The New Raw - The Challenge of Today's Arctic Art

The New Christ by Jutai Toonoo, 2008.

I am caught in a time warp when I think of Inuit art. I see seals and hunters with spears and birds. But what is the new reality?

The West Baffin Art Cooperative has to deal with this on a daily basis for it seems that art galleries are of two minds in the south. Some more avant guarde galleries are willing to step out on a limb and to capture the new cultural realities of the north, but more often then not Galleries opt for traditional, nostalgic works.

Its time to take a good hard look at Arctic life. Dogsleds, and igloos are part of the fading Arctic past. If you go into any arctic community today you will find prefabricated homes, snowmobiles, and all terrain vehicles (quads). When I was in Saniquiluak in the Belcher Islands, I saw a wire running from the back of a small house and learned that this was the village radio station. Airplanes and ships from the south carry televisions sets, computers and southern appliances these northern villages and within 30 years time the culture of the north has been dramatically rewritten.

The question is. What is the new reality? As the traditional Inuit way of life slides slowly into the past, younger artists are becoming increasingly more attuned to these changes. Does the image of a polar bear swimmming among cola cans, helicopters carrying wealthy southern hunters and trucks carrying products from ships to the Northern Store, have a place in today's Inuit art? The answer would be yes. But can it find a market in a population where art buyers prefer traditional Inuit images?


Please click here, to be taken to a Radio Canada International Video, documentary which profiles this issue. Its about ten minutes long but it will forever change the way you see Inuit art.

Also, Eye on the Arctic: The New Raw. Please click here.

Sources: CBC Radio Oct. 8th, 2010 and Radio Canada International

Meet James Houston - the man who brought Unuit art south

James Houston : 1921-2005

James Houston is often called the man who introduced Inuit art to the world

Exerpt from the Obituary of Artist James Houston.

"After spending five years serving with the Toronto Scottish Regiment during the Second World War, Houston briefly studied in Paris before deciding to travel to the Canadian Arctic for artistic inspiration. He made his first contact with the Inuit in 1948, when they showed him their carvings. He lived among them for the next 14 years and became a civil administrator for west Baffin Island. "

Houston became a major proponent of Inuit arts and culture, introducing stone, ivory and bone carvings created by local artists to the Canadian Guild of Crafts, the federal government, the Hudson's Bay Company and, eventually, the world.

In addition to creating glass and sculptural art, Houston was a documentary filmmaker and author of numerous award-winning novels and children's books about the Inuit people and their stories. His White Dawn was adapted for film in 1974.

For the last 43 years of his life, he worked as a designer at New York City's Steuben Glass Company, where he introduced the use of gold, silver and other precious metals into the company's glass sculptures.

In 1974, Houston was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada for acting as a representative of Inuit artists and craftspeople and, in 1997, the Royal Canadian Geographical Society awarded him its Massey Medal.

In 1981, Houston's son John opened the Houston North Gallery in Lunenburg, N.S. – the province where his mother, Houston's first wife, Alma, who was also an advocate of Inuit art, was born.

It was James desire to have half his remains stay with his family in Stonington, Conn., and the other half scattered over the hills of Cape Dorset off Baffin Island.

A memorial celebration was planned for Mystic Seaport, a historical museum region located 16 kilometres east of New London."

Please see the following source sites:
Canadian Broadcasting Corportion
http://cbc.ca/arts/story/2005/04/20/houstonobit050420.html
Note the video on the right side of the page

The Canadian Encyclopedia http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0003868