A view of the Montreal skyline. Photo: Taxiarchos228 via Wikimedia Commons.
Our editors’ weekly roundup of art news.
Montreal is getting its first major international art fair in June next year. ArtMontreal will include 60 galleries from North America and Europe, with 70 percent of the participating galleries being Canadian, making it the third major modern and contemporary art fair in the country, after Art Toronto and Art! Vancouver. The fair is being organized by ShowHamptons, the American event producers formerly behind such fairs as ArtHamptons and the Palm Springs Fine Art Fair. The inaugural event will be held from June 1 to June 3 at Place Bonaventure, the Brutalist 85,000-square-foot convention centre in downtown Montreal. The full list of exhibitors has not been released yet. (Artnet)
The Remai Modern in Saskatoon is receiving “one of the largest donations to the arts in Canada’s history.” The gallery announced before its October 21 opening that philanthropist and namesake Ellen Remai is donating a new gift that will bring her foundation’s total pledged contributions to the museum to $103 million. The Frank and Ellen Remai Foundation is giving $1 million a year for art purchases for the next 25 years, while also matching eligible donations to the museum to a maximum of $1 million a year. Remai’s previous major gifts to the museum include: $16 million for the building, $15 million for international programming, $2 million for acquisitions, and a $20-million purchase of Picasso linocut prints. (press release)
Artist Rosalie Favell is the 2017 recipient of the $30,000 Paul de Hueck and Norman Walford Career Achievement Award for Art Photography. It was presented to her on October 19 at OCADU and the Art Gallery of Ontario’s conference Entangled Gaze: Indigenous and European Views of Each Other, where she was a featured speaker. Favell is a Winnipeg-born, photo-based artist who draws from her family history and Métis heritage, using family albums and popular culture to present a complex self-portrait of an Indigenous woman. Her works have been acquired by the National Gallery of Canada and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. The jury comprised of Toronto photographer Lise Beaudry, Montreal photographer Scott Benesiinaabandan and Victoria curator Michelle Jacques. Previous winners include Jeff Wall and Moyra Davey. (press release)
The winner of the CASV’s 2017 Artist Prize is Jeneen Frei Njootli. The Vuntut Gwitchin artist was awarded $10,000. The other two finalists for this year’s prize were Alexine McLeod and Tiziana La Melia. The CASV Artist’s Prize was established in 2011 to encourage and support artists within the first five years of their careers, and is the only one of its kind in Vancouver. (press release)
Newfoundland and Labrador artists are concerned about the future of their provincial art gallery. The loss of a dedicated gallery director/chief curator is causing outcry among important local arts organizations. “We consider these changes to be part of a larger agenda to strip the gallery of structure, autonomy and its vital role,” says artist Diana Chisholm. (Canadian Art)
Paulette Gagnon, a driving force in Ontario’s Francophone arts scene, has died. Gagnon was head of the Franco-Ontarian section of the Ontario Arts Council and executive director of the Associations des theatres francophones due Canada. In her home base of Sudbury, she was a key contributor to the city’s cultural plan and to its new Place des Arts development. She was involved with Le Regroupement des organismes culturels de Sudbury and Le Théâtre du Nouvel-Ontario. She was 62. (Sudbury.com)
Truck Contemporary Art in Calgary announced curator and filmmaker Jessie Short as its new programming coordinator. Short has a master’s degree from Brock University, where her thesis focused on contemporary Métis visual culture. Short was executive director of the Aboriginal Curatorial Collective from 2012 to 2015 and currently works with Ociciwan Contemporary Art Collective, an Indigenous-led arts organization based in Edmonton. Short has directed two short films: Wake Up! (2015) and Sweet Night (2016). (press release)
Toronto dealer Katzman Contemporary is ceasing operations on October 28. The final exhibition is “Standing Under Mis,” a collaboration with Marla Hlady, Christof Migone, Chloë Lum and Yannick Desranleau. Director Marianne Katzman will be joining Stephen Bulger Gallery as sales representative. (press release)
And in case you somehow missed it: Ursula Johnson won the Sobey Art Award, while Judy Anderson picked up the Salt Spring Prize.
