Images clockwise from left: Josh Basseches. Courtesy Peabody Essex Museum. Photo: Kathy Tarantola; studios in the Banff Centre; Norman Takeuchi, Sudden Showers No. 2, 2009. Photo: Canada Council Art Bank.
Our editors’ weekly roundup of Canadian art news.
Josh Basseches has been hired as director and CEO of the Royal Ontario Museum. Basseches comes from the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, and previously held positions at the Harvard Museum of Natural History and TDC, a non-profit consulting firm. Basseches will be taking over from the ROM’s previous CEO, Janet Carding, who left the institution in March.
Artist-Run Centres and Collectives of Ontario (ARCCO) have awarded their Emerging Cultural Leader Awards to arts administrator and musician Holly Cunningham, artist and arts administrator Jenna Faye Powell and artist Lora Northway. ARCCO also announced that artist and educator Clive Robertson was awarded the Achievement Award, which is given in recognition of “his longstanding contribution to artist-run culture and cultural production.”
The Canada Council for the Arts has begun digitizing the Art Bank collection, which was established in 1972 and contains more than 17,000 works valued at over $71 million. The digitized collection is searchable through a variety of options, including the option to “ask an art consultant” for assistance in finding a particular work, or filter various featured collections.
The Banff Centre and the Hnatyshyn Foundation have launched a residency for emerging artists from Atlantic Canada. The annual program—which has a commitment for three years—will bring one Atlantic artist for an eight-week, self-directed residency at the Banff Centre, valued at $30,000. The program was created with support from the Harrison McCain Foundation.
Stephane Dion’s decision to switch out portraits of Queen Elizabeth II for a pair of paintings by Quebec Modernist Alfred Pellan in the lobby of the Foreign Affairs headquarters made national headlines this week. In 2011, then foreign affairs minister John Baird removed the Pellan paintings and replaced them with the Queen’s portrait. The Monarchist League of Canada met the recent reversal with chagrin.
