Press Release
This fall, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive presents the first major survey exhibition of Duane Linklater (b. Omaskêko Cree, b. 1976, Treaty 9 territory), whose work explores the contradictions of contemporary Indigenous life within settler colonial systems of knowledge, representation, and value. Duane Linklater: mymothersside features more than thirty works by the artist, who has become a leading voice in the contemporary art world over the past decade, with important contributions to the 2022 Whitney Biennial and the 2023 Saõ Paulo Biennial. The exhibition surveys the wide scope of Linklater’s interdisciplinary practice, encompassing painting, sculpture, video, performance, and a large-
Based in North Bay, Ontario, Linklater has been celebrated for a practice that interrogates what he calls “the physical and theoretical structures of the museum” in relation to the exclusion of Indigenous cultural production past and present. His work references ancestral traditions—ranging from hunting to fur trading to berry gathering—alongside popular bands and films of his youth, including the English rock band The Cure and the Kiowa guitarist Jesse Ed Davis. This mixing of a wide range of cultural influences suggests an expansive constellation of affinities that defies reductive notions of identity.
Duane Linklater: mymothersside features multiple structures made with tepee poles, highlighting the artist’s interest in deconstructing and reassembling the traditional Cree dwelling. These large-
Film and video have long been important aspects of Linklater’s practice, and his survey at BAMPFA will also include multiple examples of these works—including several digital transfers of 16mm and Super 8mm short films. Modest Livelihood (2012), Linklater’s collaboration with Brian Jungen, follows the artists on a hunting trip in Dane-
Exhibition 07 October 2023 -
© ArtCatalyse International / Marika Prévosto 2023. All Rights Reserved
Duane Linklater, can the circle be unbroken 1–5, 2019. Installation view, mymothersside, Frye Art Museum, Seattle, 2021. Collection SFMOMA. Photo: Jueqian Fang.