A map drawn by one of the students of the Nk’Mip day school in the Okanagan Valley. Photo: Jaimie Kehler, CBC.
INDIGENOUS ART
An exhibition of Indigenous children’s art has opened in Kelowna.“Our Lives Through Our Eyes: Nk’Mip Children’s Art” is being held at the Kelowna Art Gallery and the Okanagan Heritage Museum. “It was put together with the help of the Osooyos Indian Band, which the children of the day school belonged to,” CBC reports. According to sources, “this is the first exhibition of day school art in Canada to be on display since the federal courts approved a class-action lawsuit proposed by former day school students, also known as ‘day scholars,’ suing the federal government for mistreatment during their time at day schools.” (CBC)
Taqralik Partridge has joined Inuit Art Quarterly as its inaugural Inuit Editor-at-Large. Originally from Kuujjuaq, Nunavik, and now based in Kautokeino, Norway, Partridge has in the past overseen publications at Avataq Cultural Institute. She also recently co-curated the exhibition Tunirrusiangit: Kenojuak Ashevak and Tim Pitsiulak at the Art Gallery of Ontario. (Inuit Art Quarterly)
AWARDS AND HONOURS
The Art Gallery of Alberta will host the 2019 Sobey Art Award exhibition and award ceremony. The Edmonton gallery will open the show October 5, and hold the award ceremony on November 15. (Galleries West)
Nora N. Khan has won the Islands Writing Residency. Khan will spend a month on Fogo Island as part of Fogo Island Arts’ residency program, followed by two weeks on Toronto Island at Artscape Gibraltar Point. The residency will culminate in a small publication published and distributed by Art Metropole. Khan, a faculty member at RISD in Providence, is known for writings on digital culture published in Rhizome, Flash Art, Mousse and other outlets. (press release)
SHIFTING POSITIONS
Rosina Buckland is the ROM’s new curator of Japanese art and culture. Buckland will be responsible for developing and implementing strategy to build, manage, and interpret the ROM’s collection of Japanese art and culture, said to be the largest collection of its kind in Canada. Buckland has previously worked at the National Museum of Scotland and the British Museum. She will begin her role later in 2019. (press release)
Brett Oland has departed his role as CEO of the Whyte Foundation, which supports the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies. “Brett Oland has resigned as CEO of the Peter and Catharine Whyte Foundation after seven years for a new role as interim CEO with the Bow Valley Credit Union,” Galleries West reports. “The foundation’s board of directors has appointed board member Rod Green, who owned and managed Masters Gallery in Calgary for more than 30 years, as interim CEO.” (Galleries West)
Shannon Stratton has resigned as chief curator of Museum of Arts and Design in New York. The Canadian curator and ACAD alumni plans to, as Artforum reports, “resume her work as an independent organizer and writer and is preparing to launch Slow Frequency, an international network of site-responsive art interventions and events. She is also completing a book on artist and designer Harry Bertoia’s Sonambient barn, which will be published by Soberscove Press.” (Artforum)
MUSEUM ACCESS
Vancouver Art Gallery becomes first BC museum to offer regular described tours for people with vision loss. The gallery now offers live described tours the first Saturday of each month. The tours are done in partnership with VocalEye. (press release)
The Museum in Kitchener is offering free admission through March 1 in exchange for donations of coats and boots. The museum is partnering with House of Friendship on the initiative. One free admission will be awarded for each coat or pair of boots donated. (press release)
COMMERCIAL UPDATES
Catriona Jeffries has released details of her new space. After months of renovations, the gallery will open its new space at 950 East Cordova on February 9. The inaugural exhibition is titled “Unexplained Parade” and features dozens of artists, including Trisha Brown, Michael Snow, Geoffrey Farmer and On Kawara, among others. (press release)
The Art Vancouver fair will return in April. The fifth edition of the fair will take place April 25 to 28 at the Vancouver Convention Centre. (Galleries West)
CANADA-US CONNECTIONS
The Dallas Museum of Art has acquired a work by Wanda Koop in advance of her solo show there this fall. The Winnipeg painter’s In Absentia (Deep Blue-White) (2017) was part of her 2017 solo show at Los Angeles’ Night Gallery. Koop will have a solo show at the Dallas Museum of Art in fall 2019. The painting will go on view prior to that, in April 2019. (press release)
Hilary Weston’s Florida gallery continues to collaborate with London’s Royal Academy of Arts. The gallery, called Windsor, recently opened an exhibition by Michael Craig Martin. It’s part of a three-year partnership between Windsor and the Royal Academy in which academicians have extended exhibitions at the space. (Art Newspaper)
In case you missed it: In our other reporting this week we covered the fact that Shuvinai Ashoona won the $50,000 Gershon Iskowitz Prize; that Ai Weiwei has spoken out in response to tensions between Canada and China; that Vancouver Art Gallery staff have voted to strike after being without a contract since 2017; that NSCAD University staff have also voted to strike; and that Rita Letendre and Hannah Claus have received Eiteljorg Fellowships.
This text was updated on February 5, 2019, with the use of the terminology “described tours” rather than “audio-described tours.”
