Eastern Promises: An Artist Looks at the Beaverbrook’s Big Reno

As I approach Fredericton’s Beaverbrook Art Gallery along the Saint John River, I am greeted by the immense steel skeleton of its 14,000-square-foot expansion, slated to open in mid-2017. For the past few months, I have observed the excavation to the east of the current gallery; sprouting now is the promise of a new limb.

Boasting a refreshingly modern design, the expanded Beaverbrook will feature a Bruno Bobak Artist-in-Residence Studio, new designated gallery spaces, a multi-purpose theatre, a street-side café, and expansive windows that look out on the Saint John River and landmark New Brunswick Legislative Assembly Building. These elements will situate the gallery in a contemporary and decidedly New Brunswick place.

Part of a two-year, $28-million revitalization campaign, the expansion will set the stage for long-awaited change to New Brunswick’s artistic landscape.

And the renovation of the current gallery spaces—which were revealed to the public on May 31—to improve accessibility, art presentation and visitor experience, as well as the augmentation of programming and outreach, are integral to the Beaverbrook’s revitalization.

The dramatic architectural transformation of the campaign can take up much of the spotlight, but what will be in it, and what will be growing out of it, are elements that can only be examined and fulfilled as the gallery evolves in coming years.

New Brunswick Deserves a Gallery on a Par with those in Boston

According to Beaverbrook director and CEO/chief curator Terry Graff, this campaign represents “the largest cultural infrastructure project happening in New Brunswick.”

As an artist who has come to New Brunswick from the East Coast of the United States, I am excited about an expanded provincial gallery on a par with renowned institutions in major arteries such as Boston and New York.

Upon entering the renovated Beaverbrook, the space feels light and airy, no longer broken up by changes in level and multiple staircases. Galleries flow easily from one to the next, creating a more cohesive environment. Graff guides me through the renovation, explaining that the sightline from the front orientation gallery will continue through the East Wing to the expansion, integrating the old and the new.

This revitalization and expansion project promises to create a state-of-the-art venue for Atlantic Canadian art, reflecting the quality and diversity of work created here. With new custom-designed gallery spaces, the Beaverbrook will better showcase its impressive permanent collection (including Salvador Dali’s Santiago El Grande), as well as current local and regional art, and international exhibitions. It is important, Graff tells me, for the gallery to engage with global ideas and to bring fresh dialogues to New Brunswick.

Becoming “the art gallery of New Brunswick,” as the Beaverbrook’s website suggests, is a tall order. There is a lot happening in the arts in this province, from pop-up shows to artist-run centres to internationally acclaimed festivals. This is a time and a place that demands a dynamic and accessible creative hub.

To fulfill this role, the Beaverbrook will need to have its eyes and ears open to the community and to the creative works being developed from these many sources. (For more thoughts on this, see “How to Make the Gallery a ‘Living Laboratory’?” later in this article.)

The gallery will also need to represent New Brunswick’s diversity, including Francophone and Aboriginal art, and works by artists of varied gender identities and cultural backgrounds. Graff assures me that future gallery programming will incorporate works by artists of diverse backgrounds. “Everyone has a right to their own cultural heritage,” he says.

First Shows Offer Range from Comics to Kreighoff

The Beaverbrook’s current exhibition programming, due to open June 4, juxtaposes the historical and the contemporary, the local and the international.

In the West Gallery, “William Kentridge: Universal Archive” will feature works by the prominent South African visual artist. “New to You: Recent Contemporary Acquisitions to the Permanent Collection” will open alongside “A Tribute to Harriet Irving: Early Highlights from the Permanent Collection,” giving visitors a sense of Canadian art history and the evolution of the gallery’s acquisitions. (Harriet Irving was one of the first governors of the gallery, and an ancestor of gallery supporters Jim, Arthur and John Irving.) Works by Graham Sutherland, Frederick Varley, Miller Brittain, Emily Carr, Alex Colville, Cornelius Krieghoff and more hang in the new Harriet Irving Gallery. Many of the pieces feature well-known figures in New Brunswick’s history and cultural development, such as Casey Irving, Sir James Dunn, and Lord Beaverbrook’s daughter Janet.

In the East Wing is a retrospective of the comic art of Lynn Johnston, placing focus on her life story and creative process, as well as the political cartoons of New Brunswick–based Michael de Adder, a future artist in residence at the gallery. Downstairs, “Out of Our Minds: NBCCD Graduate Exhibition” will showcase current craft created by graduating students of this New Brunswick institution.

In total, eight exhibitions will open June 4, representing a wide spectrum and timeline of visual art.

How to Make the Gallery a “Living Laboratory”?

The revitalized Beaverbrook strives to become “a living laboratory of contemporary ideas and creativity.” This promises an evolving, adaptable and responsive centre where everyone can interact with art “in stimulating and participatory ways.” But in what new ways will the future Beaverbrook patron engage?

I hope that the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, as a “living laboratory,” will host a greater variety of art forms, including more installations, video and multi-media pieces, performance art and documentation and interactive works.

For instance, Kim Morgan’s life-size lighthouse presented in the gallery’s 2015 “Writing Topography” exhibition truly transformed the gallery space, and it would be exciting to see more immersive, experiential works exhibited in the future.

