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{"id":3723,"date":"2020-01-01T22:15:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-02T03:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esse.ca\/?post_type=compte-rendu&p=3723"},"modified":"2025-12-17T08:57:48","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T13:57:48","slug":"deanna-bowen","status":"publish","type":"compte-rendu","link":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/reviews\/deanna-bowen\/","title":{"rendered":"Deanna Bowen
God of Gods: A Canadian Play<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Deanna Bowen\u2019s God of Gods<\/em> leads viewers on a daring path of research-creation that excavates Canada\u2019s fraught histories of nation-building, race, and representation. We begin with Bowen\u2019s chance discovery of artist and former University of Toronto faculty member Barker Fairley\u2019s signature on a 1911 petition protesting the arrival of Afro-Creek migrants in Edmonton fleeing persecution in Oklahoma (an exodus that intersects with Bowen\u2019s own family history). An influential early champion of the Group of Seven whose canvases still decorate the University of Toronto\u2019s storied halls, Fairley\u2019s troubled legacy leads Bowen down an archival rabbit hole tunnelling through the stratified histories of U of T\u2019s Hart House, which is currently marking its centenary year.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
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$\"University$
University of Toronto Archives, Hart House Theatre Fonds <\/strong>
God of Gods,<\/em> production still, Hart House Theatre, Toronto, 1922.
Photo : University of Toronto Archives <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Bowen\u2019s project is a bold commission by curator Barbara Fischer, whose approach to centennial projects associated with the building that houses one half of the Art Museum for which she serves as Executive Director has been provocatively counter-monumental. In a moment characterized by resurgent nationalisms, it is reassuring that the University of Toronto has chosen enlightened self-scrutiny over na\u00efve celebration to memorialize this loaded anniversary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Financed by the Massey Foundation\u200a\u2014\u200aa philanthropic arm of the eponymous family that produced both artists and politicians of international prominence\u200a\u2014\u200aHart House was home to Canada\u2019s first national theatre. It was there that one-time artistic director Carroll Aikins mounted his 1922 play God of Gods, from which Bowen\u2019s project takes its title. A grotesque projection of white fantasies of Indigeneity, Aikins\u2019s drama gave license to performances of redface that, as Bowen reminds us, dramatized the larger colonial project legitimized by Group of Seven members affiliated with Hart House and its network of powerful patrons. Bowen\u2019s installation interweaves these threads exposed by her historical detective work with a Hans Haacke-like precision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The spellbinding centrepiece of Bowen\u2019s installation is a two-hour video shot in Hart House Theatre in lieu of restaging Aikins\u2019s play\u200a\u2014\u200awhich, as Bowen pointedly underlines, \u201ccannot be reenacted.\u201d In a roundtable format the artist is joined by Indigenous respondents Archer Pechawis, Peter Morin, John G. Hampton, and cheyanne turions, who collectively unpack the still-active legacies of Aikins\u2019s play, which, shockingly, was only recently reissued by the University of Ottawa Press. Though sparked by Bowen\u2019s historical research, the dialogue is propelled by a disconcerting awareness of \u201chow little has changed,\u201d and quickly shifts to a discussion of how deaccessioning art by the Group of Seven and other colonial artists could present an opportunity for institutions to redress historic wrongs today. Referring to the Group\u2019s ubiquitous landscape imagery, Morin declares that, \u201cThose paintings make me want to die. \u2026 They\u2019re not beautiful, we\u2019re beautiful. Those artists missed out.\u201d Prior criticism of the Group of Seven has tended to focus on its members\u2019 strategic depopulation of the territories whose spectacular representation built their renown. Bowen\u2019s project presents an unfamiliar, but no less disquieting terrain, one populated by phantasmatic teepees and white actors \u201cplaying Indian,\u201d to employ Philip Deloria\u2019s memorable phrase. New tools and strategies will be needed to approach this landscape in a spirit of critique: Bowen clears a path.
<\/p>\n\n\n
Adam Lauder, Deanna Bowen<\/div>\n
Adam Lauder, Deanna Bowen<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Art Museum at the University<\/br>of Toronto, <\/strong>Toronto
<\/br>September 4 \u2014 November 30, 2019<\/br>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":3516,"template":"","categories":[131],"numeros":[368],"disciplines":[],"statuts":[],"checklist":[],"auteurs":[832],"artistes":[1358],"thematiques":[],"type_compte-rendu":[],"class_list":["post-3723","compte-rendu","type-compte-rendu","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-compte-rendu","numeros-98-knowledge","auteurs-adam-lauder","artistes-deanna-bowen-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/compte-rendu\/3723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/compte-rendu"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/compte-rendu"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3723"},{"taxonomy":"numeros","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/numeros?post=3723"},{"taxonomy":"disciplines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disciplines?post=3723"},{"taxonomy":"statuts","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/statuts?post=3723"},{"taxonomy":"checklist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/checklist?post=3723"},{"taxonomy":"auteurs","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/auteurs?post=3723"},{"taxonomy":"artistes","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artistes?post=3723"},{"taxonomy":"thematiques","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thematiques?post=3723"},{"taxonomy":"type_compte-rendu","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type_compte-rendu?post=3723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}