Art Gallery of Ontario

Nancy Lim: During the mid and late 60s, she was especially interested in what she called ‘impossible images’. So for example: flames, explosions, clouds. Things that are impossible to fix and pin down. Vija Celmins: I actually had a friend who was doing houses in a very different kind of way. Tony Berlant: I remember when Vija made these little houses, which was sort of my trademark at the time. B...

Vija Celmins: I used to walk my dog on Venice Beach. And I was hunting for images, you know, like I hunt for the image, and then I put it in another context. That's pretty much what I do. Tony Berlant: I remember the first time I saw a whole bunch of photographs sitting just inside her front window and saying you know, what, what are these? And she said, oh, those are just some photographs I took...

Introduction Vija Celmins: Maybe what I would like is the viewer to have an experience that is a sort of a waking up experience like drawing in a breath and saying, “Oh!” Nancy Lim: Welcome to the audio guide for Vija Celmins: To Fix the Image in Memory. I'm Nancy Lim, assistant curator of painting and sculpture here at SFMOMA. Gary Garrels: I'm Gary Garrels, the Elise S. Haas Senior Curator of Pa...

Nancy Lim: What you're looking at here is To Fix the Image in Memory. You can see that there are 22 stones. 11 of them are found, and 11 of them are bronze casts that she painted. Vija Celmins: Usually, when people look at this piece, they have no idea what they're looking at. Some people thought that I had found two stones that look exactly the same. And they ask me where I found those. So there'...

Nancy Lim: In 1973, Celmins rented a house in a small New Mexico town and was looking every night at the night sky. So it was a combination of that experience with finding satellite pictures of the Coma Berenices and Cassiopeia constellations that resulted in this series. Vija Celmins: These are kind of places that really don't exist except in your mind because we have only seen them in photograph...

Vija Celmins: I found this little piece of wood out on the dunes in the middle of Death Valley in California, which had little cracks on it and it was so dry. And I put it in my pocket. Later, when I came back to New York, I took it out and it had this very wonderful quality of fineness—the cracks were so tiny. And I thought that I might try to make a painting that had that surface on it. You know...

Gary Garrels: In the 1990s, the night sky was the primary subject in Celmins work and she made several paintings over several years of different variants of the night sky. Some are incredibly deep, dense, dark, and others become very luminous. Vija Celmins: I like that I was making this thing that wanted to be a deep space and that you desire to go into this painting. You have a desire for the dep...

Vija Celmins: Hubble is a little drawing I did for NASA. They wanted to think that artists were interested in space, which I think a lot of artists are. But I'm not interested in illustrating space or anything. I'm interested in just an image that I, myself, can very subtly manipulate and fit in this new reality, which is right in front of me. I got to go see NASA in Florida and where they send of...

Vija Celmins: I think I just came upon this photograph of a web and I was thinking, “My God, this guy, the spider, was, you know, doing my drawings, reflecting a beautiful two-dimensional plane.” Nancy Lim: She found this image in the early 1990s. One of the things that she liked about it was that it felt a little bit lonely and she's always liked that quality in her source images. Tony Berlant: T...

Gary Garrels: I have to say, I became obsessed by this painting and continue to think about it over and over again. For me, it's one of her most beautiful paintings. One begins to understand the sense of time that's embedded in it. Vija Celmins: It's a painting and it's also like an object, like the book itself is sort of pushing on the edges of the painting. And it's about the same size and it ga...

Nancy Lim: In the 2000s, Celmins returned to making objects, including this set of blackboards. There are three found tablets, and seven made tablets. Gary Garrels: I find them entrancing because you really slow down and try to determine which one is the original, the found object, and which one is the one that's been created. And I must say, I still find it extremely difficult to figure out which...

Gary Garrels: In some cases, Celmins spends years working on a single work. It goes through a long process of looking, changing, looking again. Thinking about it, remembering. A relationship develops, I think, between Celmins and the work so that it becomes a very living experience. Vija Celmins: I had done this little tiny painting in 1986. The woman who owned the painting died and I got the pain...

Nancy Lim: Celmins began making permutations of the Night Sky in 2000, reversing the color schema of her Night Skies. So instead of white stars on a black background, she did the opposite: black stars painted onto a white field. Vija Celmins: So it has such a different, different space. I don't think it's a very object-like painting anymore. The space is much more ambiguous. You can maybe go into...

