EXHIBITION OVERVIEW

Robert Houle is one of the most influential First Nations artists to break into the contemporary art world. His work blends abstraction, modernism and conceptualism with First Nations aesthetics and histories. Houle went from residential school to art school to museum boardrooms and on to the art world stage as an artist, curator and writer.

Robert Houle: Red is Beautiful consists of over 90 large installations, paintings and drawings created between 1970 and 2021. Themes in the exhibition include Sacred Geometry, The Spiritual Legacy of the Ancient Ones, Beyond History Painting, The Aesthetics of Disappearance, Residential School Years, and Sovereignty.

Houle is a colorist working in oil and has painted an impressive body of work that challenges our understanding of Western and First Nations art history.

Works from 1970 to 1983 are marked by his exploration of abstract expressionists such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman and Jasper Johns and the pure abstraction and geometry of Mondrian and Malevich. Houle brings an older Indigenous abstract tradition to this history and, in the meeting of the two, he emerges as a new voice in modern abstraction that values immediacy, gesture, the spiritual qualities of colour, piercing the canvas with organic materials, Anishinaabe geometry and Indigenous sacred belongings.

This exhibition shows iconic works, such as Kanata, a reworking of Benjamin West's The Death of General Wolfe, and Parfleches for the Last Supper, addressing his respect for Indigenous spiritual traditions. 

Houle’s large-scale paintings and installations challenge commercial appropriation of First Nation names like Pontiac and Apache and bring Indigenous land rights to the forefront for the public. Houle's work also address major resistance movements, in Kahnesatake X, and global topics like war and nuclear fallout, in Zero Hour.

As a curator, his first exhibitions began a brand new discourse on contemporary First Nations art. His work challenged audience expectations of what First Nations art looked like. Houle stayed independent from the trends and stereotypical cultural performances of the day. 

Bravely, Houle also brought the residential schools era into sharp relief. His work Sandy Bay (1998-99) dealt with his own experience of being torn from his home. Later, in 2009, he began to deal with his memories of abuse in the school through a series of visceral drawings and paintings. Houle turns to the spiritual power of the ancient ones providing a new vision for an Indigenous future that holds the complexity of contemporary First Nations identity in its grasp. 

This exhibition is a walk through fifty years of what matters to First Nations and Settler relations today with an artist who was always ahead of time.

For more works by Robert Houle, please visit the first floor to see Paris/Ojibwa in the Reuben Wells Leonard Rotunda, Seven Grandfathers in Walker Court, and Mohawk Summer in the Maxine Granovsky and Ira Gluskin Hall.

This exhibition is organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario and curated by Wanda Nanibush, Curator, Indigenous Art.


ABOUT THE ARTIST

Robert Houle (b. 1947, St. Boniface, Manitoba) is an Anishinaabe Saulteaux contemporary artist, curator, writer, critic, and educator. For more than fifty years, he has worked to advocate for First Nations artistic representation and sovereignty and has established himself as an essential force within the artistic community in Canada and around the world. Houle studied at the University of Manitoba, McGill University, and the International Summer Academy of Fine Arts in Salzburg, Austria, and for many years taught Indigenous Studies at the Ontario College of Art and Design. From 1977 to 1981, he was Curator of Contemporary Aboriginal Art at the Canadian Museum of History (formerly the Canadian Museum of Civilization). As a curator, he is also responsible for landmark exhibitions such as Land Spirit Power: First Nations at the National Gallery of Canada (1992).

Robert Houle - About the Artist

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Houle’s various solo exhibitions include Lost Tribes, Hood College, Maryland; Indians from A to Z and Sovereignty over Subjectivity, Winnipeg Art Gallery; Palisade, Carleton University Art Gallery, Ottawa; Anishnabe Walker Court, an intervention at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Paris/Ojibwa, Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris, Peterborough, and Windsor; Shaman Dream in Colour, Kinsman Robinson Galleries, Toronto; Looking for the Shaman, John B. Aird Gallery,Toronto; Robert Houle: Pahgedenaun, Carleton University Art Gallery, Ottawa; and Robert Houle: Histories, McMichael Canadian Collection, Kleinburg, Ontario. 

