Newsfront
"Newsfront," Summer 2010, pp. 19-20
Trophy Time: Art Prize Update
The Vancouver artist Brian Jungen, whose survey exhibition “Strange Comfort” runs to August 8 at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., was recently awarded the 2010 Gershon Iskowitz Prize. The $25,000 award includes a solo exhibition next year at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Also in Toronto, Dean Baldwin is the recipient of the $10,000 2010 Artist Prize from the Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts. The Toronto/New York artist Brendan Fernandes has been shortlisted for this year’s In the Public Realm art commission, sponsored by New York’s Public Art Fund. Fernandes got another nod at home, joining Kevin Schmidt, Isabelle Pauwels, Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby, Daniel Barrow and BGL, among others, on the long list for the 2010 Sobey Art Award. To see works by the five national Sobey finalists, announced June 15, go to canadianart.ca/sobey2010.
New Digs: Plug In ICA moves this fall
Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art moves to new premises in downtown Winnipeg this fall in tandem with the city’s designation as the Cultural Capital of Canada for 2010. The new facility, located at the corner of Portage Avenue and Memorial Boulevard, will provide Plug In with expanded exhibition and production spaces, room for artist residencies and commissioned work, a bistro and a vestibule gallery space.
“We are really reinventing ourselves on every level,” says Plug In director Anthony Kiendl. “We are creating a new hub for the visual arts in downtown Winnipeg. The spaces are designed to achieve broader exposure and participation and we plan to be open most evenings.”
Though a portion of the building will be up and running in September, the grand opening is scheduled for November 5, in conjunction with a major arts symposium on cities and culture. But Kiendl, whose curatorial work was recently recognized with a Hnatyshyn Foundation Visual Arts Award, is already looking ahead. “We are really excited to be organizing what may be the largest exhibition of contemporary Aboriginal or indigenous art that has ever been mounted internationally. It will open in January, 2011. We are looking forward to a cultural renaissance comparable to those seen in Harlem and Detroit, where in spite of economic hardship and inequality, we see new cultural ideas and voices coupled with political empowerment.”
Gearing Up: Toronto's 2010 Nuit Blanche curators
The curators for this year’s Scotiabank Nuit Blanche all-night art festival, to take place in Toronto on Saturday, October 2, were announced April 15. Spearheading one downtown zone is Gerald McMaster, who will “sculpt the night” with light by gathering projects under the theme “Joy ruled the day, and Love the night.” Winnipeg’s Anthony Kiendl explores art and rock music in a section themed “Sound and Vision,” and Sarah Robayo Sheridan will curate projects on the relationship of past, present and future for “The night of future past.” In the Bay Street business core, Christof Migone will curate an investigation of movement, gridlock and mobility in “Should I Stay or Should I Go.” Lectures and panel discussions are planned for the week leading up to Nuit Blanche to mark the event’s fi fth anniversary; full programming details will be available in July.
Edging East: Vancouver Art Gallery settles on new downtown site
On the heels of a Winter Olympic boom that saw record crowds flocking to the Vancouver Art Gallery, the museum has announced changes to its ambitious plan, now several years in development, to move to a new building. Nixing the False Creek site that the gallery had been eyeing for two years after feasibility studies deemed the waterfront spot unsuitable, the VAG has committed to developing a new, purpose-built museum at 150 Dunsmuir Street, six blocks from the gallery’s current Robson Square location. Gallery director Kathleen Bartels says the VAG is “extraordinarily positive and excited” about the plan. “We feel very strongly that this is the right site for the gallery,” she adds.
The buzz that surrounded the VAG during the Olympics has reignited public debate about the move, with high-profi le fi gures from the worlds of art and urban planning speaking to both sides of the question on the pages of local and national newspapers. Bartels, however, is undeterred by those who want to see the VAG stay put: “I see it as people really caring about the gallery. People love the old courthouse building and it has been seen for so many years as the centre of the city.”
However, that centre is gradually shifting eastward, Bartels argues, also citing the Dunsmuir location’s proximity to many of the city’s other cultural institutions and to the central branch of the Vancouver Public Library. “We have simply outgrown our space,” she states. “The gallery is often severely overcrowded, and there is no theatre, little space for public gatherings and almost no room to display the gallery’s collection. Over the last few years our membership and attendance numbers have swelled, and we have run out of space to meet the community’s needs. We are extraordinarily proud of our program and its success, but believe that the building we currently occupy is holding us back.”
According to Bartels, renovating or expanding the gallery’s current location is impracticable given the building’s heritage status. Negotiations for the as-yet-unsecured Dunsmuir site—which is owned by the city and currently used as a parking lot—are underway; an optimistic timeline would have a new Vancouver Art Gallery opening its doors in fi ve to six years.
Study Hall: 2011 launch for Weston Centre
More change is afoot at the Art Gallery of Ontario: construction began in April on the Weston Family Learning Centre, a new state-of-the-art education complex. The centre was originally intended to be part of the gallery’s Transformation AGO overhaul, but was stalled for financial reasons, then revitalized in February by a $7.5-million funding injection from the federal government—which came with the proviso that the majority of the centre be up and running within a year; the full-fl edged launch will take place in fall 2011. The concourse-level education centre will feature light-filled, fully wired seminar rooms for classes, workshops and exhibitions as well as areas for after-hours social programming. “Ultimately our programs will expand,” says Gillian McIntyre, the AGO’s Adult Program Coordinator. “We’ll have much more flexibility and adaptability.” While most education activities will continue, the Anne Tanenbaum Gallery School will be closed until 2011 to accommodate the project’s fast-tracked construction.
Husky Energy Makes Major Gift to The Rooms
Oil is the story this year at The Rooms in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador. In May, the five-year-old provincial cultural complex will host the Canadian premiere of “Burtynsky: Oil,” a major exhibition by the internationally renowned photographer Edward Burtynsky that was organized by the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The gallery has also just received a $2.5-million corporate gift from Husky Energy; the funds will go toward a 5,600-square-foot exhibition space that will house an extensive display devoted to the province’s cultural history. The Husky money is the largest gift ever made to a cultural institution in Atlantic Canada and reflects the company’s engagement with the province’s offshore Hibernia oil resources. The semi-permanent exhibition, titled “Cultural Tapestry of Newfoundland and Labrador,” will showcase more than 300 years of ethnological and historical artifacts associated with the Inuit, Innu, Mi’kmaq, Metis, European and other settlers.
Letter to the Editor
I agree with the effort behind and meanings (hidden or otherwise) of the works of Althea Thauberger (“War Artist: Althea Thauberger on the cultural front lines,” Spring 2010), but I think it’s a stretch to call her a war artist in the same category as Colville or Varley or A. Y. Jackson. I understand that she travelled to Afghanistan as part of a Canadian war-artist program, but her furthest incursion occurred when she was fl own to a forward operating base in a Griffon helicopter. I’d like to know what happened then. Was she allowed to travel with the troops? What was she allowed to see or do? I am sure the Canadian military is trying to present a positive view of its operations in Afghanistan—anything that can incite negative criticism is to be avoided. Was Thauberger, as a war artist, muzzled by the military? Or has the definition of war artist changed? Are we to view this appellation with post-postmodern rose-tinted glasses, and pretend that female soldiers only have fun in Afghanistan? I’d like to know what Thauberger’s expectations were and what she got in the end. Her images, though good, trivialize the title “war artist” (in the way it was understood in the past), and don’t deal with her “strong views about Canadian foreign policy and the occupation of Afghanistan,” as mentioned in your article.
PETER HARMATHY Barrie, ON
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