The PHI Foundation for Contemporary Art presents RELATIONS: Diaspora and Painting.

This upcoming group show explores the complex and multiple meanings of diaspora, its condition, and its experiences as expressed through painting. “The questions and concepts of diaspora are of deep, personal interest to me as a person of colour born in Canada of mixed Asian heritage,” says curator and managing director Cheryl Sim. The wide spectrum of productive interpretations and relations that are generated by experiences of diaspora remain unfixed, providing endless engagement with the notions of kinship and identity in a world of advanced globalization and migration.

This show presents a selection of work by artists who address questions of diaspora from diverse perspectives, methodologies and aesthetic languages. The medium of painting, with its deep and complex history, becomes a particularly provocative lens through which to explore the complications and diversities that are analogous to the richness of diasporic experiences. This collective body of work also aims for an intergenerational dialogue and presents artists whose work has pushed the boundaries of what painting is and can be. Given the open-ended and discursive nature of the subject, the show is by no means an attempt to be exhaustive but, rather, endeavours to open up ideas and encourage dialogue.

With Larry Achiampong, Hurvin Anderson, Kamrooz Aram, Moridja Kitenge Banza, Firelei Báez, Frank Bowling, Cy Gavin, Barkley L. Hendricks, Lubaina Himid, Bharti Kher, Rick Leong, Manuel Mathieu, Julie Mehretu, Jordan Nassar, Yoko Ono, Maia Cruz Palileo, Rajni Perera, Ed Pien, Jessica Sabogal, Marigold Santos, Yinka Shonibare CBE, Shanna Strauss, Curtis Talwst Santiago, Mickalene Thomas, Salman Toor, Hajra Waheed, Jinny Yu. 

Curated by Cheryl Sim

PHI Foundation for Contemporary Art
451 & 465, Saint-Jean Street
Montréal Quebec H2Y 2R5
Canada

Hours: Thursday–Saturday 10am–9pm

fondation-phi.org