National Gallery of Canada director Marc Mayer / photo courtesy National Gallery of Canada
In a release today, Shelly Glover, minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, announced the reappointment of Marc Mayer as director of the National Gallery of Canada for a term of five years, effective January 19, 2014.
Mayer was first appointed director of the National Gallery of Canada on January 19, 2009.
As a recent profile in the McGill News indicated, Mayer does not operate in what some might consider the typical public-servant mode.
In the McGill News article, writer Robert Everett-Green speaks with Victor Rabinovitch, a former CEO of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, who states, “Marc began with some of the style and verve of an enfant terrible, speaking brashly with quick and loud laughter…He projected a watch- me message, saying that he would liven up the NGC from its seemingly quiet, academically rooted ways.”
Since Mayer’s arrival at the National Gallery, the institution has launched its Canadian Biennial—a biannual show of recent acquisitions—as well as what is to be a quinquennial show of indigenous art.
In the same period, the NGC has also seen cutbacks and layoffs; 24 positions were reported cut in February 2013, with five curators laid off in 2011 and 27 positions cut in 2010.
Prior to arriving at Canada’s national art gallery, Mayer was director of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal and deputy director for art at the Brooklyn Museum.
