Annie Pootoogook by Nancy Campbell, Wayne Baerwaldt & Deborah Root
square 4to. pp. 36. illustrated. stiff paperback (bit bowed, upper right corner curled, nicks to spine & two tears to head of spine). Calgary: Alberta College of Art + Design, [2007].
Published in conjunction with an exhibition at the Illingworth Kerr Gallery, Alberta College of Art + Design, January 11 - March 28, 2007.
Rare & out-of-print!
ISBN-10: 1895086175 / ISBN-13: 9781895086171
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This Inuit artist, Canada's representative at the 2008 Venice Biennale, re-defines Inuit art by unflinchingly showing the realities of life in today's Canadian North. Her detailed and intimate drawings are politically troublesome almost shocking to mainstream observers who expect traditional images of fishing, hunting and shamanism. Instead, while nodding to traditional styles and practices, Pootoogook portrays indigenous people buying frozen food at the supermarket and watching erotic films in bed; she chronicles mental illness, domestic violence and drug addiction in precise, elegant pencil and crayon works. The book's arge-format and full-bleed reproductions do full justice to this groundbreaking artist's work. Contemplating Pootoogook's images of video games, television and anxieties about the monthly bills, the non-Inuit viewer is confronted with his or her assumptions about life in the North, writes Deborah Root in one of two excellent featured essays. Yes, we might recognize that Northerners have Ski-doos and perhaps some canned goods, but when we think of the unspoiled Arctic, Jerry Springer is not what we have in mind.