Joyce Wieland: Heart On. When saying the title of this retrospective of Joyce Wieland’s work, it sounds like a double entendre. This rather clever wordplay for the exhibition, curated by Anne Grace (Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, MMFA) and Georgina Uhlyarik (Art Gallery of Ontario, AGO), captures the essence of Wieland’s deep compassion as well as her sense of the erotic and her wicked humour. The exhibition, currently at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, will soon be opening at the AGO in June.
Four years in the making, featuring over 100 of Wieland’s pieces and sprawling across eight rooms at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the exhibition undoubtedly offers a comprehensive insight into Wieland’s journey as an artist and, in turn, presents her as an exceptional figure in Canadian art. Interestingly, the timing of this exhibition is uncanny in the way it connects with social and political issues of today, most notably issues related to Canadian identity and unity, diverse identities, and environmental issues, adding visionary artist to Wieland’s legacy.
In my view she remains unparalleled in her magnanimous creativity and innovation. Despite the fact that National Art Gallery of Canada first hosted a solo exhibition of her work called True Patriot Love in 1971, and in 1987, the Art Gallery of Ontario dedicated a retrospective to Wieland, marking the first time the that institution honoured a living female artist with such an exhibition, she has not sustained much recognition nationally, and certainly not in Quebec, where few would have even known her name.
Wieland’s importance as a leading Canadian artist is not attributed to her technical skill or her adherence to traditionally held understandings of aesthetics. Many of her pieces seem crudely executed as she deliberately ignored conventional theories and practices of line, colour, and shape. Instead, her self-liberating and authentic approach to artmaking challenged the male-dominated art that was hung in the major galleries of New York and Toronto in the 50s and 60s.
Driven by an inner passion, her work displays the complexity of her interests as she connects with the social and political pulse of the day. Her themes of topical political discourse, female identity and feminism, and environmental advocacy are interwoven through her work with resonating intensity.
Hearts shapes are ubiquitous in this exhibition, and it’s a motif Wieland carried through her work over time. Hearts became a kind of secondary signature and an underlining statement of her generosity of spirit, a spirit that embraced everything under her gaze. In Reason over Passion (1968) and Raison Avant Passion (1968) there are nearly forty hearts sewn seemingly arbitrarily into each quilt. But it is her ubiquitous use of lips that brings her closer to the erotic. Bright red or shocking pink, often quite sensual, – lips can be found in her paintings, lips stitched in red thread renditions like in the piece mouthing “Oh Canada,” lips holding cigarettes, kissing lips, and lips provocatively close to penises.
The most striking use of lips for me appears in a 33-minute, 60 mm film, Pierre Vallières (1972), which is solely a close-up shot of the mouth of Quebecois author and militant supporter of the French Liberation of Quebec. The film caught my attention from a distance, attracted to something familiar and slightly erotic – fleshly lips moving within an abundance of surrounding hair. When coming closer I started to listen to the words and the erotic quickly shifted to the serious.
Vallières speaks in Quebecois French about his life and the exploitation of the working poor of French Canadians by American capitalists and Anglophone oppressive powers. An English translation runs at the top of the screen. With the focus on Vallières’ lips and the stirring urgency of Vallières’s voice, the result is a powerful political statement that gives a platform to the demands of the Quebecois at that time and led one New York film critic to say that this was one of the most political films he had ever seen. (p 112, cited in the catalogue) Both times that I viewed the exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, this piece had the greatest number of people hovering around it. Although the configuration of Canadian politics has changed, the fact that currently Canadian political identity and solidarity are again under threat, the content of the video remains relevant. When viewed today, one reflects on how far we (Canadians) have come as a unified nation as we continue to embrace French Quebec as part of Canada. Wieland showed her support for French-Canadian culture in several of her works like the large quilts bearing bilingual messages, such as, Defend the Earth – Gardez la Terre (1972) and the twin pieces: I love Canada – J’aime le Canada (1972) And her two separately made quilts called Reason over Passion (1968) and Raison Avant Passion (1968).
It was mainly in her early work in painting and collages that Wieland explores her female identity and sexuality, as seen in the large, vivid rendering called Time Machine Series (1961), the image used to promote the exhibition. The roughly drawn circle that dominates the painting takes on the image of a womb when considering the encircling shapes which look vaguely and not so vaguely like human reproductive body parts, including floating ovaries, erect clitorises, erect and not so erect penises with sperm squirting everywhere, washed over in sensual and provocative reddish pink. The womb appears to be bathing in a background of turbulent aqua blue-green. The effect is like a giant throbbing reproduction machine, animated and agitated, ready to explode.
