Wanda Koop: WHO OWNS THE MOON – until August 4, 2024

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) is presenting the exhibition Wanda Koop: WHO OWNS THE MOON, showcasing a new body of incandescent work from one of Canada’s most renowned living artists. With the all-seeing moon as its central motif, the exhibition invites reflection on universal questions of territory, the environment, memory and loss, while offering hope through the transcendent powers of art. This exhibition organized by the MMFA is the artist’s first solo museum presentation in Quebec.

Wanda Koop (born in 1951), Ukrainian Quartet – Power Plant, 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Night Gallery. © Wanda Koop.
Photo William Eakin

“We are honoured to welcome this eminent figure of Canadian contemporary art for her first solo presentation in a Quebec museum. Over the course of her more than fifty-year career, Koop has developed a singular visual language distinguished by its sheer mastery of colour and profound engagement with the human condition. Both poignant and deeply pertinent, Koop’s work invites reflection on shared concerns of our historical moment,” says Mary-Dailey Desmarais, Chief Curator of the MMFA and curator of the exhibition.

Wanda Koop was born in Vancouver to parents from the Zaporizhia region of present-day Ukraine. In this new corpus, the artist expresses her engagement with her family ties to this country and the trauma of the ongoing war in Eastern Europe. However, her personal experience is but the point of departure for broader painterly meditations on the human condition. Four monumental paintings depict the Crimean Coast, seen from a distant shore across the Black Sea at different times of day, capturing the silver light of early morning to the deep blue of midnight with phosphorescent hues glowing in the moonlit water. Vertical bands of vibrant colours ranging from neon yellow to electric red remind us of the paintings’ materiality as objects in this world and simultaneously open a doorway to the imagination.

Wanda Koop (born in 1951), Note for Eclipse. Courtesy of the artist. © Wanda Koop.
Photo William Eakin

Two new quadriptychs
Sleepwalking is a poem to loss. It consists of four elongated rectangular paintings woven with memories of Koop’s grandmother and mother, and allusions to forebears long gone. However, like memories emerging in a dream, the meaning of these paintings is not fixed. The artist tempers the loss of innocence and optimism and the ultimate tragedy of our actions through the act of painting, arriving at a place of hope and beauty.

The second quadriptych, Objects of Interest, addresses the ultimately humbling nature of humankind’s pursuits. Flanked by two paintings of the moon are two paintings of the International Space Station and China’s Tiangong Space Station, respectively. This juxtaposition prompts existential questions on the unknown.

Also included in the exhibition are paintings modelled after trees and flowers seen in the forest around Koop’s retreat in Riding Mountain National Park, Manitoba. Like Koop’s moons, these living beings are silent beacons and vessels of memory.

Wanda Koop in front of Black Sea Portal – Sunset Orange (detail), 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Night Gallery. © Wanda Koop.
Photo Lindsey Koepke

About Wanda Koop
Born in Vancouver in 1951, Wanda Koop is the second of six daughters. Her parents immigrated to Canada after her great-grandparents and paternal grandfather were executed during the Russian Revolution. Koop is one of Canada’s most distinguished artists, with a painting career spanning five decades and over 60 solo exhibitions. A major survey of her work was mounted by the National Gallery of Canada in 2011. From the outset of her career, she has garnered critical and curatorial acclaim for her energetic and ambitious exploration of her medium. Starting in the 1980s, she charted new directions for her painting, pushing the boundaries of presentation and display with her monumental-scale installations. Recent solo exhibitions include Objects of Interest, at Night Gallery, Los Angeles (2024); Eclipse, at Frieze No.9 Cork Street, London (2023); Lightworks, at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg, Ontario (2022); and Concentrations 62: Dreamline, at the Dallas Museum of Art, Texas (2019).

Koop is the recipient of numerous awards, honorary doctorates, and Canadian medals of honour, including the Order of Canada (2006). Her life and work have been the subject of several documentary films. In 1998, she founded Art City – now in its 26th year – a storefront art centre that brings together contemporary visual artists and inner-city youth to explore the creative process. The artist lives and works in Winnipeg, Canada.

For opening hours and ticket prices, visit: www.mbam.qc.ca