Located on the eastern shore of Ungava Bay in Nunavik (northern Quebec), Kangiqsualujjuaq (formerly George River) began specializing in caribou antler sculptures since the 1970’s. « What we show in our carvings is the life we have lived in the past right up today. We show the truth. » say Inuit artists. Kangiqsualujjuaq means in inuktitut (Inuit language) «very large bay»; about 750 people (2006) live in this Inuit community.

The importance of depicting the reality of daily Inuit existence, as well as events described in Inuit oral history, mythology and personal recollection, is a current that has run through fifty years of Nunavik sculpture. Artworks from Kangiqsualujjuaq have sometimes a tendency toward distortion and expressionism in human and spirit faces and bodies inspired by shamanism and spirits’ transformation scenes.

Although the international art market values the achievement of “classic” 1950s Nunavik art, it very much encourages and rewards innovation today. Inuit have been making antler sculptures for centuries related to shamanism and nomadic way of life. Thus moving from winter camp to summer camp, traditional ivory carvings and antler sculptures were on small size. But the size of artworks significantly increased, both linked to the development of the Inuit art market on an international scale as well as the arctic communities’ establishment and forced sedentarization.

Antler is commonly utilized material: Inuit hunt caribous to eat their meet, to wear their skin, to change their antler into tools and sculptures etc…; caribou shed their antlers each year.

Inuit artists often combine antlers with stone, whalebone or ivory. Caribou antlers (like ivory) are usually worked with smaller flexible-shaft grinders, saws, small diamond files, and sharp knives. Antler sculpture is also practiced in Nunavut and on a pan-Inuit scale, like Greenlandic Tupilaq.

For more information about the community and its artists, see this web site :
www.nvkangiqsualujjuaq.ca

The immediate environment and individual experiences as well as collective (related to the history of families and arctic communities) are the main sources of artistic inspiration, including themes represented from shamanism and imagination.

Since its beginning in the 1950’s, contemporary Inuit art intends for the international art market - North America and Europe in particular – actually for Qallunaat, “white people”. Developed at first in commercial purposes, the artistic creation in Nunavut and Nunavik exceeds nevertheless this single aim: contemporary art assigns to Inuit people a new identity linked to the subjects represented in artworks. Inuit artists are unanimous when they talk about their artistic practices: “the importance of the issue takes precedence over everything else”. The artist’s intent added to the final meaning determine significantly the choice of topics; artworks thus becoming a narrative aid.

The hunting activity is a key component of Inuit culture and is naturally a favourite artistic theme all the more carvers are predominantly male - then hunters – as well as drawers and print-makers in early 1960. Let us remember that when the artists don’t work, they go hunting most of the time according to the weather. Really important in Inuit society, the hunting game is also present as iconographic subject on different forms. Indeed, marine mammals and terrestrial often appear alone or in a group, chased by human or animal predators, as well as actors of myths or related to shamanism. Polar bear, caribou, seal, walrus, narwhal, and beluga whale, but also fishes and birds (snow owls, crows and loons) correspond to the most popular animal themes in Inuit art. The daily life is also a major topic even more important in graphic art (drawings and prints) than in carving. Despite the major place taken by hunting scenes in Inuit art, the illustration of women’s activities - like mother and child, food sharing, preparation of skins - raises in conjunction with the increasing feminization of graphic artists.

Today, Inuit artists draw inspiration at the same time from the past and present that means their artistic imagery both refers to the nomadic lifestyle and the actual sedentary way of life. Inuit subjects represented by contemporary artists contribute to the transmission and the recovery of traditional knowledge, whose process of Christianization engaged since the late nineteenth century and the forced schooling while the mid twentieth has deprived them. Foreign to the notion of “l’art pour l’art”, Inuit artworks like drawings, prints, paintings, carvings, tapestries as pottery work as narrations. If the history of art (descended from a Western tradition) pains to accord some attention to the artist’s discourses, Inuit artworks can not be separated from orality; even since Inuit culture comes from an oral tradition still relevant today that is based on collective and individual experiences.

Inuit art became explicit outside the Inuit territories through its iconographic richness as the dynamism of artistic creation. Inuit artists play today an important role in the contemporary society: their strong involvement in cultural domain provides them with a new status locally and internationally as spokespersons of a culture that is changing and being open to the outside world while still being anchored in its ancient traditions.

To learn more :

Ingo HESSEL, Inuit Art : An Introduction, Vancouver/Toronto : Douglas & McIntyre, 1998.

The aim of this blog consists in examining and documenting Inuit artistic creation on a pan-Inuit scale close to past and contemporary Inuit culture in Alaska, Greenland, Nunavut and Nunavik (Canadian Eastern Arctic).

Our interest focuses on works of art, creators and artistic events like exhibition and cultural projects devoted to Inuit art and more largely to First Nations art on an international perspective. This blog also aims at sharing knowledge acquired in situ among artistic actors of local sphere in order to engage a reflexion about Inuit art and culture.

