Students at work at George Reid House, the original 1921 campus building of the Ontario College of Art (OCA), with instructor Gustav Hahn in 1933–34.
Our editors’ weekly roundup of art news.
Fanny Huard has won the 2017 Emerging Digital Artists Award. The award showcases emergent talent in the realms of video, animation, GIFs and graphic design. This year marks the award’s third year, and the first presented in partnership with Trinity Square Video, where the finalists’ work is on view until today. The award finalists are Fallon Simard, Micaela González, Amanda Low and Pipo Pierre-Louis. The jurists Jennifer Chan, Erin Gee and Emily Fitzpatrick selected Huard’s work for “its clever conceptual engagement with digital culture and demonstration of technical skill in the artist’s use of digital media.” The designer and GIF artist graduated in graphic design from the Université du Québec à Montreal, where she specialized in animation. (Akimbo)
The Art Gallery of Guelph announced the appointment of Andrew Hunter as its senior curator. “[Hunter] has a proven track record for developing interdisciplinary initiatives that have collaboration, accessibility, and reciprocity at their core—values the gallery holds in highest regard,” states gallery executive director Shauna McCabe. Last month, Hunter resigned from his post as Frederik S. Eaton Curator of Canadian Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario, citing the AGO’s lack of commitment to diversity. (Press release)
OCAD University has received $1 million from the Government of Canada to refurbish the historic George Reid House. The building is the original 1921 campus of the Ontario College of Art, as it was then known. The $3 million refurbishment will add new event and meeting spaces. It will also restore the west-side portico, which the university will rename to be the Canada 150 Portico, “as an acknowledgement of Canada’s history, and a symbol of the importance of the institution in Canadian history and culture,” according to a press release. (CBC)
Work on the Winnipeg Art Gallery’s (WAG) $65-million Inuit Art Centre has begun despite the Manitoba government’s reluctance to confirm a $15-million contribution made by a previous administration in 2015. The new 3,700-square-metre facility will be a permanent space for the gallery’s collection of contemporary Inuit art. While the current WAG building can only show 1 per cent of its collection of 13,000 pieces, which the gallery says is the largest in the world, the new building will have the capacity to exhibit up to half of the collection at any given time. (Globe and Mail)
Victoria artist-run centre Open Space Arts Society announced Kegan McFadden as its executive director, effective November 1. The Winnipeg-based critic, curator and administrator holds a master’s degree in critical and curatorial studies from the University of British Columbia, has held positions with Plug In ICA and Platform Centre for Photographic + Digital Arts, and is the founding director of Window, Winnipeg’s only 24-hour artist-run space. His recent exhibition of discontinued 1990s arts magazines, “Yesterday was Once Tomorrow (or, A Brick is a Tool),” made stops at the Plug In ICA, Artexte in Montreal, and the Walter Phillips Gallery at the Banff Centre. McFadden succeeds Helen Marzolf, Open Space’s executive director since 2005, who is retiring.
