PROVENANCE
Kinsman Robinson Gallery
Acquired from the above by the present Private Collection, Vancouver, 2019

LITERATURE
Lori Beavis, mazinigwaaso / to bead something; Barry Ace: Bandolier Bags as Cultural Conduit, FOFA Gallery, Concordia University, Montreal, 2019, essay “Barry Ace: Art and Art-Making as Cultural Presence,” also essay by Amy Prouty, “Constructed Continuities: Barry Ace’s Electro-Gashkibidaaganag,” https://www.barryacearts.com/exhibitions-2019/fofa-gallery-concordia-university-montreal-quebec/
Encoding Culture II: The Works of Barry Ace, Heffel Fine Art Auction house exhibition video, 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uSBzdA9yYM

The complete medium consists of: motion sensor display monitor with video, velvet, calico, synthetic bias, metal, paper, coroplast, thread, synthetic hair, white heart beads, wire, copper, plastic, bronze screen, glass beads, circuit-boards, capacitors, resistors and light-emitting diodes.

This lot includes a plexi wall mount as well as a replacement display monitor tablet.

Barry Ace is a multidisciplinary artist currently living in Ottawa. A debendaagijig (citizen) of M’Chigeeng First Nation, Odawa Mnis (Manitoulin Island), Ace uses unconventional materials to create cultural objects. Acknowledging and responding to the pervasiveness of technology, Ace repurposes electrical and digital components while maintaining a recognizable Anishinaabe aesthetic. Bridging the past and the present, his work affirms the contemporaneity of Anishinaabe cultural presence.

In a historical context, bandolier bags of the Great Lakes region were cross-body bags worn as important regalia for ceremonial and formal events; they would serve as gifts honouring special occasions or as significators in diplomatic relations. Bandolier bags were initially decorated with intricate quillwork, and following the arrival of European settlers, glass beads were incorporated into their designs. Demonstrating a contemporary adaptivity, Ace’s bandolier bags are reinvigorated with materials from the digital age. Electronic components—flat ceramic disc capacitors, resistors and diodes—have been reclaimed from electronic circuit boards and used in place of beads to replicate Great Lakes floral motifs. In Anishinaabemowin, the bead is manidoominens, meaning “spirit berry” or “energy berry,” an animate noun. Using electronic components as beads, and conductive copper wire as thread, further underscores Ace’s understanding of beading as, in his words, “stitching together energy and power.”

In Ace’s ongoing series, the bandoliers bag often honour specific waterways. Bandolier for Gichi-ziibi (Big River), Ottawa River references the Ottawa River, the largest of the three major rivers that meet in the Ottawa-Gatineau region. An area inhabited for thousands of years, this confluence served as a significant location for cultural and resource trade. Embedded in the centre of the bandolier bag is a motion-activated video tablet. When the viewer approaches the work, a video sequence begins - opening on an arial view of Rideau Falls and the sound of rushing water, panning out to a small island and riverbank. The scene then cuts suddenly, sound ceasing, to a pan from Hull, Quebec to Ottawa and the parliament buildings. The minute and 50 second film captures two experiences of the Ottawa river – the raw vivacity of nature, followed by a serene, and eerily silent, urban view. The embedded tablet supports the concept of the bandolier as animate: a changing entity with real, substantial connections to the land, people and history.

Ace has remarked on how when viewing First Nations cultural art and artifacts in a museum, we place them in historical stasis and understand them as unchanging objects. His work challenges this concept, reminding viewers that Indigenous people and artists “continue to be here, continue to produce and continue to bring new elements into our culture.”

All prices are in Canadian Dollars