Gary Hall, founding director of Gallery TPW, will receive the Sandra Tulloch Award for Innovation in Arts and Culture on May 5.
Theatre Ontario’s 2014 Sandra Tulloch Award for Innovation in Arts and Culture has been awarded to Gary Hall, in recognition of 34 years of leadership on behalf of artist-run culture, and initiatives that include Gallery TPW, Artist-Run Centres and Collectives of Ontario, the CARFAC Copyright Collective, and ArtsBuild Ontario.
Gary Hall is the founding director of Gallery TPW, established in 1980 to provide support and recognition for photography as an art form. Gallery TPW has premiered the work of countless Canadian and international artists. In spring 2013, it featured one of the first North American solo shows by Laure Prouvost, who went on to win the 2013 Turner Prize.
Hall also co-founded Artist-Run Centres Toronto, which became Artist-Run Centres and Collectives of Ontario, a provincial arts service organization. As a founding member of the CARFAC Copyright Collective, he helped secure exhibition rights for visual artists within federal legislation. He was also a founding member of ArtsBuild Ontario, working to address capital infrastructure needs of small and mid-sized arts organizations.
“It’s an honour to be recognized with this award, especially since it is named after someone I know and have the deepest respect for,” Hall said in a Theatre Ontario press release. “Artist-run centres were founded by artists who banded together to change the system by creating spaces where artists could produce and exhibit their work. By paying artists to exhibit we have upheld the rights of artists to earn a living at their profession. I’ve always believed in extending those principles by working collectively with other artist-run centres and with my colleagues in other disciplines to tackle the bigger challenges that face artists and arts organizations today.”
The award will be presented to Hall on May 5 at Theatre Ontario’s annual meeting at the Urbanspace Gallery in Toronto. The award, named for a past executive director of Theatre Ontario, is presented annually to an individual or a collective whose leadership, activism, and service has contributed to the development and strengthening of arts and culture in Ontario.
