June Clark
Witness
April 3—August 31, 2025
June Clark: Witness is the first survey in Canada of the Toronto-based artist June Clark, who, since the late 1960s, has developed a unique and groundbreaking practice spanning photo-based work, text, collage, installation, and sculptural assemblages. Born in Harlem, New York, Clark immigrated to Canada in 1968 and subsequently made Toronto her home. The questions of identity formation and their connection to our points of origin fuel her practice. In this deeply personal exhibition, she explores how history, memory, and identity—both individual and collective—have established the familial and artistic lineages that shape her work.
Organized by The Power Plant, June Clark: Witness brings together four significant bodies of work that stretch from the 1990s to the present, many of them seen here for the first time. These include her iconic installations Family Secrets, 1992, and Harlem Quilt, 1997, a series of photo-based works from 2004 titled 42 Thursdays in Paris, Perseverance Suite (a new project the artist began in 2021), and Homage, a collection of sculptural assemblages that, in Clark’s words, “gave me permission to be the artist I am today.”
The exhibition also includes a body of work titled Unrequited Love, that is dedicated to Colin Rand Kaepernick, the football quarterback who knelt during the national anthem in 2016 to call attention to the continued violence towards and oppression of Black people in America and around the world. Initially presented at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) in tandem with June Clark: Witness at The Power Plant, Unrequited Love will be shown as part of this iteration of Witness at Contemporary Calgary.
June Clark: Witness is curated by Adelina Vlas & Frances Loeffler.
Initiated, organized and circulated by The Power Plant
Upcoming Programs
Program Archive
About the Artist
June Clark
(she/her)
June Clark (b. 1941, New York City) has earned national and international recognition for herphoto-based image works, installations and interventions. She holds a BFA and MFA from York University. Clark has had solo exhibitions at the Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto; Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota; the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; The Koffler Gallery, Toronto; and Mercer Union, Toronto. Clark’s work has been included in exhibitions at the Polygon Gallery, Vancouver; the University of Toronto Art Museum, Toronto; the Art Gallery of Ontario; the Textile Museum, Toronto; the National Gallery of Canada Ottawa; Agnès b., Paris; and Linda Kirkland Gallery, New York. She has completed residencies at the Studio Museum, Harlem; and the Ontario College of Art and Design, Toronto. Her work can be found in the collections of the Art Gallery of Ontario; the Wedge Collection, Toronto; the National Gallery of Canada; the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection, New York; the James Van Der Zee Institute, New York; and La galerie du jour agnès b, among others. The artist lives and works in Toronto, Canada.
About the Curators
Adelina Vlas, Head of Curatorial Affairs, The Power Plant
(she/her)
Adelina Vlas is the Head of Curatorial Affairs at The Power Plant, Toronto, where she leads the Exhibitions, Publications, and Public Programs and Outreach teams. At The Power Plant, Vlas has curated Jen Aitken: The Same Thing Looks Different and Meriem Bennani: Life on the CAPS. Previously, Vlas was Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, where she organized special exhibitions and collection-based shows such as As If Sand Were Stone: Contemporary Latin American Art from the AGO Collection (2017), Hito Steyerl: This Is The Future (2019), and Haegue Yang: Emergence (2020). She was also the in-house curator for Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors (2018). Additionally, she has held curatorial positions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
Frances Loeffler, Curator of Exhibitions, The Power Plant
(she/her)
Frances Loeffler is the Curator of Exhibitions at The Power Plant, Toronto. Loeffler has held curatorial positions at arts organizations worldwide, including Oakville Galleries, White Cube, and the Liverpool Biennial. She has extensive experience curating numerous exhibitions, working closely with artists such as Etel Adnan, Sascha Braunig, Helen Cammock, David Hartt, Tamara Henderson, Runa Islam, Allison Katz, Leisure (Meredith Carruthers and Susannah Wesley), Tanya Lukin Linklater, Senga Nengudi, Paul P., and Shannon Te Ao, among many others. Many of her exhibitions have explored the crossover between art and language, and she has a specialized interest in the history of artist gardens.
