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Art Gallery of Mississauga

AGM Exhibitions July 18 - Sept 7:

011+91 | 011+92

Telephone calling codes of India and Pakistan initiate a critical discourse on Locational Identity.

Artists

Khadija Baker, Avantika Bawa, Sunil Gupta, Dipna Horra, Eshan Rafi, Meera Sethi, Sumaira Tazeen, Joshua Vettivelu

011+91 | 011+92 is a curatorial research project that aims to initiate a critical discourse and presentation on locational identity as explored and presented by first and second generation Canadians who hail from South Asia. What part does a geographical divide play in notions of home, place and being? The dial codes from Canada to India and Pakistan open the dialogue.

Mississauga represents the diaspora of many cultures, an estimated 62 % of citizens speak Hindi, Urdu, or Punjabi as a first language. The artists in this exhibition respond to the act of communicating to, from or about home, framing contemporary artists at the forefront of a social conversation where identity may or not be central to the work, whereas life experience and humanistic values are at the forefront of this complex cipher. In an age of when we are everywhere at once, how can being and displacement create a homing instinct? In the Canada of tomorrow, home to an ever-increasing global diaspora and to heterogeneous, urban immigrant communities, the hierarchical, colonial past is erased with emergent identities giving a new face to our nation. If the interface between ethnicity and the arts in Canada in the future is unpredictable, one reality seems certain: a growing number and variety of artistic expressions of multiple and cross-cultural ethnicities comprise a strong future where home and connection to the new is a strong construct of self.

P Mansaram Past | Present

P. Mansaram | Past Present is the first retrospective exhibition of the acclaimed Canadian artist, Panchal Mansaram, and includes examples from all facets of his career. Tracing Mansaram's considerable artistic output, the exhibition features more than 20 preparatory drawings, sketches, collage studies and panels relating to his early work from the 1970 through 2013.

Mansaram was born in Mount Abu, in Rajasthan India. Beginning with his time as a student between 1954 and 1959 he studied at the Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai; and from 1963-64, he attended the State Academy of Fine Arts, Amsterdam, Netherlands on a Dutch Government Fellowship. In the late 1970s, when Mansaram first came into contact with the artworld of Toronto, where he met Marshall McLuhan the two formed a life-long friendship build upon ideas, art and dialogue. The exhibition will include a selection of his contributions to Mansaram. Several early pieces, among the first of his exhibited works, offer a glimpse into his struggle to channel cultural commentary into layered, subversive cultural observations of Canadian life. Drawing on his interest in the image, palimpsest and colour, the exhibition presents a range of artistic styles and strategies, he developed dynamic new ideas within the field of digital, painting and collage.

A significant portion of the exhibition is devoted to image collages the work that in its myriad forms has consumed the artist throughout his career. Published between 1978 and 2011, this body of work highlights the commitment and vision of a senior artist. The exhibition includes research material, preliminary sketches, photographs and storyboards related to the evolution of Mansaram with images, pages and publications that reveal the artist' legacy. Spiegelman's narrative and formal innovations with collage work have proven to be influential to an entire generation of artists.

P. Mansaram's work is held in the public trust in numerous collections, including the Royal Ontario Museum, Air India, Marshall McLuhan estate, Art Gallery of Hamilton, Art Gallery of Mississauga, Government of Ontario Art Collection, National Gallery of Canada, and Modern Art New Delhi.