BIOGRAPHY
Johanne Sloan has been part of the Department of Art History at Concordia University since 2002; she teaches primarily in the areas of Contemporary Art and Canadian Art since the 1960s, although she supervises graduate students working on a range of topics.
She is currently the Principal Investigator on a collaborative research project, Networked Art Histories: Assembling Contemporary Art in Canada. As part of this project, she is focusing on aspects of Montreal’s art and visual culture from the latter part of the 20th century: the legacy of Expo 67; Melvin Charney’s urban-activist projects of the 70s; Montreal artists’ short-lived infatuation with postmodernism in the 1980s.
Also, she has since her graduate studies remained committed to the investigation of landscape as a art-historical genre and interdisiplinary field of inquiry. In addition, she collects and writes about early photographic postcards.
EDUCATION
PhD in History and Theory of Art, University of Kent at Canterbury, England
Thesis: "Millennial Landscapes: Nature, Narrativity, and the Legacy of the Paysage Historique in 19th and 20th Century Art"
Thesis supervisor: Stephen Bann
M.A. in Art History, Université de Montréal
B.F.A. in Art History and Studio Art, Concordia University, Montreal
1998
1993
1985
ACADEMIC POSITIONS
Professor, Department of Art History, Concordia University
Assistant Professor, Department of Art History and Communication Studies,
McGill University
Post-doctoral Research Fellow,
Columbia University
2002 - Present
2000 - 2002
1998 - 2000
GRANTS
2013-2017
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Insight Grant, 2013 to 2017. (Collaborative Research Project: Networked Art Histories: Assembling Contemporary Art in Canada, 1960s to the present).
2006-2009
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Standard Research Grant, 2006 to 2009 (Research Project: Visual art and pop culture in Canada, 1967-1992).
2005
Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada Conference Grant, 2005, for Montreal at street level: revisiting the material, visual, and spatial cultures of the 1960s (Concordia and the Canadian Centre for Architecture, 2005).
2002-2005
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Standard Research Grant, 2002 to 2005 (Research Project: Conceptual Landscape Art in Canada during the 1960s and 70s).
2000-2005
Co-investigator, The Culture of Cities Research Project, funded 2000 to 2005 by SSHRC-MCRI (Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada - Major Collaborative Research Initiative).
2000-2001
National Gallery of Canada Research Fellowship, 2000 to 2001 (Research Project: Joyce Wieland and the Concept of Landscape in the 1970s).
1998-2000
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellowship, Columbia University, New York City, 1998 to 2000. (Research Project: Utopia as discourse and practice).
PUBLICATIONS & CONFERENCES
"Networked landscapes: early postcards, communication practices, and experiments with genre." Paper given at Portable Landscapes conference, University of Durham, UK, July 2015.
"Cross-town Redux: Mapping and Memory-Work in Urban Art Practices." Paper presented at Time, Art & Cartography, Milan, December 2014.
"Joyce Wieland: Life and Work." Art Canada Institute Online Project, 2014. WEB
"The Kaleidoscope Pavilion." In Reimagining Cinema: Film at Expo 67. Edited by Monika Kin Gagnon and Janine Marchessault. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014. PDF
"Melanie Smith’s Regime of Unruly Things." In Melanie Smith: Short Circuit. Stuttgart: Villa Merkel, 2013. 38-43. PDF
"The Storm Room." OTP, No. 1 (September 2013).
"Activist Ghosts and Unruly Objects: Episodes in Urban Visual Culture." Lecture given at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax, 2012.
"Buckminster Fuller at Expo 67." Paper delivered at "Fuller in Montreal" symposium at Dawson College, Montreal, April 2012.
"Impressions fugitives: pleinairismes d'heir et d'aujoud'hui / Something Fleeting: Old and New Pleiniairisms." À ciel ouvert: le nouveau pleinairisme, exhibition catalogue. Québec: Musée du Québec, 2012. 27-33 + 103-06. PDF
"Long Term Forecast." In Climats (Climates) Jocelyne Alloucherie, exhibition catalogue. Ottawa: Carleton University Art Gallery, 2012. 31-60. PDF
"Parc Belmont Flashback: André Forcier's La Comtesse de Baton Rouge." In (Re)Discovering 'America': Road Movies and Other Travel Narratives in North America. Edited by Wilfried Raussert and Graciela Martínez-Zalce. Trier: WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2012. 45-54. PDF
"Objets courants, matériaux énigmatiques / Everyday Objects, Enigmatic Materials." La triennale québécoise 2011: le travail qui nous attend. Montreal: Musée d’art contemporain, 2011. PDF
"From Genre to Genre: Image Transactions in Contemporary Canadian Art." How Canadians Communicate III: The Issue of Pop Culture. Edited by Rebecca Sullivan et al. Athabasca: Athabasca University Press, 2010. PDF
"For the Birds: Mark Dion’s Anti-landscape Artwork." Paper given before Critical Landscape Studies panel, Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Concordia University, June 2010.
