Public Studio, Road Movie installation, 2011. Courtesy O'Born Contemporary. Photo: Tom Blanchard. Public Studio is among the artists shortlisted for the 2015 AIMIA | AGO Photography Prize.
On Tuesday, 27 artists from Canada and around the world were longlisted for the $50,000 2015 AIMIA | AGO Photography Prize. Established in 2007, the award is determined by a public vote. Longlisted Canadian artists are Scott Conarroe, Barry Doupe, Public Studio, Matt Goerzen, Owen Kydd, Graeme Patterson, Celia Perrin Sidarous and Dawit L. Petros. The exhibition of shortlisted artists begins at the AGO on September 9, 2015, and the public vote will open the same day. The winner will be announced on December 1, 2015, and they will receive $50,000. Each shortlisted artist receives $5,000.
In a report published by the Art Newspaper, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts was the most-visited museum in Canada in 2014 for the second year running, attracting 1,009,648 visitors. The only Canadian museum to garner over 1,000,000 visitors, the MMFA had a notable lead ahead of the only other Canadian institutions on the list: the Royal Ontario Museum (which attracted 934,384 visitors) and the Art Gallery of Ontario (clocking in at 757,462 visitors).
Mary Misner, who has led Cambridge’s Idea Exchange for more than 27 years, is retiring. Misner, the longest-serving director of a public art gallery in the Waterloo region, oversaw a major expansion of the gallery in 1992 and led the gallery to represent Canada in the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2008. She will officially leave the gallery in September of this year.
Yesterday, Mandy Salter was announced as the new director-curator at the Art Gallery of Mississauga. Salter previously worked at the chief curator and collections manager at the Art Gallery of Windsor, and acted as manager of exhibitions at the now-defunct Ydessa Hendeles Art Foundation in Toronto. She will take up her new post in early June.
Quebec City–born photographer Rachelle Bussières received an honourable mention for the 2015 Snider Prize, awarded by the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago. Awarded annually to emerging artists, the cash prize Bussières will receive will go toward purchasing work to be added to the Museum of Contemporary Photography’s collection.