Whereas the diffusion of Inuit art on the international art scene, Inuit culture still suffers of numerous preconceived ideas. Let us remember that before they managed to have a voice on the political scene, the Inuit had previously acquired recognition thanks to the diffusion of their art in Western countries.

The first sale exhibition of contemporary Inuit art took place in 1949 in Montreal. Ever since it acquired in 1953 the double status of work of art and national Canadian art when the Queen is given, as a diplomatic present from the federal government, an Inuit contemporary carving, Inuit works of art are present on national and international scale through museums, galleries and private collections.

Artistic creation constitutes an essential component in the elaboration of Inuit contemporary discourse on identity. The strong involvement of artists in cultural domain provides them with a new status locally and internationally as spokespersons of a culture that is changing while being anchored in its ancient traditions and being still open to the outside world.

Our Theme: Meetings and Encounters

For thousands of years, Québec has been a natural meeting place for encounters great and small, historic and contemporary.

Encounters between Europe and North America, First Nations and settlers, France and England. The confluence of a mighty river and a chain of mountains, of fresh and salted waters, of Upper and Lower Town, of venerable old stones and modern glass walls. A rendez-vous for lovers charmed by the city with its hospitable residents and visitors from the world over.

This succession of encounters has left its mark on Québec City and on its landscape, architecture, culture, economy, population and lifestyle. Today we celebrate the founders’ choice to establish Québec City here where so many memorable meetings and encounters are made possible.

This is the essence of the programming for Québec City’s 400th anniversary: sharing this historic and contemporary crossroads of memorable encounters with all comers.

For more infos:
http://www.monquebec2008.com

As the title of the exhibition, In the Shadow of the Midnight Sun, suggests, Canada’s Inuit people and Scandinavia’s Sámi people share the same northern latitudes. But if geography is a jumping-off point for the artists in this expansive, unexpected show, it isn’t destiny. Many of the works — which date between 2000 and 2005 — juggle indigenous traditions and information-age influences. The variety of techniques and media — from wall-filling abstract paintings to delicate objects crafted from bone and sinew — and the mood and breadth of subject matter point to the wide range of current artistic practices in the North.
Curator Jean Blodgett is wary of making generalizations about a show that features 47 artists from across the Arctic Circle, but she did find affinities among the Sámi and Inuit cultures. “At first, all I could think of was that, well, yes, both groups live far north,” Blodgett says over the phone from her home near Fairbanks, Alaska. “But in fact, that’s a very strong connection between them. It’s not just a factual observation.”
“Their feeling for the land has a strong effect on their art,” Blodgett says. “There are these emotional connections with the places that they live, and with the plant and animal life there.”
Blodgett also wants to acknowledge that the artists’ current landscape goes beyond plants and animals to include satellite TV, Nintendo and Pepsi. Much of the work in the exhibition grapples with rapid technological change and with issues of individual and cultural identity in a shifting social environment. “Many artists are coping with this issue of ‘Where do I fit in the scheme of things,’ whether it’s their culture or their family.”
Originating with the Art Gallery of Hamilton, and showing at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, In the Shadow of the Midnight Sun will stop in Whitehorse and Ottawa before travelling to museums in Scandinavia.
(All images courtesy the Winnipeg Art Gallery)
source:CBC -Alison Gimor
http://www.cbc.ca/photogallery/arts/498/

Nunavik co-op federation celebrates 40 years
Last Updated: Wednesday, May 23, 2007 | 12:52 PM CT
CBC News
A federation of Inuit co-operatives in northern Quebec is marking its 40th anniversary this year with a celebration and some prize draws for members.

La Fédération des Coopératives du Nouveau-Québec was formed in 1967 after five of Nunavik’s 14 communities had established co-ops, with Kangiqsualujjuaq being the first community in 1959. In the years following the FCNQ’s introduction, all 14 communities set up co-ops in northern Quebec.

Aliva Tulugak, the federation’s vice-president for the Hudson Coast, said Tuesday that more than 300 co-op federation members from across Nunavik gathered in Montreal over the weekend for 40th-anniversary celebrations.

Individual members were recognized for their efforts to make the co-ops successful, he said. Tulugak added that members will also be eligible for a draw Aug. 31 to win snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles.

The co-operatives offer a variety of businesses and services, including:

Food sales.
Construction.
Fishing and hunting camps.
Adventure tourism operations.
Cable television and high-speed internet services.
Hotels.
Fuel storage and distribution.
Inuit art production and sales.
Speaking in Inuktitut, federation president Mark Uhitok Amamatuak of Salluit said the co-ops started operating out of small buildings, but the vision of their early directors was anything but small.

Today, Amamatuak said, he will be dedicated to his new position and use it to keep the federation strong.

On its website, the federation describes its co-operatives as “a powerful engine for economic development” in the region, employing the most residents outside of government.

Tulugak said if Nunavik’s communities continue to work together, the co-ops will continue to grow and succeed.

Cape Dorset Winter 2007

Each time I travel in Nunavut to gather new artworks I always imagine James Houston first venture in Cape Dorset. He came first with a dog team and lived among the Inuit in small houses and Igloos. His goal was to introduce a new production of artwork in order to help the Inuit earn a living and survive the new sedentary life. He must have wondered if his venture would give results.

