Permanent collections are complex and amazing things. The ways they are formed, presented, and interpreted all speak of choices—choices made one hundred years ago and yesterday. Whether an artwork was given to us by donation, or purchased, these choices express who we are, and crucially, who we want to be.
The Art Gallery of Hamilton is proud of its collection, while at the same time recognizing that there is still work to be done in accounting for the biases, omissions, and idiosyncrasies of our holdings. Although we aim to have old favourites on view, we are equally committed to bringing lesser-known works and the voices of contemporary artists to the fore, many of whom are grappling with current and pressing social issues. Given the challenge of properly balancing these concerns, and knowing that because of our limited space only a small percentage of the collection can be out of the vaults at any given time, what kind of decisions inform how we present the collection?
These are the questions we ask ourselves when deciding what to exhibit. How can artwork reflect the shifting perspectives and priorities of artists over time? How does the work reflect our changing views of land and place, identity, abstraction, our social fabric? How do the works speak to—or confront—each other across a room?
Who do we see represented? And perhaps most importantly, who is not here?
These questions are fluid and organic; they change and shift and morph and should reflect the times we live in and the issues that affect our communities.
That is how objects come alive. And that is why they matter so much.
AGH BEYOND THE FRAME
Explore the AGH Collection like never before through a new, ground-breaking art activation project, Beyond the Frame, funded by the incite Foundation for the Arts. Beyond the Frame uses ‘rich content’ in the form of audio, video, and augmented reality to provide interpretive, sensory, and reimagined experiences to activate selected works from the AGH Collection.
Join us in inaugurating Beyond the Frame with a new, situated recordings by musicians Jeremy Greenspan and Colin Fisher, inspired by William Kurelek’s This is the Nemesis, and only available for listening at the AGH.
Check out more works on display in this activation!
Below, take a virtual tour of works from the Permanent Collection that were previously on display.
Exhibition and Header Image: William Blair Bruce (Canadian 1859-1906), The Phantom of the Snow (detail), 1888, oil on canvas, Bruce Memorial, 1914. Part of the Art Gallery of Hamilton’s Canadian Collection.
Follow along on social using #AGHCollection
Beyond the Frame, funded by the incite Foundation for the Arts.
Gallery Level 2 is always free admission, courtesy of Orlick Industries.
