sylvie Lacerte’s insightful synthesis brings archives and artworks together to reveal a little-known side of Frenkel’s remarkable creative process. Collaborating closely with the artist, Lacerte has selected three pivotal works, juxtaposing around them documents that both precede and follow their creation and dissemination. Delving into the artist’s personal archives and the Vera Frenkel fonds at Queen’s University, Lacerte will share with the public a wide array of elements including photographs, designs, sketches, posters, and correspondence.

Frenkel’s innovative use of technology has shaped a socially-engaged practice with a pronounced impact on art in Canada and abroad. Centering on issues such as censorship, displacement and loss, the learning and unlearning of cultural memory and the bureaucratization of experience, her work has been seen at documenta IX (Kassel), Setagaya Art Museum (Tokyo), National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), Museum of Modern Art (New York), Tate Britain (London), the Venice Biennale, and Freud Museum (London) among others. Recipient of honorary doctorates from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and Emily Carr University, Vancouver, Vera Frenkel is also laureate of numerous prizes such as the Canada Council Molson Prize, the Gershon-Iskowitz Prize, the Bell Canada Award for Video Art and the 2007 iDMAa Award. Frenkel has been inducted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. She is currently at work on a commission for the inaugural exhibition of the new Ryerson University Art Gallery, Toronto.