Joyce Wieland’s The Far Shore. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010. PDF
"The New Figuration: From Pop to Postmodernism." In Canadian Art in the Twentieth Century. Edited by A. Whitelaw, B. Foss and S. Paikowsky. Don Mills: Oxford University Press, 2010. PDF
"Postcards and the chromophilic visual culture of Expo 67." In Expo 67: Not Just a Souvenir. Edited by Rhona Richman Kenneally and Johanne Sloan. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010. PDF
"Roni Horn’s Portrait of an Image: Revisiting “The Art of Reading Faces”." In Udine Permanent Seminar on History of Film XVI, conference publication. Udine, 2010.
"Modern Moon Rising: Imagining Aerospace in Early Picture Postcards." In Strange Spaces: Geographical Explorations into Mediated Obscurity. Edited André Jansson and Amanda Lagerkvist. London: Ashgate Press, 2009. PDF
"Something Resembling Childhood: Artworks by Jack Chambers, Daniel Barrow and Rodney Graham." In Depicting Canada’s Children. Edited by Loren Lerner Waterloo: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2009. PDF
"Bill Vazan’s Urban Coordinates." In Bill Vazan: Walking into the Vanishing Point. Montreal: VOX Gallery, 2008. PDF
"Janet Werner and the Surface of things." In Janet Werner Paintings, exhibition catalogue. Montreal: Parisian Laundry Gallery, 2008. PDF
"At Home on the Street: Public Art in Montreal and Toronto." In Urban Enigmas: Montreal, Toronto, and the Problem of Comparing Cities. Edited by J. Sloan. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007. 213-38. PDF
"Countercultural War Machines in Montreal: Greg Curnoe’s "Dorval Mural" and the Ti-Pop Submarine at Expo 67." Paper delivered at the Association of Art Historians conference, University of Ulster, Belfast, April 2007.
"Joyce Wieland and Michael Snow: Conceptual Landscape Art." In Beyond Wilderness: The Group of Seven, Canadian Identity, and Contemporary Art. Edited by John O’Brian and Peter White. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007. 73-84. PDF
"A human figure in full stride..." Randal Anderson’s Zoom! Montreal: FOFA Gallery, 2006.
"Landscape Immersions: Lynne Marsh’s Performative Spaces." Art Papers, Vol. 30, No. 2 (March/April 2006): 34-39. PDF
"The Great Escape." In Bill Burns: Safety Gear for Small Animals, exhibition catalogue. Montreal: Lian and Danny Taran Gallery, 2005. 32-51. PDF
"Joyce Wieland at the Border: Nationalism, the New Left, and the Question of Political Art in Canada, circa 1971." Journal of Canadian Art History, Vol. 26 (2005): 80-107. PDF
Montreal at Street Level: Revisiting the material, spatial and visual cultures of the 60s. Organizer of conference (with Rhona Richman Kenneally), co-sponsored by Concordia University and the Canadian Center for Architecture. 2005.
"SYN: Appropriating the Megastructure." CV Photo, 69 (October 2005): 12-13. PDF
"Biennialism in Montréal." Public, No. 22-23 (Special Issue on City Scenes), (January 2002): 123-39. PDF
"Hallucinating Landscape, Canadian-style." In Peter Doig, exhibition catalogue. Vancouver: Belkin Art Gallery, 2001. 10-14. PDF
"Outside Matters." In Elusive Paradise: The Millennium Prize, exhibition catalogue. Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 2001. 37-54. PDF
"Rainbows and other Ruins: Peter Doig’s Paintings."In Afterall. London: Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, May 2000. 85-94. PDF
"Space-Age Slow Motion." In Gravity Duet: Video Installations by Nina Levitt, exhibition catalogue. Toronto: Toronto Photographers Workshop, 1999. 12-22. PDF
"Peindre la ville, peindre la mutabilité / Painting the City, Painting Mutability." In Eleanor Bond, exhibition catalogue. Montreal: Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, 1998. 25-31 + 38-41. PDF
"Eleanor Bond's Social Centres: Natural Sights and Millennial Landscapes." In Social Centres: Eleanor Bond. Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1993. 41-48. PDF
"Fake Animals, Anthropomorphism, and other Travesties of Nature." Parachute, No. 72 (October 1993): 18-21. PDF
"The Provisional Stillness of Photographic Space." In Social Studies, Still Lives exhibition catalogue. Montreal: Mois de la Photo, 1993. PDF
"Fastwurms and the Art of Recycling Canadian Landscape." Parachute, No. 63 (July 1991): 60-61. PDF
