Rebecca Belmore
Encyclopedia
Rebecca Belmore is a Anishinaabe
-Canadian
artist based in Vancouver
. Her work addresses history, voice and voicelessness, place, and identity through the media of sculpture, installation
, video and performance
.
and ethics." Belmore's major projects have resulted from her response to specific sites and circumstances offered to her. This is the way she prefers to work.
Her exhibition The Named and the Unnamed was organized by the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery
, University of British Columbia
(curated by Scott Watson and Charlotte Townsend Gault). The Named and the Unnamed was also shown at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Confederation Centre, and the Kamloops Art Gallery. Vigil is a performance-based video installation.
She represented Canada at the 2005 Venice Biennale
, where she exhibited the video-based installation Fountain. Belmore was the first Aboriginal woman to represent Canada at the Biennale.
Anishinaabe
Anishinaabe or Anishinabe—or more properly Anishinaabeg or Anishinabek, which is the plural form of the word—is the autonym often used by the Odawa, Ojibwe, and Algonquin peoples. They all speak closely related Anishinaabemowin/Anishinaabe languages, of the Algonquian language family.The meaning...
-Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
artist based in Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
. Her work addresses history, voice and voicelessness, place, and identity through the media of sculpture, installation
Installation art
Installation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...
, video and performance
Performance
A performance, in performing arts, generally comprises an event in which a performer or group of performers behave in a particular way for another group of people, the audience. Choral music and ballet are examples. Usually the performers participate in rehearsals beforehand. Afterwards audience...
.
Life
Belmore was born on March 22, 1960 in Upsala, Ontario, Canada and currently resides in Vancouver, BC. Author Jessica Bradley describes Belmore's adolescence as difficult, due to "the custom ingrained through the [Canadian] government imposed assimilation, she was sent to attend high school in Thunder Bay and billeted with a non-Native family." Bradley adds that as a result of her experience as an adolescent, notions of displacement and cultural loss are "reformed into acts or objects of reparation and protest [within her various works]."Work
"Although at its most effective, Belmore's aesthetic is taut, reductive, and unsentimental", writes Charlotte Townsend-Gault, "it becomes evident that for her there is no sharp divide between aestheticsAesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
and ethics." Belmore's major projects have resulted from her response to specific sites and circumstances offered to her. This is the way she prefers to work.
Exhibitions
Belmore has produced installations and performances internationally since 1987, including Creation or Death, We Will Win, at the Havana Biennial, Havana, Cuba (1991) and Vigil, at the Aboriginal Arts Festival, Vancouver B.C. (2003). She represented Canada at the Sydney Biennale, in Australia in 1998, in a group exhibition format. In 2004, Belmore received the VIVA Award from the Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation and completed a residency with MAWA (Mentoring Artist's for Women's Art) in Winnipeg, Manitoba the same year.Her exhibition The Named and the Unnamed was organized by the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery
Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery
The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery is a contemporary art gallery located in Vancouver, British Columbia, on the campus of the University of British Columbia....
, University of British Columbia
University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley...
(curated by Scott Watson and Charlotte Townsend Gault). The Named and the Unnamed was also shown at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Confederation Centre, and the Kamloops Art Gallery. Vigil is a performance-based video installation.
She represented Canada at the 2005 Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...
, where she exhibited the video-based installation Fountain. Belmore was the first Aboriginal woman to represent Canada at the Biennale.
External links
- Fado Performance Inc., Interview http://www.performanceart.ca/time3x/belmore/interview.html
- Urban Shaman http://www.urbanshaman.org/gallery/archive/Rebecca_Belmore/index.htm
- http://www.belkin.ubc.ca/past/RebeccaBelmore
- http://rebeccabelmore.com/home.html