Albuquerque Museum Presents Coast to Coast to Coast: Indigenous Art from the McMichael Canadian Art Collection

The Albuquerque Museum is presenting Coast to Coast to Coast: Indigenous Art from the McMichael Canadian Art Collection on view at the Albuquerque Museum January 27 to April 21. This exhibition is the first large-scale survey of Indigenous art from Canada to be presented internationally. The exhibition reflects the historic and current cultures who live between the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic coasts.

Organized by the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in collaboration with Indigenous stakeholders—scholars, writers, knowledge keepers, and contemporary artists—the exhibition explores the powerful tensions and continuities that exist between the present and the past, and the artists’ relationships with land, their ancestors, and each other.

Coast to Coast to Coast features an impressive range of historic and contemporary art from across Canada. The McMichael’s founders made early forays into collecting Indigenous art, including major acquisitions of Inuit drawings, prints and sculptures; masks, rattles, and headdresses from the Northwest coast of British Columbia; as well as extensive acquisitions of paintings and prints by the Woodland School of artists in Ontario. Since then, the museum’s collecting activities have grown to embrace the diversity and vitality of Indigenous art in Canada. 

Today, Coast to Coast to Coast presents an overview of one of Canada’s most extraordinary collections, featuring objects ranging from 18th-century ceremonial regalia to the work of the vanguard artists of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, such as Norval Morrisseau, Carl Beam, and Alex Janvier, and leading contemporary Indigenous artists like Kent Monkman, Meryl McMaster, and Rebecca Belmore. This exhibition invites a deep connection with the issues that lie at the heart of Indigenous experiences in Canada, revealing cultures that are vibrant and transforming in the 21st century.

“The Albuquerque Museum is honored to showcase this impressive collection of historic and contemporary art,” said Andrew Connors, Albuquerque Museum director. “We look forward to introducing New Mexican audiences to so many different powerful and provocative cultural traditions and innovations from Canada which are rarely seen here.”

The exhibition was organized by the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, Ontario.