Moyra Davey Hemlock Forest (still), 2016. Courtesy the artist and Murray Guy, New York. Davey is one of the Canadian artists participating in Documenta 14 in Athens, Greece.
Our editors’ weekly roundup of Canadian art news.
The artist list for Documenta 14 in Athens, Greece, which opens April 8, was announced on Thursday. Three Canadians: Rebecca Belmore, Moyra Davey and the recently deceased Beau Dick are included in the programming of the quinquennial, which also opens in Kassel, Germany, in June. According to ARTnews, the reveal was theatrical: “A stage curtain was lifted to reveal all the curators and artists…who were seated in rows, like students at a graduation ceremony.” Also on the international front: Canadian-born, Glasgow-based artist Ciara Phillips will be participating in the 21st Biennale of Sydney, which opens in March 2018.
Edmonton’s Indigenous art park has been officially named: ᐄᓃᐤ (ÎNÎW) River Lot 11∞—a title based on the Cree word for ““I am of the Earth,” and a reference to Métis settler Joseph Mcdonald, whose homestead was in the immediate area of the park. The six artists whose works will be permanently on view in the park, which is slated to open in fall 2018, were announced in 2016: Amy Malbeuf, Tiffany Shaw-Collinge, Duane Linklater, Jerry Whitehead, Marianne Nicolson and Mary Anne Barkhouse. They were selected for the project by curator Candice Hopkins, who is a curator for Documenta 14 and formerly worked as the chief curator of the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
A former convent building in Sydney, Nova Scotia, will be transformed into an arts and culture centre. The renovation was given the go-ahead when Premier Stephen McNeil announced $3.2 million in provincial funding. The project in total will cost $12 million. The building, which is 130 years old and 40,000 square feet, will be renovated on the interior, and include office spaces, studios, shared workspaces and galleries. Called the Cape Breton Centre for Arts, Culture and Innovation, the space is slated to open in late 2018.
Alissa Firth-Eagland has been hired as the new curator for Humber Galleries in Toronto. The galleries, a part of Humber College, have two locations, which Firth-Eagland will be programming: North Space (in the North Campus) and L Space (in the Lakeshore Campus). Firth-Eagland has worked as the curator for Musagetes in Guelph and as the director/curator for Western Front in Vancouver. She will take over from outgoing curator Ashley Watson, who developed the galleries at Humber.