He has also participated in several important international group exhibitions, including Recent Generations: Native American Art from 1950 to 1987, Heard Museum, Phoenix; Traveling Theory, Jordan National Gallery, Amman, Jordan; Notions of Conflict, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Real Fictions: Four Canadian Artists, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia; Tout le temps/Every Time, 2000 Montreal Biennale; We Come in Peace...: Histories of the Americas, Musée d’art Contemporain de Montréal; Sakahàn, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Before and After the Horizon: Anishinaabe Artists of the Great Lakes, National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, and Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; and Toronto: Tributes and + Tributaries, 1971–1989 and Every, Now, Then: Reframing Nationhood, both at the Art Gallery of Ontario. 

His artistic achievements have garnered him numerous awards and accolades, including the 2001 Toronto Arts Award for the Visual Arts; the 2015 Governor General’s Award in the Visual and Media Arts; and most recently, the 2020 Founder’s Achievement Award from the Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts. He has been awarded two honorary doctorates, one in 2014 from his alma mater, the University of Manitoba and a Doctorate of Laws from the University of Ontario Institute of Technology in 2016. Houle has also served on various boards and advisory committees, including those of the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto, The Indigenous Curatorial Collective, A Space, The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, and the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto. 

ARTWORKS FROM THE EXHIBITION

Robert Houle, Kanata, 1992. Acrylic and conte crayon on canvas.
Robert Houle: Red is Beautiful artwork
Robert Houle, Aboriginal Title
Robert Houle: Red is Beautiful artwork
Robert Houle, Sandy Bay, 1998-99. Oil on canvas, black and white photograph and colour photograph on canvas, Masonite, 300 x 548.4 cm.
Robert Houle: Red is Beautiful artwork
Robert Houle. The Pines

Robert Houle, The Pines, 2002–2004. Oil on canvas, panel (centre): 91.4 x 121.9 cm. Panel (side, each of two): 91.4 x 91.4 cm. Gift of Susan Whitney. © Robert Houle. 2017/243

Robert Houle: Red is Beautiful artwork
painting by Robert Houle titled In Memoriam, Oil, feathers, leather, ribbon on plywood
Robert Houle: Red is Beautiful artwork
Robert Houle, Red is Beautiful, 1970. Acrylic on canvas.
Robert Houle: Red is Beautiful artwork

ARTIST TALKS

Robert Houle Artist Talk

Join Robert Houle for a talk celebrating the opening of Red is Beautiful, and aabaakwad 2021.

Red is Beautiful, The Conversation

Robert Houle and Faye Heavyshield with Barry Ace in conversation about Red is Beautiful, presented as part of aabaakwad 2021.


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DESCRIPTIVE AUDIO GUIDE

Audio description of artworks help remove barriers to our collections and exhibitions. Artworks will be highlighted through creative audio description, a type of spoken language describing visual images or objects, which enables audiences to engage and pursue their own journey in relation to visual art.

Download the Descriptive Audio Guide Transcript

 

BlindSquare Event App

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BlindSquare is a free GPS app developed for the blind, deafblind, and partially sighted. The GPS technology will alert your device to each described audio stop, provide text-to-speech for in-gallery room panels and wayfinding directives in this exhibition. You can download the app from the Apple App Store or by using a QR code onsite. iOS compatible only.



EXHIBITION CATALOGUE

An extensive survey spanning more than 50 years, Robert Houle: Red Is Beautiful celebrates Houle's ongoing career as an internationally recognized Indigenous artist, curator and writer, calling attention to First Nations and settler-colonialist histories through the critical lens of Houle's impressive oeuvre. Painful personal experiences from the time he spent in residential school as a youth are brought into sharp relief through painting. Houle's visual commentary tackles global topics including commercial appropriation, Indigenous resistance movements, land rights, religion and war, among others. A leader in challenging systemic racial biases, Houle has played a significant role at successfully introducing Indigenous art and its relationship to the contemporary art world in Canada and beyond. Rare excerpts from the artist's archive are featured alongside major scholarly texts, poetic writings and personal anecdotes from fellow prominent Indigenous thinkers and creators, offering new insights about an artist ahead of his time.

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