Clockwise from left: the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art's new building; O'Born Contemporary; Wendy Coburn, Slut Nation: Anatomy of a Protest (installation view). Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid.
Our editors’ weekly roundup of Canadian art news.
This morning, the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art announced that its new location will be on Sterling Road in the Lower Junction neighborhood of Toronto. MOCCA will leave its current Queen Street West location, where it has been for 10 years, after the closing of their final exhibition, which opens on June 25.
On Wednesday, Art Metropole formally announced the departure of Corinn Gerber, who has been the executive director for almost four years. Before joining Art Metropole, Gerber was head of the bookstore at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal, and a co-founder of Passenger Books.
This week, O’Born Contemporary in Toronto announced that it will close in October 2015. Opened in 2008 at a location near Yonge and Bloor, O’Born Contemporary moved to Ossington Street in 2010, where it represents artists such as Public Studio, John Monteith and Alex Fischer.
Toronto artist and activist Wendy Coburn passed away this week. Coburn was a professor at OCAD University a recently appointed fellow of the Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies at the University of Toronto. She recently had her first major solo exhibition, “Anatomy of a Protest,” at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery. OCAD University has created a scholarship in her memory.
Jocelyn Laurence, the second editor of Canadian Art, passed away last week in Toronto. Laurence took the publication’s reins from Susan Walker, who acted as editor from the magazine’s inception in 1984. Born in 1952, and the daughter of novelist Margaret Laurence, Laurence was raised in Ghana, Vancouver and England, and eventually settled in Toronto, where she established herself as an editor and writer.
Sixteen custodial and administrative workers have been laid off at NSCAD University, leading to student protests. The positions were cut, according to university President Dianne Taylor-Gearing, to balance the school’s budget. The Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union (NSGEU) says the school will contract out the custodial work, while the administrative positions will not be replaced.
