REMAI MODERN ANNOUNCES NEW WEB COMMISSION BY DUANE LINKLATER
Saskatoon, Canada — Remai Modern is very pleased to announce its newest web commission, Pretty Girl, by Duane Linklater. The project will be featured on the museum’s website from May 1-31. Remai Modern web commissions are curated by Gregory Burke, Executive Director & CEO, and Sandra Guimarães, Director of Programs & Chief Curator.
Linklater’s project is based on a YouTube video of a 1991 performance of “Pretty Girl,” a James Bay rock classic, by John Rodrique and his band. Since YouTube user Oskiniko Kat posted the video in 2007, it has attracted more than 104,000 views. With his web commission for Remai Modern, Linklater imagines new possibilities and audiences for this performance.
“We are thrilled to present this new work by Duane Linklater, who is among the more critical and thought-provoking artists working today,” said Burke. “He has a particular way of looking closely at a thing—be it a music video, iconic image, corporate logo, museum collection or sunset—and repositioning it, changing how it appears in the world. In doing so, he reveals how value, meaning, and history can be questioned and adapted.”
“Duane Linklater’s practice is deeply rooted in connectivity,” said Guimarães. “This is expressed not only through his interest in how people collectively create culture, but also in his practice as a whole, which often involves collaboration and exchanges with other artists. Pretty Girl pays homage to a local rock icon, while also considering how online sharing can forge emotional connections and community across time and space.”
About Duane Linklater
Duane Linklater (b. 1976) is Omaskêko Cree, from Moose Cree First Nation in Northern Ontario. He is based in North Bay, Ontario. He completed his MFA in film and video at the Milton Avery Graduate School of Arts at Bard College in upstate New York. He has exhibited widely, including at the Vancouver Art Gallery; Family Business Gallery, New York City; Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts, Auckland, New Zealand; City Art Centre, Edinburgh, Scotland; the Institute of Contemporary Arts, Philadelphia; and the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City. More recently, he has shown at the SeMA Biennale in Seoul and at 80WSE Gallery in New York City. His collaborative film project with Brian Jungen, Modest Livelihood, was originally presented at the Walter Phillips Gallery at The Banff Centre as a part of dOCUMENTA (13), with subsequent exhibitions of this work at the Logan Center Gallery at the University of Chicago and the Art Gallery of Ontario. Linklater received the 2013 Sobey Art Award. He is represented by Catriona Jeffries Gallery, Vancouver.
About Remai Modern web commissions
In association with its pre-launch programs, Remai Modern is inviting artists to realize original projects exclusively for online viewing. On the first day of every month, work by a new artist appears on Remai Modern’s homepage. Previous commissions by Ryan Gander, Tammi Campbell, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Thomas Hirschhorn, Taysir Batniji, Pedro Barateiro, Kara Uzelman, Rosa Barba, Amanda Beech, and Ellen Moffat remain accessible in the online archive. Through these commissions, the museum considers its website as an extension of its physical space and onsite program. Mobile and experimental, this online gallery allows for direct, personal encounters with art while connecting artists and audiences across the globe.
About Remai Modern
Remai Modern is a new museum of modern and contemporary art coming to life in Saskatoon, a growing city on the vast Canadian Prairies. Opening in 2017, it aims to be a vibrant, imaginative and prescient museum committed to affirming the powerful role that art and artists play in questioning, interpreting and defining the modern era. The building, by eminent Canadian architects KPMB, overlooks the South Saskatchewan River in downtown Saskatoon. Remai Modern is home to the world’s foremost collection of Picasso linocut prints, and aspires to be a leading centre for contemporary Indigenous art programming.