'Rebecca Belmore: Facing the Monumental'

Facing the Monumental is the largest survey of Rebecca Belmore’s work ever presented; the touring version presented by the FAC features 14 major works including photography, sculpture, and multi-media installations from the past three decades.

A member of Lac Seul First Nation (Anishinaabe), Belmore has given voice in her work to social and political issues for over 30 years. She employs a visual language that is both poetic and provocative to contend with subjects such as water and land rights, women’s lives and dignity, and state violence against Indigenous people.

Belmore has created performance art since the late 1980’s, and its immediacy infuses her diverse creative practice. The exhibition’s title comes from a performance staged in Toronto’s Queen’s Park on Canada Day in 2012, where she transformed an oak tree surrounded by monuments to colonialism into a temporary “non-monument” to the Earth.

The exhibition is organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) and curated by Wanda Nanibush (Anishinabe), AGO Curator of Indigenous Art. The FAC presentation is organized by Polly Nordstrand (Hopi), FAC Curator of Southwest Art. The exhibition has previously toured in Canada to the Remai Modern in Saskatoon and the Musée d’art contemporain in Montréal.

The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center will be the only US venue to host this exhibition.