During the 1970s and 1980s, Edmonton was recognized internationally as a centre for the creation and collection of modernist painting and sculpture. For many artists, curators and collectors, the legitimization of the primary principles of modernism—medium specificity and aesthetic autonomy—that were supported by the city’s two largest art institutions—The Edmonton Art Gallery and the University of Alberta—was a welcome refuge from the postmodernist discourse that was effecting art production elsewhere.

Seeing Through Modernism traces the development and maintenance of this modernist tradition in Edmonton through an examination of the artistic practices that dominated the city in the 1970s and 80s. In particular, the exhibition looks at the relationship between the work produced by faculty members in the University of Alberta’s Department of Art and Design and the strong support of modern art by The Edmonton Art Gallery under the curatorial leadership of Karen Wilkin and Terry Fenton.

Although the focus of the exhibition is on the production and circulation of modernist discourses on art and art-making during this period, Seeing Through Modernism also examines the important sites of critique and alterity that emerged in Edmonton during this period: specifically, the formation of the artist-run centre Latitude 53 in 1973 and the establishment of the Society of Northern Alberta Print Artists (SNAP) in 1982.

Exhibition Brochure

Exhibition Related Programming           

Douglas Haynes, Cardinal Green, 1979. Art Gallery of Alberta Collection, purchased with funds from the President’s Circle.