Wieland placed herself firmly in the women’s movements of her time. Beyond her own female identity exploration, as an artist, she stood squarely in the wave of feminism that elevated what was traditionally seen as women’s craft–work done by women, at home, where women would gather together to quilt, to stitch, to sew. She said, “I wanted to show and honour craft by joining women together in an exhibition where they would be united and proud of what they had done…” (p. 20, quoted from the catalogue) It was Wieland’s intention to bring this work and the caring hands of the women who made it out of the kitchen and into the spotlight. This exhibition honours this, showcasing ten large quilts and a number of other pieces in varied forms of needlework, including stitching, machine sewing, crocheting, and embroidery. The labour of this work is nothing less than spectacular when considering the 106 small quilted landscapes made into one piece in106 Views (1970), the 200 soft round pin-cushion shapes in The Water Quilt (1970-71) with pencil crayon drawings on each cushion of the different animal life found in the tundra, the embroidered Arctic Quilt (1970-71) piece with hand-stitched images of more than 50 needlepoint renderings of flowers that grow in the tundra, and the four Canadian flag piece, Flag Arrangement (1970-71) crocheted four different ways, plus many other works that are hand stitched or machine sewn. The magnitude of this work was a racial feminist statement that Wieland brought into the art world, notably before American feminist artist, Judy Chicago and her Dinner Party, (1974–79) and remains an ongoing dialogue today.
For me, the boldest quilt of Wieland’s is the Barren Ground Caribou (1978); it is impressive at 20 feet in length and 8 feet high. Like many of Wieland’s women’s craft pieces, it engaged many women working cooperatively over a long period of time. The result is as powerful as it is captivating – a herd of caribou, standing right in front of the viewer, seemingly carried along on colourful clouds in an almost dream-like tundra landscape. The caribou are affronting, nonchalantly meeting our gaze, while silently conveying both a singular majestic eminence in a world of vastness and tranquillity – the vulnerable caribou, quietly, innocently looking at us, the malevolent carriers of their annihilation and destroyers of their land. In its permanent installation in the Spadina TTC subway station at the busy intersection of Bloor and Spadina – the work is disarming in its ironic location, deliberately chosen by Wieland.
Many of Wieland’s large craft pieces were focused on the Arctic and the natural habitat of the tundra. One of her works is a page of lip shapes declaring, “The Arctic belongs to itself.” (1973). Wieland creates a sense of awe and wonder of this landscape through the detailed images of the tundra’s flora and fauna, through the scale of work, and the labour-intensive execution by the dedicated hands of the women who worked with her on completing these pieces. She draws attention to the imminent threats and political interests of the time. Her work becomes an advocacy statement. The most pronounced work as environmental advocacy is the embroidery and quilted work entitled, Defend the Earth (1972) a 24-foot-long piece with shapes of what at first look like purple and blue clouds but than morph into more like into fish, seals, and birds floating, swimming, and flying alone – like a long flowing banner. Today, 50 years on, we are again hearing strong political conversations about Arctic ownership and land exploitation.
Her work is far-reaching, bedazzling, and edgy, and not without irony and humour throughout. It undulates in its multilayers and interconnectedness and resists being contained by a 2000-word article. However, the hefty hardcover accompanying catalogue is both a complement to the exhibition and a solid reflection of the dynamics of Joyce Wieland’s work. With approximately 45 articles by about as many authors – not only art critics and historians, but also people who knew her personally, people who worked with her, and people who worked on the exhibition, along with insightful articles from the curators themselves. The many different voices make the catalogue an interesting read and something I think Wieland would have strongly endorsed.
It is worth noting that the catalogue’s cover features a detailed image of one of Wieland’s plastic assemblages—a lesser-known aspect of her work. The exhibition showcases fifteen of these assemblages. Plastic and vinyl materials were trendy in the 60s (the iconic image of supermodel Twiggy wearing a plastic see-through dress comes to mind). As a material for artmaking, Wieland would have enjoyed playing with plastic, an extension of her ten-year period in New York, mainly working on experimental films. It was mentioned that this might well be the last time these assemblages will be on display due to their fragile state.
Along with the hearts and kisses, Wieland thoughtfully left messages for us in her work that, in their subtle placement, convey a desire for her caring thoughts to be carried forward. Some messages are in plain view, like Defend the Earth, but many are more subtly hidden, rolled-up paper tied with a bow, messages stitched into pockets or tucked behind other images – messages related to issues that have become even more imminent today, messages telling us to stay focused, “Heart On.”
❤️💋 💋❤️❤️
Nida Home Doherty is the publisher of Centred.ca and lives in both London, Ontario, and Montreal.
Images courtesy of Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
