McMichael Canadian Art Collection presents Jon Sasaki: Homage in partnership with the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival
On view virtually as of June 14 | In-person once the McMichael reopens Through September 26, 2021
The McMichael Canadian Art Collection is proud to be partnering with the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival, the world’s largest photography event, for a seventh year. The McMichael will present the special exhibition Jon Sasaki: Homage, featuring the work of Toronto-based multidisciplinary Canadian artist Jon Sasaki (b. 1973, Toronto). The exhibition opens June 3, 2021, and remains on view through September 6, 2021.
Homage gathers a suite of Sasaki’s recent photographs depicting bacterial cultures grown from swabs of artist tools once used by the Group of Seven and Tom Thomson, historical artifacts long held in the McMichael’s collection. These large-scale works reveal enlarged details of those cultures, reflecting the artist’s wry obsession with Canada’s canonical painters and his revisiting of the tradition-bound genre of landscape painting through the lens of contemporary photography. Sasaki’s works will be on view alongside the historical artists’ tools. A short video documenting the process of swabbing these archival items, under the direction of McMichael conservator Alison Douglas, will also be presented.
About Jon Sasaki: Homage
Jon Sasaki: Homage is a suite of photographs depicting petri dishes with bloomed bacterial cultures derived from swabs of the palettes and brushes used by members of the Group of Seven and Tom Thomson, objects held in the archives of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection. These large-scale works are monumental in scale yet they reveal microscopic detail, affirming a playful reverence towards the Group’s legacy while reframing the genre of landscape painting through the lens of photography. Through these glowing bacterial landscapes Sasaki has generated a new sublime, a counterpoint to the quotidian nature of what lies beneath. The artifacts from which the microscopic organisms were gathered will be exhibited in dialogue with the photographs, presenting a poignant entanglement of past and present-day artists in the story of Canadian art.
About the McMichael Canadian Art Collection
The McMichael Canadian Art Collection is an agency of the Government of Ontario and acknowledges the support of the Ministry of Heritage, Sport, Tourism and Culture Industries, and the McMichael Canadian Art Foundation. It is the foremost venue in the country showcasing the Group of Seven and their contemporaries. In addition to touring exhibitions, its permanent collection consists of over 6,500 works by historic and present-day Canadian artists, including the Group of Seven and their contemporaries, as well as Indigenous artists. The Gallery is located on 100 acres of northern landscape and hiking trails at 10365 Islington Avenue, Kleinburg, north of Major Mackenzie Drive in the City of Vaughan. For more information, please visit mcmichael.com.
Photo: Jon Sasaki, Microbes Swabbed from a Palette Used by F.H. Varley, 2020, archival print, 91.44 x 91.44 cm, Image courtesy of the artist and Clint Roenisch Gallery