Isabelle Hayeur’s Murs aveugles (Blind walls) (2014), which was removed from the Biennale de Montréal in 2014. Courtesy the artist and Galerie Division, Montreal and Toronto.
Our editors’ weekly roundup of Canadian art news.
Montreal artist Isabelle Hayeur has won a small-claims court case against the Biennale de Montréal. The Quebec courts judgment awards Hayeur $2,000, plus interest, in damages, namely for work days lost to stress and illness, and various costs. As the written judgment indicates, the Biennale originally hoped to project Hayeur’s artwork on a public-facing wall in Montreal’s Quartier des Spectacles from October 8 to November 23, 2014—the entire run of the Biennale. But Hayeur’s work was removed after October 21 because, while the wall was public-facing, it was owned by a private entity that was concerned about the inclusion of fire in Hayeur’s video. Generally, the tribunal found that the Biennale acted in good faith in most of the conflict; however, the court agreed that the Biennale could have done more to publicize the reasons for the work being pulled.
The Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton announced on Tuesday that Stephanie Buhmann will be the 2016 Sheila Hugh Mackay Foundation Critic-in-Residence. The residency, which brings a critic to New Brunswick for a series of studio visits, lectures and workshops, began last year, and the inaugural recipient was Edgar Allen Beem, an art critic based in Brunswick, Maine. Buhmann, who is based in New York City, is a contributing editor at Artcritical and has written for publications including the Brooklyn Rail, the Villager and Hyperallergic.
Toronto gallery Narwhal Projects announced its closure in an email on Thursday. Narwhal Projects originally opened in 2009, and opened a new gallery space with the first Canadian exhibition of Japanese artist Toshio Saeki in the spring of 2012. Directed by Kristin Weckworth and Steven Cober, Narwhal Projects was originally opened to extend the work of Magic Pony, a shop and creative studio that was located on Queen Street West until early 2014. Narwhal Projects represented artists including Souther Salazar, Paul Wackers, Junko Mizuno, Jacob Whibley, Carly Waito and Lauchie Reid.
Nunavut artists and art organizations are gathering in Iqaluit for the All Arts Summit this week, and calling for more arts funding, reports CBC. “Nunavut’s commercial arts and crafts sector generates a total economic impact of $33.4 million annually, according to a 2010 economic impact study,” notes reporter Kieran Oudshoorn, however, there’s a feeling that while the economic impact and international recognition of Nunavut’s art increases, funding remains stagnant. “It seems to me that the budget never changes,” said filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk. ‘As we grow, we get less money. It seems to me that there is something wrong there.”
Saskatoon authors Yann Martel and Alice Kuipers have donated a major sculpture by Saskatoon-area artist Clint Neufeld to the Remai Modern, the gallery announced on Thursday. The work, Screaming Jimmy, the first time we met in that field I knew you were the one (2016), consists of a ceramic engine on a metal hoist. Neufeld, who is based near Osler, has been casting engines in ceramics for the past decade, and has exhibited at the Koffler Gallery in Toronto; Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon; Art Gallery of Grande Prairie; and at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts.