We are now in the 21st century and only 60 years after Houston first visit in the North. Inuit art is now recognized worldwide and the production of Inuit art is astonishing not only in quality but also in volume. No one could have predicted such a success.

The plane is landing on the strip and I am heading for my small hotel room miles from home. The temperature is -30 C without the wind-chill and wonder why Inuit worry about global warming … (sic) I travel to Cape Dorset to gather new artworks but also and mostly to get in contact with the artists and their changing world.

Inuit are now experiencing tremendous change and many cultural traits of traditional Inuit culture are vanishing with the waves of satellite TV and Internet. However, art producing has become a crucial factor in the definition of Inuit Identity in the new century. The greatest carvers are respected and can earn a decent living. Young Inuit start by carving small Inukshuk with the dream of having the reputation of Qiatsuq, Parr, Ipeelie among others.

In these new realities, the greatest hunters have now become the best carvers. They are respected providers for their family, the community and Inuit culture. Still those who can do both are even more respected underlying the transition between generations. Inuit art is an art form in constant evolution with a great future filled with amazing talents.

Robert

Hello,

I have always been pleased when I have done business with Robert, but I really wanted to go one step further and be able to discuss this wondrous type of art with others, too.

I have started an Internet discussion group.

The Inuit and Indian Art Group

Artists, collectors, dealers, teachers, curators, etc. discuss various related topics by e-mail.

As of March, 2007, we started nearly 3 years ago and we are already in 15 countries on 5 continents with close to 400 members. We have several artists; plus 25 Inuit, Inuvaluit, Inupiaq, Yu’pik or Aleut members; and 60 Indian and Metis members. We also have numerous collectors and dealers.

Would you be interested in joining?

Please reply to me directly at:

TWCAL2@aol.com

There are no dues or fees or anything like that.

Aukkak, Oncle, Uncle Gene
Gene Hanson
Moderator
The Inuit and Indian Art Group
Toronto
Ontario
Canada

I used to work in a regular art gallery and by exchanging directly with clients I could get the pulse of what they liked and disliked about the gallery, the art, the stones, the service, the packing, etc… Operating an internet gallery is a great experience for me but I rarely get feedbacks from you and I thought the blog would be a great way to get your impressions on our service and the e-gallery.

If you can take a few minutes we would like to have your comments on the website, the transaction with us and especially your impressions on the new artwork we are presenting.

Many thanks
Robert

You have a sculpture that you got many years ago or you inherited a number of artworks. You don’t know the value the piece and you would like to sell it but of course not at any price. There are many ways to do this but also many avenues that you shouldn’t take.

What not to do

1- Send an email to many galleries with very limited information like this:

I have an artwork by Echalook I got in the 60’s and would like to know how much it`s worth and if you could buy it

2- Go see the closest antiques dealer and ask him to sell your artwork unless he is knowledgable of Inuit art

3- Post it on eBay without knowing who carved it and where the carving is from and especially with low quality pictures.

4- Post it on eBay if you don’t have good feedbacks already.

What to do

1- Get a written evaluation of the artwork by a specialized gallery. If you can more then one is even better. This can be done now by email by sending pictures and as much information you have on the artwork. Please note that every inscription on the bottom of the artwork can be useful especially the E-numbers. You can also bring it to an Inuit art gallery. Inuitartzone charges $50 per artwork but prices can vary for entire collection. Other galleries fees vary from $50-$100 per artwork.

2- Once you know the market value of your artwork you can offer it to galleries with the documents you have and take the best offer available. Please note that galleries have to make some money on the resell of artworks and this can vary from 25-50 % of the market value. The gallery can also choose to sell it at a different price.

3- You can place it on consignment in a gallery and the common rule is 60-40. That means that 60 percent of the sales go to the owner and 40% to the seller. This rule can be negotiated.

4- Another option is to place your artwork at auction. A specialized auction house is recommended and the only one that host Inuit art auction is Waddingtons auction in Toronto (www.waddingtons.com ). They are very selective on the artwork they choose to place at auction. The risk is that you depend on the crowd at the auction so the artwork can go very high but can also go very low or not sell at all depending on your reserve. Then you only get the bill … Auction house charges fees for listing the artwork, photographs, shipping (if applicable) and take a 15-20% commission.

5- The easiest option is to place it at auction on eBay however it is not the perfect one. You have to be able to create a nice listing with guarantees that the artwork will make it to destination in mint condition and have a Paypal account (almost essential). Pictures are critical here since average pics will make your outstanding artwork look average. Once again having a written evaluation of the artwork helps.

6- One critical step that many forget is how important packing properly is crucial. You can go to the UPS store and ask them to pack it for you but once again that involves fees. Or you can do it yourself and you will need the right materials. You can check our shipping page to guide you.

In resume, selling your art is not an easy task and using professional help will guide you trough the process. One critical step is to have a written appraisal of the artwork. This is the step that will be your starting point and your reference through the process.