Description
Itee Pootoogook, Hymns to the Silence, has been published in conjunction with the exhibition Itee Pootoogook: Hymns to the Silence organized by McMichael Canadian Art Collection, May 31, 2019 to September 2, 2019 by Nancy Campbell. A parallel title is: Aiti Putuguq | Hymns to the silence | Nipiqannggittumut. This is also a co-publication between Goose Lane Editions and McMichael Canadian Art Collection. The text is in both English and Inuktitut celebrating the life and work of Itee Pootoogook of Kinngait (Cape Dorset) through his art. The West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative President foreword celebrates the Co-op's Kinngait Studios in Kinngait, Nunavut where the finest and most important Canadian Inuit art has been produced. They acknowledge Itee as a meticulous draftsperson and his architectural studies, portratiture and landscapes in graphite and coloured pencil and how this reflects him as a visual pioneer and creative inspiration. There is a foreword by Sarah Milroy on the collection and a word of thanks for the work of Dr. Nancy Campbell who made a study of contemporary Inuit art her life's work including Shuvinai Ashoona and Annie Pootoogook's work. The book also contains Gerald McMaster's experience of Itee's work - an excitement for the Itee's in its sheer volume, that it embodies Nordicity, a cultural self-perception shaped by life in the Arctic, his illusion of space and modernist sensibilities representing Itee's Arctic realities. Writers have taken Itee's works and create their narrative and expression of his work. For example, Tarralik Duffy on the Kitchen Window, Sky Glabush on A Drawing Lesson, Behind Bars by Mark Igliorte, Opening and Closing by Meeka Walsh, and A Rumination on Light - Wayne Baerwaldt. A full Curriculum Vitae by Jacqui Usiskin is included. This is indeed an exciting selection of Itee Pootoogook's life works.