Images clockwise from left: Terry Nicholson, the interim CEO of Toronto’s MOCA; Peter Doig in his New York studio, June 30, 2013. Photo: George Whiteside; Thunder Bay Art Gallery.
Our editors’ weekly roundup of Canadian art news.
Shortly after news broke that Chantal Pontbriand would be leaving her position as director and CEO of the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto-Canada, the institution’s board of directors have announced that Terry Nicholson was appointed interim CEO on Thursday. Most recently the director of arts and culture for the City of Toronto, Nicholson has led large events like Nuit Blanche and Panamania at Nathan Phillips Square, and has worked on adapting heritage buildings including Artscape Wychwood Barns and Evergreen Brick Works. Nicholson will be overseeing MOCA’s move to its new building on Sterling Road, slated for completion in 2017.
Scottish-born painter Peter Doig, who was raised partly in Canada, is at the centre of a seemingly unprecedented lawsuit over the authorship of a painting. A former corrections officer at the Thunder Bay Correctional Center, Robert Fletcher, claims to have bought the painting from a teenager named Pete Doige, who he believes is Doig, but Doig denies creating the work. Now, Fletcher and a gallerist (to whom Fletcher consigned the painting) are suing Doig for damages, and the case is going to trial next month at United States District Court for Northern Illinois, where Doig will try to prove that he didn’t create the work.
Patkau Architects (Vancouver) and Brook McIlroy Architects (Thunder Bay/Toronto) will design the new Thunder Bay Art Gallery, as announced by the gallery in a press release yesterday. The new gallery building will be located on the shore of Lake Superior on Thunder Bay’s waterfront, which has recently been redeveloped. The gallery announced last week that funding for the purpose-built facility has been secured from federal, provincial and municipal governments. The architectural design for the building will be completed early next summer.
Winnipeg-based artist Wanda Koop was inducted into the Order of Manitoba in a ceremony presided over by Lieutenant Governor Janice Filmon on Wednesday. As the province’s highest honour, the Order of Manitoba recognizes achievement “benefiting in an outstanding manner the social, cultural or economic well being of Manitoba and its residents.” Koop creates installations that often include video, performance and photography, and her work is in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada and the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, among others. She also founded Art City, a community arts centre designed to provide free arts programming and build safe, accessible space for creative thinking for underserved populations in Winnipeg.
