This piece originally appeared in the Previews section of Artforum‘s May 2012 print issue.
"OH, CANADA" MASS MoCA May 27, 2012–April 1, 2013 Curated by Denise Markonish
With a mandate to explore contemporary Canadian practices, "Oh, Canada" will feature more than sixty artists and some one hundred works made within the past ten years. The exhibition promises a mix of media and multiple age groups, incorporating senior figures such as Michael Snow, mid-career veterans from sculptor Bill Burns to performance artist Rebecca Belmore, and younger expatriates such as painter Etienne Zack and conceptual duo Hadley+Maxwell. Many household names are omitted here, however, in favor of lesser-known, regional choices, suggesting a curatorial search that ventured beyond the Darwinian trends of the art market. Markonish was aided by more than a dozen contributing curators–one per province–each of whom will write for the show's catalogue, itself a topographical guide to the country's manifold artistic territories, complete with artist-to-artist interviews and essays by Canadian writers Warren Cariou, Douglas Coupland, Lisa Moore, and Jane Urquhart. –Kayla Guthrie