Images clockwise from left: Chirfi Guindo, president and managing director of Merck Canada Inc. and Nathalie Bondil, director and chief curator of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts with the painting by Jean McEwen. Photo: CNW Group/Merck Canada Inc.; Chantal Pontbriand. Photo: Richard-Max Tremblay; the Centennial Planetarium, future home of Contemporary Calgary.
Our editors’ weekly roundup of Canadian art news.
Montreal curator and writer Chantal Pontbriand has been appointed to the position of CEO at Toronto’s Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art. The gallery is currently relocating to the Tower Automotive Building on Sterling Road, where they will open in 2017 with an expanded mandate. Pontbriand will be responsible for “a comprehensive vision” for the institution, and will develop outreach initiatives and funding structures.
Canadian photographer Don Gutoski has been announced as the winner of the £10,000 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition for his image A Tale of Two Foxes. There were more than 42,000 entries for the international award and, in addition to a Canadian winner, two more Canadians were recognized: Connor Stefanison garnered the Rising Star Portfolio Award and Josiah Launstein was selected as a finalist in the under-10 category. The winning images will be shown in an exhibition travelling to the Royal Ontario Museum on November 21.
Merck Canada Inc. donated a painting by Quebec artist Jean McEwen to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts on Wednesday. McEwen was originally trained as a pharmacist, hence the connection with Merck Canada Inc., a pharmaceutical company. The piece was received by the MMFA’s chief curator, Nathalie Bondil, and will join the gallery’s holdings of work by other Quebec abstract painters, including Jean Paul Riopelle and Paul-Émile Borduas.
Contemporary Calgary has released plans for its new gallery, which will be located in the city’s Centennial Planetarium. The gallery was granted occupancy of the planetarium in May 2014; since then, the city and gallery have devised a multi-stage plan that begins with Temporary Contemporary, a 7,000-square-foot space in the planetarium’s outbuilding that will have four movable walls. Temporary Contemporary is slated to open in 2016, and the gallery is working to fundraise $500,000 necessary for renovations. The more expanded, permanent version of the gallery is in the works for 2018.
