Babak Golkar, Time to Let Go…, 2014. Site-specific installation at Vancouver Art Gallery Offsite, April 25 to September 28, 2014. Photo: Rachel Topham, Vancouver Art Gallery.
Our editors’ weekly roundup of Canadian art news.
The reinstallation of a controversial sculpture by artist Pierre Ayot has been stalled in Montreal, after mayor Denis Coderre became concerned about potential offence. The work, which replicates the Mount-Royal cross tipped on its side, was first installed in 1975, but was taken down a few days later after then-mayor Jean Drapeau ordered it destroyed. A forthcoming retrospective of Ayot’s work, organized by the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, includes a reproduction of the sculpture. Coderre is concerned about the work’s proximity to the Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph convent, and wants the work installed in a different site.
The Southern Alberta Art Gallery and the University of Lethbridge have released tributes this week to art historian Dr. Leslie Dawn, who passed away on September 18. Dr. Dawn was a professor at the University of Lethbridge, where his research focused on the constriction of Canadian national identities, colonial landscapes and Indigenous resistance to their representation in works by the Group of Seven. His book National Visions, National Blindness: Canadian Art and Identities in the 1920s was published in 2006 through UBC Press and was awarded the Raymond Klibansky Prize for best English work in the humanities.
Vancouver–based artist Babak Golkar will be participating in the Davidoff International Art Residency in 2017, which will take place at the Altos de Chavón in La Romana, Dominican Republic. While there, Golkar will work with residents and local creatives on the topic of alternative economic models, “with the goal of initiating a collaborative narrative toward community contribution alongside a representative manufactured object.” Golkar is currently showing at Edel Assanti in London and Sabrina Amrani Gallery in Madrid.
The Art Gallery of Algoma has received $165,550 in funding for facility upgrades from the federal government’s Canada Cultural Spaces Fund. Sault Member of Parliament Terry Sheehan made the announcement this week, and the gallery’s director Jasmina Jovanovic said that the funding would be used to replace the gallery roof and HVAC system, and upgrade environmental conditions and make the building more energy efficient.