"Fragments in a Narrative (Review of Bill Burns at Galerie Chantal Boulanger)." ETC Montreal, No. 15 (Summer 1991): 42-43. PDF
THESIS SUPERVISION
MASTER'S SUPERVISION
Mojeanne Behzadi (in progress)
Andromachi Gagas (in progress)
Dario Re (in progress)
Megan Bradley, MA, 2013
Thesis: Negotiating the Global
Anne-Marie Proulx, MA, 2013
Thesis: Raymonde April. Voyages dans l’archive et autres histoires
Gwen Baddeley, MA, 2013
Thesis: Street Art Photography: Mapping the Interstices of Urban Experience
Isa Tousignant, MA, 2013
Thesis: Plush Love: Animal Anthropomorphism in Contemporary Art
Karolina Tomaszewska, MA, 2012
Thesis: Autobiographic Narrative in Drawings by Napachie and Annie Pootoogook
Wahsontiio Cross, MA, 2011
Thesis: Louis Karonhiaktajeh Hall & the Art of Resistance
Stephanie D'Amico, MA, 2011
Thesis: Reviewing Realism: Eric Fischl, Will Cotton and the Legacy of American Photorealism
Viola McGowan, MA, 2011
Thesis: No One Has A Monopoly Over Sorrow: Representing Trauma and the Everyday in Contemporary Art
Robin Simpson, MA, 2011
Thesis: What We Got Away With: Rochdale College and Canadian Art in the Sixties
Maria Noel Secco, MA, 2010
Thesis: Neo-Mexicanism and NAFTA: Exhibiting National Identity
Gentiane Bélanger, MA, 2008
Thesis: Points of Interest at the Center for Land Use Interpretation: A Tour in the Margins of Social Ecology
Zoë Chan, MA, 2008
Thesis: Wild Boys: Primitivism and Male Youth in Larry Clark's Photography and Films
Geraldine Davis, MA, 2008
Thesis: On Ewen's Moons
Eve De Garie-Lamanque, MA, 2008
Thesis: L'Esthetique de la trace anonyme. Étude comparative des cas de Betty Goodwin et de Christian Boltanski
Tatiana Mellema, MA, 2008
Thesis: Big Dirty Secrets: The Works of Paul McCarthy and Mike Kelley
Merrilee Wolsey, MA, 2008
Thesis: Perceiving Sound Waves: An Auditory Exploration of Image, Sculpture and Architecture
Amanda Beattie, MA, 2006
Thesis: The Crossroads and Ecology: The New Landscapes of Robert Smithson, Edward Burtynsky and Susan Liebovitz Steinman
Laurent Piché-Vernet, MA, 2006
Thesis: En Temps et Lieu, le programme d'art public de la Vancouver Art Gallery et les dynamiques urbaines
Tanina Drvar, MA, 2005
Thesis: Vandalism and Public Art in Montreal: A Discussion of Works by Mark Lewis and Robert Prenovault
Anja Bock, MA, 2004
Thesis: Exhibiting Trauma: Ydessa Hendeles at the Haus Der Kunst in Munich
Stephanie Gibson, MA, 2004
Thesis: Jeff Wall and The Painter of Modern Life: Modernity, Contemporary Photography, and the Challenge of Postmodernism
DOCTORAL SUPERVISION
Bruno Andrus (in progress)
Thesis: Le développement de la pratique artistique du verre soufflé au Québec dans le contexte d'Expo 67
Caroline Beaudoin (in progress)
Andrew Forster Humanities (Primary supervisor, in progress)
Rachel Harris (in progress)
Martha Robinson (in progress)
Felicity Tayler, Humanities (Primary Supervisor, in progress)
Thesis: Constellation and Correspondences: The Page as Alternative Space in the Canadian Cultural Imagination
Fiona Annis, PhD Humanities, 2014
Thesis: Seeking the After-Image: Swan Songs, Place, and the Photographic Image
Michael Rattray, PhD, 2014
Thesis: Functional Anarchism(s) and the Theory of Global Contemporary Art
Mark Clintberg, PhD, 2013
Thesis: Food, Crime, and Ornament: Representations and Actions Toward Ingestion in Contemporary Art
Adad Hannah, PhD Humanities, 2013
Thesis: Extending the Instantaneous: Pose, Performance, Duration, and the Construction of the Photographic Image from Muybridge to the Present Day
Charles Gagnon, PhD (Co-Supervisor), 2012
Thesis: Touching and Making: Encounters with Matter
Peter Conlin, Humanities (Co-Supervisor), 2011
Thesis: The Radical Mundane and Mundane Radicals: Cultural Self-Organization and London Social Centres
Luke Nicholson, PhD, 2011
Thesis: Anthony Blunt and Nicholas Poussin: A Queer Approach
Anna Wacławek, PhD, 2009
Thesis: From Graffiti to the Street Art Movement: Negotiating Art Worlds, Urban Spaces, and Visual Culture, c. 1970-2008
Anja Bock, PhD, 2009
Thesis: The Crossover of New Media Immersion and Site-Specificity: Contemporary Art and Spatial Experience
Ted Hiebert, PhD Humanities (Co-Supervisor), 2007
Thesis: In Praise of Nonsense: Aesthetics, Uncertainty and Postmodern Identity
POSTDOCTORAL SUPERVISION
Petra Halkes, PhD
Art History, 2003-2005
