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News / July 18, 2019

News Roundup: An Art-Space Crunch in Montreal

As one gallery attempts to buy its building, another prepares an artwork for demolition by the developer. Plus: the City of Vancouver returns totem poles to Haida Gwaii and there’s a new director for the Capture Photography Festival
The Darling Foundry in Montreal. Photo: Hugo St-Laurent. The Darling Foundry in Montreal. Photo: Hugo St-Laurent.

Many in Canada were mourning the loss of innovative Toronto gallerist Katharine Mulherin this week, who died on Sunday; you can find some of the remembrances in our features section today. A summary of other art news follows.

Art-Space Crunch

Montreal’s Darling Foundry is crowdfunding to buy its building. “As large housing and urban development projects are on the rise in the neighbourhood, the situation has become critical for the Darling Foundry,” says an email. “We have a responsibility to protect a heritage building that has withstood the test of time and made an impact on our current age. We also have a responsibility to support artistic development that is community- and future-oriented.” $125,000 has been secured from Quebec’s Economy and Innovation Ministry to buy the building; the Darling Foundry needs an additional $70,000 before September 2019, when the ministry’s offer will expire. (email campaign)

And another Montreal gallery, VIE D’ANGE, is installing a final artwork to be demolished along with its building. Located at 6820 rue Marconi, the building that houses VIE D’ANGE has been purchased by an American real-estate company and is likely to be demolished soon. For a final project, the gallery invited Toronto artist Alan Belcher to install an updated work from his 1980s Condominiums series—which is itself about real-estate development. Opening July 20, Belcher’s show, called “Condemned,” will remain in the space after the gallerists move out. (emailed release)

International Exhibitions

A new exhibition on Canadian Impressionism opens in Munich this week. The National Gallery of Canada brings the new exhibition “Canada and Impressionism: New Horizons” to the Kunsthalle München as of July 19. According to a release, the exhibition features 121 rarely seen masterworks of Canadian art made between 1880 and 1930. The show will be presented in three European venues before opening in Ottawa in the fall of 2020. (press release)

One Ottawa artist’s work is headed to the Rijksmuseum for a Rembrandt celebration. “Michael Goodson’s portrait of his father, Baroque Dad, was chosen to be part of an exhibition called ‘Long Live Rembrandt’—a survey of Rembrandt’s continuing power to influence contemporary artists,” CBC News reports. The Rijksmuseum show “commemorat[es] the 350th anniversary of the death of Rembrandt.” The show opens July 15. (CBC)

Repatriation Progress

City of Vancouver returns culturally sensitive Haida belongings. “The Museum of Vancouver hosted a cultural ceremony July 2 to mark the repatriation of wrongfully taken cultural belongings to Haida Gwaii,” reports Galleries West. “The belongings include three monumental poles, two from the city’s collection at the museum and another from the University of British Columbia’s Museum of Anthropology, as well as pole fragments and other belongings.” (Galleries West)

A Treaty 6 medal from the 1800s has been returned to community. The medal, which belonged to Chief Red Pheasant, was stolen at his funeral in 1885, APTN News reports. “[It] was taken off his body by an Indian agent and sold to a merchant in England. The Hudson’s Bay Company acquired the medal in 1952. In 2002, the Manitoba Museum found it in a collection it received as a donation from the Bay.” The medal was recently returned to the community in Saskatchewan. (APTN News)

New Shows

A major African portraiture exhibition is coming to the Ryerson Image Centre in Toronto this fall. The show will focus on women, featuring historical portraits as well as more recent works by Zanele Muholi, Grace Ndiritu, Nontsikelolo “Lolo” Veleko and Sue Williamson, among others. The show is curated by New York’s Sandrine Colard and co-produced with the international Walther Collection. (press release)

Shepard Fairey will be doing a massive Vancouver mural soon, coinciding with a new public art series and retrospective there. Titled Earth Justice, Fairey’s new mural will follow on the installation Earth Crisis, which he made in Paris during the 2015 climate talks there, and his 2016 mural Delicate Balance, also made in Paris on related themes in 2016. It kicks off the biennial Surface Series commission, initiated by Christian Chan, and coincides with the early August opening of the Shepard Fairey survey at the Burrard Art Foundation. (Canadian Art)

Awards and Honours

The Power Plant in Toronto has received a $100,000 Warhol Foundation grant. The grant will fund the Arctic/Amazon Symposium on September 19 and 20, co-hosted with OCAD University. The unique symposium will bring together “established and emerging scholars, curators, and Indigenous artists primarily from North American regions of the Arctic and Amazonian zones to meet person-to-person to exchange ideas, share works, and to develop collaborative strategies that centralize traditional Indigenous knowledges for the survivance and thrivance of Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities amidst tumultuous environmental times,” says the project website. (Artnews, Arctic/Amazon)

The Toronto Outdoor Art Fair winners list is out. Significant wins include Eugenia Chan’s securing of the Power Plant Emerging Artist Award, Noelle Hamlyn winning the Catherine Bratty Award for Best of Art Fair, and the Mayor’s Purchase Prize going to Raoul Olou. (press release)

Staffing Changes

Capture Photography Festival in Vancouver has appointed Emmy Lee Wall as the festival’s new executive director. Wall was formerly assistant curator in the curatorial department at the Vancouver Art Gallery. She holds a BA and a law degree from the University of Toronto and a master’s degree from Christie’s Education, University of Glasgow. (press release)

Joyce Rosario is now associate artistic director at Vancouver’s PuSH International Performing Arts Festival. After seven seasons with PuSh, Rosario assumes her new role having recently guided the organization through a period of transition as interim artistic director, from May 2018 through June 2019. The next festival runs January 21 to February 9, 2020. (press release)

There are new board members and board terms at 221A in Vancouver. Board member term length is up from one-year terms to three-year terms. The membership elected Simranpreet Anand, Gillian Siddall and Baharak Yousefi to board of directors alongside re-elected board members Russell Baker, Ross Gentleman, Am Johal, Laura Kozak, Linus Lam and cheyanne turions. (press release)