Spring 2025 Exhibitions at Art Windsor-Essex

Hit it out of the park this season at AWE

Lisa Lipton, Hoop Dreams, 2015, in assoc. w/ Chapter VI – Greysville from The Impossible Blue Rose, Sobey Art Awards Shortlist Performance (2015). Photo: Krista Comeau

SPORTS SPORTS SPORTS

March 8 – September 21, 2025
Curated by Jennifer Matotek, Emily McKibbon, and Julie Rae Tucker

Let’s get ready to rumble…

Pitted in opposite corners of the rec room, artists and athletes have historically been at odds, competing for funding, attention and respect.

Drop the gloves…

Artists and athletes want to be the best at what they do. They push unsurpassed limits of the body and the mind. They seek perfection. They collaborate on a team and they go it alone. They show us what is possible, culturally, socially, and physically. They struggle against the odds. They persevere.

Block and tackle…

Artists and athletes perform. Arenas and galleries are sites for spectatorship. Athletes perform with their bodies, but artists can, too. And artists aren’t the only intellectuals on the court. Athletes study, plan and strategize, running plays and weighing options, reading the field like a living diagram.

Full court press…

Logos, mascots, uniforms; colour, form, composition. We wear our favourite team’s jersey; we hang our favourite artist’s print on the wall.

Throw your hat into the ring…

What can artists learn from athletes, and athletes from artists?

In SPORTS SPORTS SPORTS, artists and athletes meet at center ice, playing together for AWE’s first Pro Bowl. With an all-star roster featuring Judy Anderson, Krystal Bigsky, Kristina Bradt, Douglas Coupland, Maria Hupfield, Brian Jungen, Brett Kashmere, Lisa Lipton, Myfanwy MacLeod, Kevin McKenzie, Hazel Meyer, Esmaa Mohamoud, Kristine Moran, Bridget Moser, Howardena Pindell, Wendy Red Star, Astria Suparak, Hank Willis Thomas, and Joanne Tod, AWE invites you to get into the game.

Prudence Heward, Femme au bord de la mer (The Bather), 1930, oil on canvas, 162.1 x 106.3 cm. Purchase, 1974.

GAME ON

March 20 – May 25, 2025
Curated by Jennifer Matotek, Emily McKibbon, and Julie Rae Tucker

Presented alongside SPORTS SPORTS SPORTS, GAME ON features works from AWE’s collection that reveal the links between athleticism and the visual arts. From the once scandalous Femme au bord de la mer (1930) by Prudence Heward to more recent works by Liss Platt and Karen Kraven, this exhibition demonstrates how artists approach issues around the body, athleticism, competition and comradery.

Featured artists include IAIN BAXTER&, Carl Beam, Lynne Cohen, Greg Curnoe, Adèle Duck, Sorel Etrog, Bill Featherston, Robert Hedrick, Prudence Heward, Barrie Jones, Alex Katz, Karen Kraven, William Kurelek, Charles Pachter, Liss Platt, Claude Tousignant, Ruth Annaqtuusi Tulurialik, and Andy Warhol.

Detail of of Rubbing and Remembering, 2023-2024, found objects and graphite. Photo: Scott Lee, 2024.

Behnaz Fatemi: Rhythms of Remembering

March 20 – June 29, 2025
Artist Talk with Behnaz Fatemi: March 20, 6 – 6:30pm
Performance with Behnaz Fatemi: April 17, 7:30 – 8pm
Curated by Niku Koochak, 2023-2024 TD Curatorial Fellow

The very final hours in a hometown before displacement begins are marked by decisions—what to carry forward, what to leave behind. Some belongings are taken, but not all—only those that seem necessary for a place yet unseen. Behnaz Fatemi: Rhythms of Remembering brings viewers to that last day of quiet urgency before what is left behind, and what is carried forward, shapes what comes next.

This exhibition forms part of Below the 6, a series of exhibitions that focuses on artists based in Southwestern Ontario whose practices are socially and politically minded. This program is generously supported by the TD Bank Group.

About the Artist

Behnaz Fatemi is an Iranian multidisciplinary artist and PhD student in Visual Culture at Western University, Canada. Her research-driven practice engages durational performance, drawing, video, and installation, focusing on themes of diaspora, politics of care, trauma, and resistance.

Fatemi’s work has been exhibited in solo and group shows across Iran, Canada, and the United States. Highlights include her residency as the Kitchener Artist in Residence (2020–21) and participation in the Art$Pay Artist Incubator program, supported by the Region of Waterloo. She has received numerous honors, including the Emerging Artist Award from Arts Awards Waterloo Region and selection for the CAFKA biennial (2023). Fatemi’s practice has been supported by the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund, the International Master’s Award of Excellence (IMAE) from the University of Waterloo, and grants from Pat the Dog Theatre Creation.

About Art Windsor-Essex

Art Windsor-Essex respectfully acknowledges that we are located on Anishinaabe Territory – the traditional territory of the Three Fires Confederacy of First Nations, comprised of the Ojibway, the Odawa, and the Potawatomi. Today the Anishinaabe of the Three Fires Confederacy are represented by Bkejwanong. We want to state our respect for the ancestral and ongoing authority of Walpole Island First Nation over its Territory.

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