{"id":1078,"date":"2026-08-09T01:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T05:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/linitiative.ca\/english\/sylvia-safdie-terra-une-premiere-exposition-consacree-a-lartiste-de-renommee-internationale-au-musee-des-beaux-arts-du-canada\/"},"modified":"2026-08-09T01:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T05:04:08","slug":"sylvia-safdie-terra-une-premiere-exposition-consacree-a-lartiste-de-renommee-internationale-au-musee-des-beaux-arts-du-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/linitiative.ca\/english\/sylvia-safdie-terra-une-premiere-exposition-consacree-a-lartiste-de-renommee-internationale-au-musee-des-beaux-arts-du-canada\/","title":{"rendered":"Sylvia Safdie. TERRA \u2013 A first exhibition dedicated to the internationally renowned artist at the National Gallery of Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Until October 25, 2026, the National Gallery of Canada presents Sylvia Safdie. TERRA, an exhibition that celebrates the five decades of career of the internationally renowned Montreal artist.<\/p>\n<p>Presenting some of her new works as a premiere, Sylvia Safdie. TERRA highlights his signature paintings, his large-scale sculptures, as well as a selection of his experimental videos. In total, 19 works created between 1977 and 2025 are on display, including two of his videos Luna No. 1 and Luna No. 2, produced in 2024.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are delighted to present this long-awaited exhibition at the Museum on the work of Sylvia Safdie,\u201d said Jean-Fran\u00e7ois B\u00e9lisle, Executive Director of the National Gallery of Canada. \u201cA pioneering sculptor, Sylvia Safdie also belongs to a generation of women artists who are pioneers of video in Canada, an aspect of her practice that is often overlooked. His works are very contemplative. She combines materials in unusual ways, giving them powerful symbolic, human and transformative meanings.\u2009\u00bb<\/p><div id=\"linit-3785081218\" class=\"linit-dans-le-contenu linit-entity-placement\"><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-8992136571741975\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display:inline-block;width:728px;height:90px;\" \ndata-ad-client=\"ca-pub-8992136571741975\" \ndata-ad-slot=\"6185130430\"><\/ins> \n<script> \n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); \n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<p>The curator is Stephanie Burdzy, assistant curator of contemporary art at the NGC. The title of the exhibition, TERRA, is a Latin word meaning \u201cearth\u201d. Of all the materials Sylvia Safdie uses, earth is the one that has always been present in her artistic palette. As far back as his earliest memories go back, the natural world has been a refuge and a source of creativity for the artist. Throughout a life spent gathering and collecting materials, sometimes organic, sometimes artificial, she revealed a dialogue between people and their environment, implementing in her practice a reflection on the relationship between nature and culture.<\/p>\n<p>The works on display reveal Safdie\u2019s ongoing fascination with the material and ephemeral aspects of life on Earth, our common home, in a subtle and captivating way. Her paintings and sculptures are often created in series spanning several years or even decades, allowing each new context to bring forth a different meaning as she rearranges and transforms existing compositions into new configurations. His head-shaped paintings and sculptures appear to be abstract compositions, but as you get closer, you can see subtle human and figurative forms emerging from the surface.<\/p>\n<p>An overview of the exhibition<\/p>\n<p>Begun in 1986 and completed in 2025, Assemblages II is an installation composed of natural materials and their molded or sculpted equivalents, presented in a large shelf. Transported out of their original context and reassembled into a pictorial inventory, these elements take on new meanings when Safdie reimagines them in various sculptural materials, such as bronze, glass, cement and steel.<\/p>\n<p>Earth II (1977-2025), another important installation featured in the exhibition, features 500 soil samples collected by Safdie, with contributions from his friends and family. These small piles of earth and sand constitute a very personal archive of the artist&rsquo;s life, memories and relationships over 48 years. For Safdie, soils are distinct, characterized by their origin, color and texture. As she explains, \u201cthese samples evoke neither borders nor divisions, but the earth, the material that connects us. Everyone is unique; everyone is part of the whole.\u2009\u00bb<\/p>\n<p>Created between 2002 and 2020, his paintings Marque de la terre XVIII, No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, No. 4 and No. 5 are composed of linseed oil mixed with raw pigments from his collection. Literally coming from the earth, this material is a powerful metaphor for transformation within the image-making process. With their imposing dimensions and sinuous shapes, these paintings take us on a nomadic journey with no specific end.<\/p>\n<div id=\"linit-2443380220\" class=\"linit-apres-contenu linit-entity-placement\"><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-8992136571741975\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display:inline-block;width:728px;height:90px;\" \ndata-ad-client=\"ca-pub-8992136571741975\" \ndata-ad-slot=\"6185130430\"><\/ins> \n<script> \n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); \n<\/script>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Until October 25, 2026, the National Gallery of Canada presents Sylvia Safdie. TERRA, an exhibition that celebrates the five decades of career of the internationally renowned Montreal artist. Presenting some of her new works as a premiere, Sylvia Safdie. TERRA highlights his signature paintings, his large-scale sculptures, as well as a selection of his experimental [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communiques"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/linitiative.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/linitiative.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/linitiative.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linitiative.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linitiative.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/linitiative.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1078\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/linitiative.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linitiative.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linitiative.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}