The Sonnabend Collection at Remai Modern features more than 100 pieces, including iconic works by infamous artists such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. Developed through the vision of renowned art dealer Ileana Sonnabend, her husband Michael Sonnabend and their adopted son Antonio Homem, “the collection is among the most significant private holdings of modern and contemporary art in the world,” according to Remai Modern.

In a Forbes article published in January — titled The World’s Greatest Modern Art Where You Least Expect to Find It — author Chadd Scott wrote about The Sonnabend Collection at Remai Modern, which opened last fall. In his article, Scott declared that “while New York was, and remains, the unquestioned capital of the art world, art lovers today needn’t visit the Big Apple to experience the world’s greatest art in person.” “Remai Modern represents one of many museums with world-class holdings in Modern art found in locations not traditionally associated as hotbeds of the genre,” he wrote.

It’s exciting for many Saskatoon residents to know that these “world-class holdings in Modern art” can be found just minutes away from where they live and work, in the city’s growing downtown area.

If you’re heading to Remai Modern, be sure to check out a new exhibition there that opened on Feb. 1. Titled Next Year’s Country, the exhibition presents a look at the museum’s permanent collection with a show that spans all five rooms of its Collection Galleries. The all-Canadian show, which emphasizes works created by Prairie artists, explores ideas of place, belonging and history on the Prairies. According to the museum, the title of the exhibition — Next Year’s Country — references Saskatchewan’s settler history. A news release notes that “the expression originates from their experiences of learning to live and farm on what they considered to be a land of promise, even though neither success nor survival could be assured. The common refrain ‘next year things will be better’ conveys both a tireless optimism and a struggle to belong. Such an attitude has shaped the province’s political, social, economic and cultural activities; however, it fails to address the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities and the displacement and assimilation associated with settlement.”

Next Year’s Country features a long list of artists, including Wally Dion, Joseph Fafard, David Garneau, Gregory Hardy, Mary Longman, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Edward Poitras, Allen Sapp, David Allan Thauberger and many others. The newest acquisition is a work by Brian Jungen, called Mother Tongue, a sculpture purchased in 2020 that will be displayed just outside the main entrance of the Collection Galleries. In this work, Jungen uses childhood memories and traditional practices in his home territory of Dane-zaa First Nation to create a sculpture that also engages aesthetically with Western art history, according to Remai Modern.

The oldest acquisition in the exhibition is from the original Mendel Gift in 1965, an oil painting by Jean Paul Lemieux of a haunting landscape.

Next Year’s Country runs until Oct. 12 in Remai Modern’s Collection Galleries on Level 2.

If you’re heading to Broadway Avenue, take time to check out the show The Flower People now on display at the Saskatchewan Craft Council gallery. The exhibition, which opened on Jan. 11, showcases the work of Regina-based visual artist Melanie Monique Rose, who uses blankets as a canvas for her felted flower arrangements.

The gallery notes that “Rose draws inspiration from Ukrainian folk art and Métis floral beadwork and craft. Personal, cultural and universal symbolism is woven into the fabric of Roses’ work with an emphasis on movement, colour and narrative.” It is through her creations that Rose undertakes a personal exploration of identity as a contemporary Indigenous artist, alongside her Ukrainian heritage.

In an artist’s statement, Rose wrote that “ancient symbolism saturates Turtle Island and Ukraine’s landscape. Plants with curative powers inspire lore. Pine trees embody vitality; the willows usher in spring. Plants and flowers not only please the eye but they sooth they soul.” “Folk culture often mentions flowers in stories and songs,” she stated. “My flowers come from my Métis father and my Ukrainian-Canadian mother and our life as a family. They also come from the circle of influences outside of that: music, literature, film, art. . . . I am a product of my nature and nurture. Experiencing culture, ritual, identity and authenticity needs to be a conscious practice in a materialconsuming world.”

The Flower People will remain on view until March 14 at the Saskatchewan Craft Council Gallery, located at 813 Broadway Ave.

There are numerous exciting art projects underway and new shows to see on the University of Saskatchewan (USask) campus. One of these exhibitions is Kenojuak Ashevak: Life and Legacy, which is on currently view at the College Art Gallery.

The College Art Gallery is the inaugural venue to present the national touring exhibition Kenojuak Ashevak: Life and Legacy, which presents never-before-seen drawings from the archives of the West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative that inspired some of Ashevak’s most emblematic prints in stonecut lithography and etching. Ashevak (1927–2013), a Cape Dorset artist, continues to be recognized as one of Canada’s preeminent Inuit artists and cultural icons. Since beginning to experiment with drawing in the 1950s, she produced a vast body of work, mainly utilizing graphite, coloured pencils and felt-tip pens on paper.

A Companion of the Order of Canada and a member of Canada’s Walk of Fame, Ashevak travelled throughout the world as an ambassador for Inuit art. In 1969, for example, she travelled to Ottawa to collaborate on a mural that was displayed in the Canadian Pavilion at Expo ’70 in Osaka, Japan.

Kenojuak Ashevak: Life and Legacy will remain on view at College Art Gallery 1 until April 17.

-Shannon Boklaschuk