What's On: Canadian Culture in the UK, December 2022 and into the New Year
It's hard to believe that another year has nearly passed us by, as December chill grips the UK while cosy lights and the fervour of holiday cheer consumes us. With the few weeks left before 2023, there are a handful of events featuring Canadian artists you'll want to include in your events calendar. But if you're swamped with the usual end-of-year chaos, we've gathered the events we're looking forward to most in the new year so that you too can look forward to them. From major exhibitions featuring great Canadian painters to performances inspired by Leonard Cohen, what will your 2023 hold?
Turner Prize 2022, Tate Liverpool
Until 19 March 2023
The Turner Prize exhibition returns to Tate Liverpool this year, the winner of which has just been announced as Veronica Ryan. Of the shortlisted artists is Toronto-born artist Sin Wai Kin, one of the youngest artists to ever be nominated for the prestigious prize at 31 years old. Their practice weaves narratives of speculative fiction using drag performance, moving images and other media to reconsider discourse on gender and identity, premised on their position of being between binary categories as someone who is biracial and nonbinary. For this exhibition, Sin presents video installations with a multitude of characters in drag that spans the breadth of sexual identities.
Other nominated artists in the exhibition include Heather Phillipson, who is responsible for the giant ice cream cone with a fly on top, which you might have noticed on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, and British artist and photographer Ingrid Pollard.
Matt Macintosh, Super Unison, 2022. Installation view.
Matt Macintosh, Super Unison, Samuel Visentin
Until 11 December 2022
Canadian artist Matt Macintosh's first-ever exhibition in Europe takes place at 59 Amwell Street in London, with paintings that take on his unique visual language of abstraction which incorporates hints of geometry and dimension to express unity of form. Serene yet at times unsettling, each work nods towards a yearning for symmetry that becomes fractured, as if seen through broken pieces of a mirror. There are only a few days left, of this show, so be sure to catch it soon.
David Altmejd, The Vector, 2022.
David Altmejd, White Cube Mason's Yard
Until 21 January 2023
One of the most highly anticipated shows of this month, Canadian artist David Altmejd makes nightmares come true with haunting sculptures at White Cube Mason’s Yard, each one a human-like creature with animal parts. Prominent throughout the exhibition is the motif of the hare, which David recounts as the Jungian archetype of the Trickster, used to springboard his process of letting go of artistic agency in lieu of pure creativity. Fantastical in the way that science fiction morphs into magic at its edges, the works’ inherent playfulness is assuaged in their clinical presentation within the stark gallery context.
Nina Davies, Never Let Them Know Your Next Move, 2022
In Winter; Mute, Seventeen Gallery
Until 11 February 2023
This group exhibition features four emerging artists, including Canadian-British artist Nina Davies, whose video contribution Never Let Them Know Your Next Move (2022) lays out a speculative future in which human-computer relations have evolved to a point where the lines between labour and leisure are increasingly blurred. Taking the form of a podcast interview, Nina explores future systems of control and offers various ways of moving forward and inward, without conclusively precluding the multitude of possible outcomes. Other exhibiting artists include Paul B. Davis, Isaac Lythgoe and Lewis Teague-Wright.
2022 Sobey Art Award exhibition, National Gallery of Canada
Until 12 March 2023
In November, it was announced that Divya Mehra is this year’s winner for the Sobey Art Award, with timely works about displacement and loss, including works that look at looted artefacts from India, a point of contention with recent conversations held in museum spaces about ownership and colonial violence. If you’re in Ottawa before the 12 March of next year, you’ll want to see this exhibition that features Divya’s works along with the works of the other shortlisted artists, including Krystle Silverfox, Azza El Siddique, Stanley Février, and Tyshan Wright.
Events to look forward to in 2023
Ryan Reynolds: Maximum Effort, the O2 Arena, London
4 March 2023
International film star and homegrown talent Ryan Reynolds will be performing at the first-ever Just for Laughs London festival. In this comedy festival, he’ll be joined by Deadpool 2 co-star Rob Delaney for a conversation about his multifaceted career for a humour-filled evening. And let’s face it, we can all do with a few more laughs.
Peter Doig, Alpinist, 2022, Pigment on linen, 295cm x 195cm © Peter Doig, All Rights Reserved.
Peter Doig, The Courtauld
10 Feb - 29 May 2023
Internationally acclaimed artist Peter Doig will be showing in a solo exhibition at the Courtauld from next February, showcasing the new chapter of his celebrated paintings. Having lived and worked in Canada in his formative years, his care and composition for subject matters familiar to Canadians reveal a delicate adoration for the country and its many landscapes.
Dance Me – Music By Leonard Cohen, Sadler’s Wells
7-11 February 2023
Presented by Ballets Jazz Montréal & Robomagic live, this UK premier is inspired by the great Canadian poet and songwriter, Leonard Cohen. A truly Canadian masterpiece that celebrates the immense contributions of a renowned artist to the Canadian and global cultural landscape, this performance places unforgettable movement to Cohen’s words and sounds.
Philip Guston, Painting, Smoking, Eating, 1973. Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam © The Estate of Philip Guston
Philip Guston, Tate Modern
5 October 2023 - 25 February 2024
Canadian-born painter Philip Guston is one of the foremost established post-war abstract painters of his time, of similar status to his contemporaries Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock, later moving away from abstraction to incorporate symbolism and figuration to remark on the blight of racism and the turmoil that consumed his world. In this major retrospective, expect a selection that encapsulates his complex practice in its entirety.
Famous Puppet Death Scenes. Credit: AD Zyne
The Old Trout Puppet Workshop: Famous Puppet Death Scenes, Barbican, London
24 - 28 January 2023
Celebrated Canadian puppet masters Old Trout Puppet Workshop present a sequence of scenes that pay homage to great moments in theatre, all with a dramatic and tragic ending. Expect emotions you never thought you could feel for a puppet.
The End of the World ft. Lubomyr Melnyk, Julia Kent, Shards + Spime.Im, Barbican London
11 February 2023
Canadian cellist Julia Kent is joined by Ukrainian pianist Lubomyr Melnyk and vocal group Shards and Turin-based artistic collective SPIME.IM for an immersive audiovisual experience that comments on the ecological tumult we’re currently facing, and the self-destructive nature of our species. Poignant and electric, this performance promises to fire up all your senses whilst critically engaging in discussions on climate disaster.