Domingo Cisneros

A n I n t r o d u c t i o n t o
C o n t e m p o r a r y N a t i v e A r t i s t s i n C a n a d a

D o m i n g o C i s n e r o s

b. 1942, Monterey, Mexico
First Nations Affiliation: Tepehuane; Métis

Domingo Cisneros has made a critical contribution as both an artist and teacher to the development of First Nations contemporary art in Canada. Growing up in the urban Mexican centres of Duranga and Nuevo Leon, Cisneros studied art, architecture and cinematography in the 1960s at universities in Monterrey and Mexico City. Forced to leave due to his leftist political activities, he travelled extensively before teaching at Manitou College in La Macaza, Québec, where he resided until 1996. It was in La Macaza, Hautes-Laurentides, Québec that Cisneros began to synthesize his meditations on cultural and physical loss, ephemerality, and healing into eloquent and elegiac sculptural installations and assemblages of natural materials salvaged from the transformative cycles of nature. Cisneros has made frequent contributions as a curator, lecturer, jurist, and artist-in-residence internationally, as well as served as the Minister of Cultural Affairs for the Province of Québec in 1978, 1987, and 1988.

R E C E N T E X H I B I T I O N S

1997	Breaking Borders. St. Norbert Arts and Cultural Centre, St. Norbert, Manitoba
1995	Collectif. Centre international d'art contemporain, Montréal, Québec Zone du Silence, Dix Ans Apres. Chateau de Montgirous, Mayenne, France Seconde Nature. Centre d'Exposition de Baie St. Paul, Québec Zone of Silence Ten Years Later. Desert of the Zone of Silence, Mexico
1994	Chichimeca Project. Carrillo Gil Museum, Mexico City; Durango, Mexico Kluane Expedition. Yukon Arts Centre, Whitehorse, Yukon Installation d'Alcorceber, Beach and Hermitage. Alcorceber, Valencia, Spain
1993	L'art prend l'air. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Montréal (toured Québec, Ontario and Saskatchewan) Sky bones. Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan A Thousand Bones of Mother Earth. Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon Kluane Expedition. Kluane Mountains, Canadian Art Odyssey's Society, Yukon, Northwest Territories Present, Maradalen Clacier. Commission of the Lillehammer Olympic games, Norway
1992	New Territories: 350/500 Years After. Les Maisons de la Culture, Montréal, Québec Territori Interroti. Galerie Le Arie del Tempo, Genoa, Italy Land, Spirit, Power. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario INDIGENA. Canadian Museum of Civilization, Hull, Québec (travelling) Celebrations. Nakota Nation Reserve and Peyto Glacier, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.
1991	Project Ecart. Centre d'Exposition de la Gare, L'Annonciation, Québec (travelling) Okanata. Workscene Gallery and A Space, Toronto, Ontario A Force de Terre. Galerie Circa, Montréal, Québec Solidarity: Art After Oka. SAW Gallery, Ottawa, Ontario Visions of Power. Harbourfront/Leo Kamen Gallery, Toronto, Ontario Taiteilijaryhma Kanadasta. Museum of Modern Art, Tampere, Finland Installation Grop Marka. Grop Marka Mountains, Norway
1990	Les Points Cardinaux. Centre d'Exposition de la Gare, L'Annonciation , Québec Exportation. Casa de la Cultura, Havana, Cuba Interscope Installation and Performance Festival. Varsovie, Lublin, Poland Savoir Vivre, Savoir Faire, Savoir Etre. Centre international d’art contemporain, Montréal, Québec Ecart. Art-Aventure. Lac Mitchinamecus, Hautes-Laurentide, Québec Loupes des Glaces. La Macaza, Hautes-Laurentides, Québec

S E L E C T E D C O L L E C T I O N S

Thunder Bay Art Gallery, Thunder Bay, Ontario
Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, Ottawa, Ontario

S E L E C T E D B I B L I O G R A P H Y

Cisneros, Domingo, and Edith Pagest. Domingo Cisneros: Le bestiaire laurentien. L’Annonciation, Québec: Precambriens, 1995.

Cron, Marie-Michele. Circonvolutions. Montréal, Québec: Opera, 1995. [Book published on the occasions of an exhibition at the Museo de Arte Alvar y Carmen T. de Carillo Gil in Mexico City]

Fraser, Marie. Seconde nature: la sculpture qui se fait. Baie-Saint-Paul, Québec: Centre d’exposition de Baie-Saint-Paul, 1995.

Kanbara, Bryce and Alfred Young Man. Visions of Power: Contemporary Art by First Nations, Inuit and Japanese Canadians. Toronto, Ontario: Earth Spirit Festival, 1991.

Lindberg, Ted. Deathwatch / La vigilia / Veillee de mort, Vancouver, British Columbia: The Charles H. Scott Gallery, 1981. [Exhibition held 3 April - 2 May 1981, Emily Carr College of Art]

Martel, Richard, Wanda B. Campbell, and Domingo Cisneros. La Zona del Silencio: ArtAdventure, une celebration des arts du desert. Montréal, Québec: Editions Intervention, 1985.

Martin, Lee-Ann. Domingo Cisneros, Sky Bones. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan: Mendel Art Gallery, 1993. [Catalogue of an exhibition held at the Mendel Art Gallery, 10 September - 24 October 1993]

McMaster, Gerald, and Lee-Ann Martin, eds. INDIGENA: Contemporary Native Perspectives. Vancouver, British Columbia: Douglas & McIntyre, 1992./ INDIGENA.: Perspectives autochtones contemporaines. Hull, Québec: Musée canadien des civilisations, 1992.

Merette, Myriam. "La planete des signes." Voir, 18 July 1991, p. 11.

Nemiroff, Diana, Robert Houle, and Charlotte Townsend-Gault. Land, Spirit, Power: First Nations at the National Gallery of Canada. Ottawa, Ontario: National Gallery of Canada, 1992.

Quinto, Romano. "The legend of nature: Domingo Cisneros, Jeanne Fabb, Lise Labrie." Natural Cultura International Magazine (May 1989): 23-25.

Tétrault, Pierre-Léon, Dana Alan Williams, Guy Sioui Durand, Alfred Young Man, et al. New Territories: 350/500 Years After: An Exhibition of Contemporary Aboriginal Art of Canada. Prefaces by Robert Houle, Tom Hill. Montréal, Québec: Ateliers Vision planétaire, 1992.

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