School of Art

The Performance of Shadows

February 16 to April 29, 2023 | Curated by Lillian O’Brien Davis

Erika DeFreitas, Betye Saar, and Tim Whiten

The Performance of Shadows explores intuition as a condition of consciousness. This exhibition considers the expansiveness of three artists’ understanding of existence through various approaches to concepts of phenomenology, spirituality and political engagement.

Betye Saar’s assemblage work, which was increasingly influenced by her rising political consciousness beginning in the 1960s, consists of objects carrying their own history and meaning and are selected for their “ancestral, ritual, autobiographical, nostalgic and historical” aura. In Saar’s work, time is cyclical, linking the artist and viewers of her work with generations of people who came before them. Saar uses assemblage and found materials that link history and experiences— emotion and knowledge travel across time and back again.

Tim Whiten bridges material and spiritual experience that encourages “sensing” over “reading”. Whiten investigates consciousness and its role in the meaning constituting process. Whiten’s practice is informed by a deep generosity, connecting to others through the experience of his work.

Erika DeFreitas’ practice emphasizes process, the body and paranormal phenomena, using primarily lens-based media focused on feelings of love and loss. DeFreitas explores the miraculous as a way of considering that which is beyond our comprehension by bearing witness to testimonies of visions of the Virgin Mary. The divine feminine is a consistent presence in DeFreitas’ work, a connective energy passing through space and time.

Process is key to the works in the exhibition; all three artists embrace various manifestations of intuitive intelligence, working to connect with what lies beyond our immediate experience of reality. Objects and materiality function as transmitters for memory, experience, and consciousness. Meaning and significance cannot be fully experienced through objectivity alone – the artists in The Performance of Shadows nurture intuitive practices that expand our perception of the world.

The Performance of Shadows is the second of three exhibitions presented as part of the School of Art Gallery’s Visiting Curator Program. Launched in Summer 2021, this initiative supports curatorial research, exhibitions, events, and publications by emerging and established guest curators alike.

The Visiting Curator Program is a catalyst for international-calibre exhibitions and aims to play a vital role in defining contemporary art and its attendant discourses in the Prairies. It gives students, faculty, and other community members meaningful opportunities to engage with curators charting bold new trajectories in their field. Through a significant mentorship component, it aims to foster strong new voices in this discipline.

We are pleased to welcome Grace Deveney, Lillian O’Brien Davis, and Shalaka Jadhav as the program’s inaugural visiting curators. This program is generously supported by Michael F.B. Nesbitt.

Visual descriptions 

Betye Saar sits in her studio wearing a blue collared shirt, looking down.

In Dialogue

Suzanne Bauman: Spirit Catcher: The Art of Betye Saar

Presented in dialogue with The Performance of Shadows, this 1977 documentary profiles the life and work of Betye Saar.

Produced by WNET (New York Public Media) Spirit Catcher addresses Saar’s fascination with the mystical and the unknown, which merge with her social concerns as an African American woman.

For over six decades, Betye Saar has created assemblage works that explore the social, political, and economic underpinnings of America’s collective memory. She began her career at the age of 35 producing work that dealt with mysticism, nature and family. Saar’s art became political in the 1970’s namely with the assemblage The Liberation of Aunt Jemima in 1972. A pioneer of the Assemblage movement, the impact of Saar’s oeuvre on contemporary art has yet to be fully acknowledged or critically assessed. Saar is based in Los Angeles where she continues to produce work.

Suzanne Bauman (1945-2022) was a producer, director, and writer of more than 80 documentary and drama films. Bauman earned a BA from Vassar College and an MFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Film School, and taught at UCLA. Bauman’s work reflected her broad interests, addressing geopolitical, social, and environmental issues and the histories of global empires, cultural epochs, artistic movements, and the written word. She produced biographies of world leaders, artists, and other public figures and directed theatre productions, independent films, and short films for children. Her work has received numerous accolades, including a CINE Golden Eagle Award for Spirit Catcher, an Academy Award Nomination for Against Wind and Tide: A Cuban Odyssey (1981), and an Academy Award of Special Merit for La Belle Époque (1983).

Artsits 

Erika DeFreitas

Erika DeFreitas’s multidisciplinary practice includes performance, photography, video, installation, textiles, drawing and writing. Placing emphasis on gesture, process, the body, documentation and paranormal phenomena, DeFreitas mines concepts of loss, post-memory, legacy and objecthood. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally including: Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery; Platform Centre for Photographic and Digital Arts, Winnipeg; Gallery TPW, Toronto; Project Row Houses and the Museum of African American Culture, Houston; Fort Worth Contemporary Arts; and Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita. She is a recipient of the 2016 Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts Finalist Artist Prize, the 2016 John Hartman Award, and was longlisted for the 2017 Sobey Art Award. DeFreitas holds a Master of Visual Studies from the University of Toronto.

Betye Saar

For over six decades, Betye Saar has created assemblage works that explore the social, political, and economic underpinnings of America’s collective memory. She began her career at the age of 35 producing work that dealt with mysticism, nature and family. Saar’s art became political in the 1970’s namely with the assemblage The Liberation of Aunt Jemima in 1972. As did many of the women who came to consciousness in the 1960’s, Saar takes on the feminist mantra “the personal is political” as a fundamental principle in her assemblage works. Her appropriation of Black collectibles, heirlooms, and utilitarian objects are transformed through subversion, and yet given her status as a pioneer of the Assemblage movement, the impact of Saar’s oeuvre on contemporary art has yet to be fully acknowledged or critically assessed. Among the older generation of Black American artists, Saar is without reproach and continues to both actively produce work and inspire countless others.

Tim Whiten

In over forty years of creating cultural objects, Tim Whiten has sought to navigate the territory of the human condition with the intent of inviting experiences and encouraging “sensing” over “reading”. Whiten’s work extends from two- to three-dimensional forms and includes ritual performances, real-time systems, site-specific and mixed media installations. His work is held in numerous private, corporate, and public collections, such as the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Art Gallery of Hamilton, the Tom Thomson Art Gallery, the Art Gallery of Windsor, the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, the Mackenzie Art Gallery, and the Achenbach Foundation for the Graphic Arts, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (both the de Young and the Legion of Honor).

A wide-angle view of the exhibition space featuring a blue partition, a book sculpture on a pedestal, a wall-mounted branch sculpture, and a textured floor installation.
A sculptural book installation with layered glass pages and organic materials embedded within, displayed on a wooden pedestal.
A frontal view of a book sculpture on a wooden pedestal, set against a striking blue exhibition wall.
A gallery wall displaying framed black-and-white artworks, with a large blue text panel providing curatorial context for the exhibition.

Photo Documentation by Karen Asher

Events:

Reception (February 16, 2023)
5:00-8:00 pm

Talk: Curator Lillian O’Brien Davis on The Performance of Shadows (February 16, 2023)
12:00-1:30 pm
368 ARTlab, 180 Dafoe Road

Erika DeFreitas: compositions on a colourless blue Workshop (March 14, 2023)
10:00-11:15 am
136 ARTlab, University of Manitoba
Presented in partnership with 1JustCity