Harley Rustad in conversation with Sarain Fox to launch his new book, Big Lonely Doug: the story of one of Canada's last great trees. Big Lonely Doug, is the nickname given to a 226 foot tall Douglas Fir tree located in a clearcut in B.C.'s Gordon River Valley. Around 39 feet in circumference, Big Lonely Doug is estimated to be about 1,000 years old.

World-renowned photographer Edward Burtynsky and filmmakers Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier converse with AGO Director of Public Programs Devyani Saltzman about Anthropocene, their powerful series of new photographs, large-scale murals augmented by film extensions, film installations and augmented reality (AR) installations, that take us to places we are deeply connected to – but normall...

Join scholar Meseret Oldjira for a talk exploring the artistic achievements that characterize the ancient and medieval heritage of Ethiopian art while highlighting the Ethiopian artworks on view at the AGO.

In 2015 Dr. Brian McCrindle donated 170 prints, drawings and sculptures by German artist, Käthe Kollwitz to the Art Gallery of Ontario. What motivated Dr. McCrindle to build and now gift this extraordinary collection?  He is joined by Brenda Rix, curator of the exhibition, Käthe Kollwitz: Art and Life , for a discussion of the importance of Kollwitz’s art and the relevance of her compelling images...

To wrap up our series, we ask our guests from throughout the series: If we’re living in the Anthropocene, is there anything we can do about it? Sarain and Ashley Wallis from Environmental Defence explore our options. What does working towards a sustainable future look like? Living on Mars isn’t exactly an option. For more information: Environmental Defence: www.environmentaldefence.ca Learn more a...

When humans cut down forests, what disappears along with them? The ancient rainforests of Canada’s Pacific coast feature incredible biodiversity and some of the tallest and oldest trees in Canada, perhaps the world. In this episode author Harley Rustad tells the story of a tree that’s probably over 1000 years old (and miraculously still standing). We speak with Ken Wu of the Ancient Forest Allianc...

Human beings have altered life on this planet in ways no single species has before. In today’s episode, we talk to Dr. Winnie Kiiru, elephant researcher and wildlife biologist, about the endangered African elephant and Kenya’s symbolic 2016 ivory tusk burn. Thousands of species are currently endangered and on the brink of extinction—what will we lose when they are gone? Elizabeth Kolbert, New York...

Over half of the world’s population lives in a city. How do these environments we’ve created for ourselves contribute to the rapidly changing climate? In this episode, we tackle the urban Anthropocene. Sarain speaks with Julia Langer, CEO of the Atmospheric Fund in Toronto, about the role of cities in the fight against climate change, and what “cityzens” can do to help. We also meet Susan Blight,...

Humans now change the Earth’s systems more than all other natural forces combined…but are we all equally responsible? In this episode, Sarain talks to scholars Zoe Todd and Heather Davis about decolonizing the Anthropocene. Then we break down the term “environmental racism” with Dr. Ingrid Waldron, sociologist and author of There’s Something in the Water, and discuss the effects of climate change...

Dig deeper into the science of the Anthropocene. No PhD required, we promise. What are the top ten things you need to know now about the science of our changing planet? We talk to Jan Zalasiewicz and Colin Waters, geologists from the Anthropocene Working Group, and Gaia Vince, author of the award-winning book Adventures in the Anthropocene. Warning: You may never look at your pen the same way agai...

What inspired photographer Edward Burtynsky and filmmakers Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier to create an expansive art project exploring the Anthropocene? What does “Anthropocene” even mean? Why should we care? Hear these three world-renowned artists as you’ve never heard them before in this special in-depth interview with host Sarain Fox. For more information: The Anthropocene exhibition...

Introducing Sarain Fox: Anishinaabe dancer, activist, storyteller. In this conversation with producer Shiralee Hudson Hill, Sarain talks about growing up in Barrie, Ontario, taking PM Justin Trudeau on a tour through Shoal Lake 40, drawing inspiration from the events at Oka, and leaving New York City to join Idle No More protests. (Psst…she also hosts a fantastic documentary series—but you’ll have...