Duane Linklater. mâcistan
When the ice breaks up in spring, the river starts to move again. Ice floes loosen, drift apart, and create space for something new. mâcistan denotes precisely this moment of transition – a state of change and reordering. The word comes from the language of the Mushkego Inniniw, an Indigenous community in Treaty No. 9 territory (Northern Ontario, Canada). Under this title, Canadian artist Duane Linklater (*1976) presents his first institutional solo exhibition in Germany, at Kunsthalle Bielefeld.
Collecting, Care, and Responsibility
The starting point of the exhibition is the concept of the “cache” – a temporary storage or hiding place. In Indigenous cultures in Canada, this is a place to keep and transmit objects, knowledge, and memories. Linklater translates this principle into an open scaffold structure. Within these cache constructions, he integrates paintings, sculptures, found objects, pieces of furniture, and personal items. The individual elements are both displayed and stored – as if waiting for a future meaning. In this way, Linklater creates a presentation that is both an archive and an artistic installation. Personal and family belongings encounter materials, images, and references to the histories and contemporary realities of Indigenous cultures in Canada. There, Indigenous communities continue to struggle over the meaning of their objects and their rights to them. The debate addresses questions of ownership, cultural belonging, and interpretive authority. Linklater extends these questions to us: What do we preserve? What do we pass on? And who decides that?
Together with Duane Linklater, we have arranged works from our collection in dialogue with those of the artist. The selection focuses on works in which floral motifs serve as more than decorative elements. What meaning do they carry and what do they refer to? Further information can be found on the exhibition page “Flowers everywhere. A look into the collection #12”.
The exhibition is jointly conceptualized by the artist together with the Secession, Vienna, and the Rudolfinum Gallery, Prague, and is presented at Kunsthalle Bielefeld in a form developed especially for this venue.
Supported by:
