Lynda Jessup - Negotiations in a Vacant Lot: Studying the Visual in Canada

Negotiations in a Vacant Lot

McGill- Queens/Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation Studies in Art History

Martha Langford and Sandra Paikowsky, series editors

Recognizing the need for a better understanding of Canadas artistic culture both at home and abroad, the Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation, through its generous support, makes possible the publication of innovative books that advance our understanding of Canadian art and Canadas visual and material culture. This series supports and stimulates such scholarship through the publication of original and rigorous peer-reviewed books that make significant contributions to the subject. We welcome submissions from Canadian and international scholars for book-length projects on historical and contemporary Canadian art and visual and material culture, including Native and Inuit art, architecture, photography, craft, design, and museum studies. Studies by Canadian scholars on non-Canadian themes will also be considered.

The Practice of Her Profession

Florence Carlyle, Canadian Painter in the Age of Impressionism

Susan Butlin

Bringing Art to Life

A Biography of Alan Jarvis

Andrew Horrall

Picturing the Land

Narrating Territories in Canadian

Landscape Art, 1500 to 1950

Marylin J. McKay

The Cultural Work of Photography in Canada

Edited by Carol Payne and Andrea Kunard

Newfoundland Modern

Architecture in the Smallwood Years, 19491972

Robert Mellin

The Codex Canadensis and the Writings of Louis Nicolas

The Natural History of the New World, Histoire Naturelle des Indes Occidentales Edited and with an Introduction by Francois-Marc Gagnon, Translation by Nancy Senior, Modernization by Ral Ouellet

Museum Pieces

Toward the Indigenization of Canadian Museums

Ruth B. Phillips

The Allied Arts

Architecture and Craft in Postwar Canada

Sandra Alfoldy

Rethinking Professionalism

Essays on Women and Art in Canada, 18501970

Edited by Kristina Huneault and Janice Anderson

The Official Picture

The National Film Board of Canadas Still Photography Division and the Image of Canada, 19411971

Carol Payne

Paul-mile Borduas

A Critical Biography

Franois-Marc Gagnon

Translated by Peter Feldstein

On Architecture

Melvin Charney: A Critical Anthology

Edited by Louis Martin

Making Toronto Modern

Architecture and Design, 18951975

Christopher Armstrong

Negotiations in a Vacant Lot Studying the Visual in Canada

Edited by Lynda Jessup, Erin Morton, and Kirsty Robertson

Negotiations in a Vacant Lot

Studying the Visual in Canada

Edited by Lynda Jessup, Erin Morton, and Kirsty Robertson

McGill-Queens University Press
Montreal & Kingston | London | Ithaca

McGill-Queens University Press 2014

ISBN 978-0-7735-4410-9 (cloth)

ISBN 978-0-7735-4411-6 (paper)

ISBN 978-0-7735-9637-5 (ePDF)

ISBN 978-0-7735-9638-2 (ePUB)

Legal deposit third quarter 2014

Bibliothque nationale du Qubec

Printed in Canada on acid-free paper

This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Funding has also been provided by the Deans Travel Fund at Western University, the Department of History at the University of New Brunswick, the Faculty of Arts Busteed Publication Fund at the University of New Brunswick, the Office of Research Services at Queens University, and the Society of Graduate and Professional Students at Queens University.

McGill-Queens University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Negotiations in a vacant lot : studying the visual in Canada / edited by

Lynda Jessup, Erin Morton, and Kirsty Robertson.

(McGill-Queen's/Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation studies in art history)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-0-7735-4410-9 (bound).ISBN 978-0-7735-4411-6 (pbk.).

ISBN 978-0-7735-9637-5 (ePDF).ISBN 978-0-7735-9638-2 (ePUB)

1. Art and societyCanada. 2. ArtCanadaHistory. 3. Art, Canadian. 4. CanadaCultural policy. I. Jessup, Lynda, 1956, editor II. Morton, Erin, 1981, editor III. Robertson, Kirsty, 1976, editor IV. Series: McGill-Queens/ Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation studies in art history

Contents

LYNDA JESSUP, ERIN MORTON, AND KIRSTY ROBERTSON

ERIN MORTON

MARK A. CHEETHAM

KRISTY A. HOLMES

ALICE MING WAI JIM

ANNIE GRIN

IMRE SZEMAN

BARBARA JENKINS

SARAH E.K. SMITH

HEATHER IGLOLIORTE

RICHARD WILLIAM HILL

KIRSTY ROBERTSON

ROB SHIELDS

JENNIFER VANDERBURGH

SUSAN CAHILL

PETER CONLIN

Illustrations

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the contributors to this volume for their enthusiasm and dedication to this project. Its success as a series of conversations and now as a book is largely dependent on these participants, whose intellect and efforts pushed our initial questions far beyond what we had originally envisioned. Like all editorial exercises, this collection has been improved by several readings, including the contributors, and those of anonymous readers, whose careful and conscientious feedback helped to strengthen its content and to refine its scope.

We are thankful to our research assistants, Michelle Bauldic and Stephanie Radu, for their help in arranging the two days of conversation that preceded the publication of this book, and to Kelly Flinn and Eric Greisinger for organizing and collating the book manuscript at various stages. We would also like to thank Timothy Pearson for his editorial assistance.

At McGill-Queens University Press, we are grateful to Philip Cercone and Jessica Perreault-Howarth for guiding us through the editorial and publishing process.

Finally, we acknowledge and appreciate the financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Queens University, the University of New Brunswick, and Western University, Canada, in the development and completion of this book.

Preface

With this collection we hope to further discussion about the possible futures of Canadian art history. At a moment in which the discipline of Canadian art history seems to be in flux, and in which the study of visual culture produced in Canada is gaining traction in a number of interdisciplinary venues outside of art history departments, we ask: what is at stake in the creation, replication, and dissemination of a Canadian art history?

With this question at hand, a group of scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds gathered together for a workshop. The questions were as follows:

1 Is Canada (or, for that matter, any other nation) still relevant as a category of inquiry as a site for knowledge production now that we face neo-liberalism, corporate globalization, and what has been described as a post-national landscape?