I would also like, sometime, to step into the Beaverbrook and think, despite all that grounds me in this place, Where am I? I think becoming lost in art, outside of time and on alien ground, is one of its many pleasures.

A World of Glass by Swedish artist Nathalie Djurberg and composer Hans Berg, which I experienced at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art, is an example of a piece that envelopes the senses, incorporating soundscape, animation and installed objects.

Performance art, as an interest of mine, is also high on my radar. It is an integral part of the living aspect of art and seems, at least in my time here, to be absent in gallery programming. However, the new multi-purpose theatre increases the capacity for multi-media and digital works, a trajectory toward the contemporary facilitates more experimental pieces, and the Bruno Bobak Artist-in-Residence Studio promises to be a living, breathing catalyst for creativity.

I would also like to see the Beaverbrook lead the province in addressing the need for developing New Brunswick curators and critical art writing, utilizing its state-of-the-art facilities and resources to support a fresh pool of arts advocates. The 2015 launch of the Sheila Hugh Mackay Foundation Art Critic Residency Program was encouraging in this regard. Edgar Allen Beem, an art critic and freelance journalist from Brunswick, Maine, was the gallery’s first critic-in-residence, lending an outside perspective to the arts in New Brunswick.

Looking at Limits, and at Opening Doors: The Need for Collaboration

There is potential for collaboration, reflection and refraction between the arts community and the Beaverbrook Art Gallery. Ongoing dialogue between the institution and artists, art collectives, underground spaces, independent galleries and the public will be necessary.

For instance, artist-run centres, such as Connexion ARC and Third Space Gallery, often program experimental, outlandish and extended works. Perhaps there is an opportunity for collaboration and cross-pollination between the BAG and these centres that could disrupt what often feels like two separate arms of the art world—the formal art gallery and the nebulous, flexible collective.

On the flipside, the Beaverbrook Art Gallery’s focus on presenting the historical alongside the contemporary, as well as a wide spectrum of disciplines, could also provide today’s artists with a sense of art history and the evolution of movements. And its new visual arts journal Billie: Undercurrents in Atlantic Canadian Visual Culture, which opens calls for essays, interviews, photo essays and more, is a needed outlet for nurturing critical dialogues.

The potential for intervention and works created in relation to changes at the Beaverbrook is equally compelling. The positioning of works as “alternative” or “counter” can drive undercurrent art scenes that are vital to the formation of fresh identities. Art presented in unexpected spaces, public installations, and the presentation of temporary and nebulous works will gain in relevance and urgency in an environment that has a strengthened institution as foil. Art developed in the cracks and corners and presented in public spaces is often animated by its impromptu and uncontrived nature—the feeling that something is happening now—and it could be interesting for the community to play with these juxtapositions alongside an enhanced formal gallery. In many ways, these types of works can just as drastically alter an artistic landscape as a major building project.

With increased educational and outreach programming, the Elizabeth A. Currie Gallery on the Green, the multi-purpose theatre, new street-side café, the Marion McCain Exhibition of Contemporary Atlantic Art, the Studio Watch: Emerging Artist Series, and the creation of Billie, the BAG is taking visible steps to provide platforms for critical discussion, art creation and public participation. These activities must be sustained and bolstered before and after the big expansion opens in 2017.

Arts Advocacy, Ownership and Making a Space for Ourselves

The Beaverbrook’s expansion project is coming at a pivotal moment in the New Brunswick art sector. In February, the Department of Tourism, Heritage and Culture announced that it would cut $400,000 over two years from its arm’s-length funding body, the New Brunswick Arts Board (artsnb). Artsnb has also taken on a hefty load of arts advocacy and has made great strides in building connections with Aboriginal communities.

If these changes to artsnb continue, the Beaverbrook should feel an obligation to take on a greater role in arts advocacy and to lead the way in pursuing engaging and necessary dialogues. Concerned about a loss of independence, transparency and a peer jury system free of political influence, much of the community feels that the cut to the New Brunswick Arts Board is a blow and a step backward.

However, I hope that New Brunswick artists will feel a sense of ownership and pride when visiting the expanded Beaverbrook, which represents a substantial recent government and community investment in the arts. As the Beaverbrook seeks to more roundly fulfill its role as the official “art gallery of New Brunswick,” New Brunswickers should reformulate their wants and needs for the gallery.

Flexibility and receptiveness on both sides—gallery and artists—will be key if New Brunswick is going to get the most out of this reincarnation. If I’ve learned anything about being an artist here, it is that although there is great community support for new projects, you often need to create the opportunity, scene and space you want yourself.

The tagline of the Beaverbrook’s revitalization and expansion project, “Creating Here and Now,” communicates a commitment to the here—the unique narratives, histories, cultural geographies, and aesthetics of Atlantic Canada—as well as to the now—the relevant issues, innovations, contemporary practices, and social and cultural context of an at once very local and very global New Brunswick. This investment in the arts should contribute to an environment where artists across the province feel valued, validated and connected to place, able to identify as participating in a globally relevant yet specifically Atlantic Canadian art scene.

Claire Shiplett is an emerging writer, photographer and performance artist based in New Brunswick. She studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London and at Wellesley College in Massachusetts.