Sometimes it seems like here at the museum if you blink an artwork will change! We have had several works get swapped out in the museum’s permanent collection galleries recently, and most recently the giant painting by Dustin Pevey was taken down and replaced with a large work by Caroline Monnet.

The label copy:

Caroline Monnet (b. 1985)
Lungs, 2023
Polyethylene, fiberglass insulation, and thread
Collection Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, 2024.025, Gift of the Jedel Family Foundation

Lungs, with geometric designs in hot pink and red hues winding throughout a ground of soft pink, evokes organs filamented with veins and arteries. The format, a decoratively stitched textile, recalls handcrafted domestic objects such as quilts. Yet the materials, fiberglass insulation sandwiched between plastic sheeting, have associations with home construction. Fiberglass is also a material that can be harmful to respiratory health if handled without protective equipment. In juxtaposing these contrasting elements and associations, Monnet subtly references issues around the enduring impacts of colonialism on many facets of life, from health to housing security, for Indigenous communities in North America today.

Monnet has B.A in communications and sociology from the University of Ottawa and has studied at the University of Granada in Spain.

The work is located in the Lieberman Gallery just across from the sculpture works by vanessa german, and adjacent to the sculpture by Jeffrey Gibson.

About the artist:

Caroline Monnet (Anishinaabe-French, born in 1985, Ottawa, Canada) is a multidisciplinary artist from Outaouais, Canada. She studied sociology and communication at the University of Ottawa and the University of Granada before working in visual arts and film.

Caroline’s work has been viewed at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; the Toronto International Film Festival, Toronto; Cannes Film Festival, Cannes; the Whitney Biennial, New York; and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. She is a recipient of the 2021 Hopper Prize; the 2020 Pierre-Ayot Award; the 2020 Sobey Art Award; and the 2017 Hnatyshyn Foundation REVEAL Indigenous Art Awards.

At the heart of her practice is the communication of complex ideas about Aboriginal identity and bicultural life through the examination of cultural histories. Her work is often minimalist, yet emotionally charged, and speaks to the complex realities of Aboriginal peoples today. Her works combine the vocabulary of popular and traditional visual cultures with the tropes of modernist abstraction to create unique hybrid forms.

The artist also makes works in clothing, sculpture, film and photography.

JoAnne Northrup, Executive Director of the Nerman Museum said, “Lungs, is exceptionally large and has a powerful presence. It will be a fantastic addition to the Nerman Museum’s existing collection of works by contemporary Indigenous artists, including Raven Half Moon and Teresa Baker.”

An interesting article about Monnet’s series of works: Caroline Monnet’s Indigenous Worldbuilding (hyperallergic.com)

A quote from the above article: “The structures she makes help Monnet reclaim space and agency. “[The installation structures] were a way for me to speak about the housing crisis that a lot of Indigenous communities across North America are facing,” she told me. The geometric repetition of the works gives way to visual readings that recall maps, digital codes, and precise mark-making — situating the work both within long-running cultural practices and future realities.”