Scott Watson (Canadian, b. 1950) is Director Emeritus and Research Fellow at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, University of British Columbia. A curator whose career has spanned more than thirty-five years, Watson is internationally recognized for his research and work in curatorial and exhibition studies, contemporary art and issues, and art theory and criticism. His distinctions include the Hnatyshyn Foundation Award for Curatorial Excellence in Contemporary Art (2010); the Alvin Balkind Award for Creative Curatorship in BC Arts (2008) and the UBC Dorothy Somerset Award for Performance Development in the Visual and Performing Arts (2005). Watson has published extensively in the areas of contemporary Canadian and international art. His 1990 monograph on Jack Shadbolt earned the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize in 1991. Recent publications include Letters: Michael Morris and Concrete Poetry (2015); Thrown: British Columbia’s Apprentices of Bernard Leach and their Contemporaries (2011), a finalist for the 2012 Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize; “Race, Wilderness, Territory and the Origins of the Modern Canadian Landscape” and “Disfigured Nature” (in Beyond Wilderness, McGill University Press, 2007); and “Transmission Difficulties: Vancouver Painting in the 1960s” (in Paint, Vancouver Art Gallery, 2006).
The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery and the UBC Walter C. Koerner Library are pleased to announce the exhibition of Las partes que más me sudan cuando me pongo nervioso by Tonel.
Las partes que más me sudan cuando me pongo nervioso [The Parts of Me that Sweat the Most When I Get Nervous], a large, diptych drawing of a sweating male nude, is both a self-portrait and a fictional character. The work, installed in the main floor of Koerner Library evokes graphic humour while dealing with marginal aspects of human sexuality and the physical nature of bodies. Connotations of a day-to-day physicality, including scatological and psychological concerns come through in the image of a sweating, nervous man, whose placement leaves him open to inspection and scrutiny. Irony plays a role, as this peculiar personal moment subverts any common notion of male machismo. In the tradition of cartooning, a bare minimum of line and written text convey a simple message about bodily function that leads to a related question: what personal moments are occurring in our bodies when we are in public situations?
This project is a collaboration of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery and the Walter C. Koerner Library at the University of British Columbia, and is made possible by the generous support of the Audain Foundation. Art in the Library aims to open possibilities for interpretation and new perspectives on contemporary art by presenting art that questions and challenges our current perceptions.
Scott Watson (Canadian, b. 1950) is Director Emeritus and Research Fellow at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, University of British Columbia. A curator whose career has spanned more than thirty-five years, Watson is internationally recognized for his research and work in curatorial and exhibition studies, contemporary art and issues, and art theory and criticism. His distinctions include the Hnatyshyn Foundation Award for Curatorial Excellence in Contemporary Art (2010); the Alvin Balkind Award for Creative Curatorship in BC Arts (2008) and the UBC Dorothy Somerset Award for Performance Development in the Visual and Performing Arts (2005). Watson has published extensively in the areas of contemporary Canadian and international art. His 1990 monograph on Jack Shadbolt earned the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize in 1991. Recent publications include Letters: Michael Morris and Concrete Poetry (2015); Thrown: British Columbia’s Apprentices of Bernard Leach and their Contemporaries (2011), a finalist for the 2012 Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize; “Race, Wilderness, Territory and the Origins of the Modern Canadian Landscape” and “Disfigured Nature” (in Beyond Wilderness, McGill University Press, 2007); and “Transmission Difficulties: Vancouver Painting in the 1960s” (in Paint, Vancouver Art Gallery, 2006).
The Audain Foundation