ARTWALK Ottawa, will launch on Saturday, October 2, an all-outdoor event that will combine an artist talk and then a walk that includes gallery visits in the Byward Market area from 2 to 6 p.m. The aim is to raise awareness of the artistic life in the Market while also raising funds to benefit the homeless.
ARTWALK begins in the outdoor amphitheatre of the National Gallery of Canada (NGC) with a lively conversation between internationally renowned Canadian artist/photographer Geneviève Cadieux and popular TV host Lucy van Oldenbarnaveld. The artist, whose monumental work Barcelone adorns the south façade of the Gallery, spent her youth in Ottawa, and will exchange career tales with her interviewer. Visitors will then move on for an art tour of private art galleries throughout the By Ward Market, ending at the Ottawa Art Gallery. Tickets are $27.54 and can be purchased at Eventbrite.ca.
Suggested by Sarah Jennings, a well-known Ottawa long-time Canadian arts and culture journalist, author, and philanthropist, the idea is based on a similar ARTWALK organized by New York’s Coalition for the Homeless where her late brother Ottawa-born Peter Jennings performed the hosting job for a decade. Thanks to the “star” artists who participated, the event raised thousands of dollars for the homeless.
ARTWALK OTTAWA involves the participation of the National Gallery of Canada, the Ottawa Art Gallery and eight private art galleries in the Ottawa Byward Market area. During their tour of the private galleries visitors will also meet some of the artists represented by these galleries. The walk will end at the Ottawa Art Gallery, where participants will be able to browse the exhibitions.
“The National Gallery of Canada readily and enthusiastically accepted Sarah Jennings’s invitation to take part in this event that will show off this rich and historic district of Ottawa that we are part of and all the artistic life it contains,” said Dr. Sasha Suda, National Gallery of Canada Director & CEO. “We are delighted that artist Geneviève Cadieux, whose work Barcelone is featured in our program Leading with Women, has generously joined us in this initiative.”
In addition to the National Gallery of Canada and the Ottawa Art Gallery, the ARTWALK OTTAWA route will include stops at Galerie d’art Jean-Claude Bergeron, Galerie St-Laurent + Hill, L.A. Pai Gallery, Alpha Art Gallery, Gordon Harrison Canadian Landscape Gallery, The Rectory Art House, Fine Photo, and the Ottawa School of Art.
Proceeds from ticket sales will go primarily to the Minwaashin Healing Lodge, an Ottawa-based organization that supports abused Indigenous women and their families. Donations will also be made to homeless shelters in the Byward Market.
About Barcelone, by Geneviève Cadieux, and the artist
Barcelone, by internationally renowned photographic artist Geneviève Cadieux, is the first in a series of three major photographic works entitled Leading with Women, presented with the support of the Scotiabank Photography Program at the National Gallery of Canada. Barcelone is on view until spring 2022, after which a second major work will be installed, this time by interdisciplinary artist Deanna Bowen.
Invited by the NGC to create a large-scale work for its building, Geneviève Cadieux has revisited a work she originally created in 2003 and adapted it for this project.
Comprising nine juxtaposed images, each measuring 4.17 metres high by 5.08 metres wide, Barcelone forms a narrative between two protagonists, actress Anne-Marie Cadieux and her then partner.
The title of the work is a play on words that combines the words “seul” in French and “alone” in English. The series of large-scale photographs depicts two figures observing each other while keeping their distance. Images of the sun are paired with the film sequence. The movement of the sun in the sky marks the passage of time.
Barcelone is the Gallery’s first major collaboration with Geneviève Cadieux in more than 15 years. Cadieux, winner of the prestigious 2018 Paul-Émile Borduas Award and, in 2011, one of the Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts, spent her adolescence and young adulthood in Ottawa, where she studied painting at the University of Ottawa before turning to photography. At the same time, she discovered an affinity for the seventh art form, as her father owned the ByTowne Repertory Theatre.
About the National Gallery of Canada
Founded in 1880, the National Gallery of Canada is home to the world’s largest collection of contemporary Indigenous art, and the most important collection of Canadian, and European art in the country. With a mandate to share the visual arts with Canadians, the National Gallery works with artists and arts organizations across the country and around the world through digital media, and through onsite exhibitions to share our collective story through art.
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For media only: For more information, please contact:
Josée-Britanie Mallet
Senior Officer, Media and Public Relations
National Gallery of Canada
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Denise Siele
Senior Manager, Communications
National Gallery of Canada
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