News Roundup: Suspect Arrested for Arson at Emily Carr University, Campus Reopens

Last week we highlighted a fire at Emily Carr University of Art and Design that closed the school to students for 10 days. More developments in that story this week. Elsewhere, we have also been following a push to get artists and arts workers out to vote; Dana Claxton’s win of the $25,000 Hnatyshyn Foundation Artist Prize; the shortlisting of Canadian artist Allison Katz for the Max Mara Art Prize for Women; and a report out soon about studio space pressures in eastside Vancouver.

Art-School Fire Fallout

Vancouver Police have arrested a man for arson at Emily Carr University. “A 40-year-old Vancouver man has been charged with two counts of break and enter and one count of arson for a fire that damaged Emily Carr University this month,” says a Vancouver Police Department release. “Nathan MacLeod was arrested on October 11, and has been remanded into custody.” MacLeod was due to make an appearance in court October 15. Anyone with further tips or information is asked to call police. (VPD)

University staff say the man charged was not known to be associated with the school previously. “Rob Maguire, director of communications at the university, says the school has no reason to believe that MacLeod was connected with the university and confirmed that MacLeod had never attended, nor did he work there,” CBC reports. (CBC Vancouver)

The university campus has reopened and damaged areas continue to be rehabilitated. “While fire damage was limited to the Research + Industry Office and nearby hallways, the water used to extinguish the fire caused a significant amount of damage to walls and ceilings,” says a university release. “These materials needed to be dried immediately to prevent the growth of mould, which can cause a variety of health effects.” Walls and ceiling purpose-built for an art college may have more complex structure, the university notes. Some archives and slide collections are also being dried and cleaned. (Emily Carr University release and photo gallery)

Indigenous Peoples, Colonization and Museums

Indigenous oral ceremony finalizes historic agreement with the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. On Wednesday, a historic agreement between Kwakwaka’wakw artist Carey Newman (Hayalthkin’geme) and the CMHR through traditional ceremony at Kumugwe, the K’ómoks First Nation Bighouse on Vancouver Island. “The ceremony marks the first time in Canadian history that a federal Crown Corporation has ratified a legally binding contract through Indigenous traditions,” says a museum release. “The groundbreaking agreement governs protection and use of The Witness Blanket, Newman’s powerful art installation made with over 800 items collected from survivors and sites of Indian residential schools across Canada. In an unprecedented process, Kwakwaka’wakw traditions and governance and Western contract law have been given equal weight, vesting rights with the artwork itself as a legal entity that carries the stories of the survivors.” (emailed press release)

Exhibit reunites Inuit with 100-year-old artifacts in Cambridge Bay. “Inuit in Canada’s central Arctic are getting new insight into how their ancestors lived by seeing 100-year-old artifacts on display in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut,” CBC North reports. “The Kitikmeot Heritage Society (Pitquhirnikkut Ilihautiniq), which has a long-term loan agreement with the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Que., unveiled nine new artifacts at its Cambridge Bay museum last month.” Society director Pam Gross said, “They’re historical objects from our culture and we’re bringing them back into our community and giving them the exposure to people again.” The objects were collected during “the first major scientific expedition supported by the Canadian government” to the area from 1913 to 1918. (CBC North)

Remembering Jeffrey Spalding

Canadian artist and curator Jeffrey Spalding had died at the age of 67. On Tuesday, Galleries West, one of the publications he contributed to as a writer over the years, broke the news, stating that Spalding had “suffered a massive stroke on Monday en route from Toronto to Fredericton.” It added: “Spalding had served in numerous roles over the decades, including time as the director of the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery and the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. He worked as chief curator at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton from 2014 to 2017, and, earlier, as artistic director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Calgary.” (Galleries West)

Spalding made significant contributions in the Maritimes. “He has left a large void in Canadian culture and I think we’re all at this moment trying to just come to terms with that now that he’s gone,” said Tom Smart, CEO of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery. “The collections are certainly deeper and much more diverse as a result of his tenure… He was able to acquire some fabulous works of art that really rounded out the collection and built on the gift the Beaverbrook set in place 60 years ago.” Colin Stinson of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia notes that “Under his direction, the gallery acquired over 3,500 artworks, greatly expanding our contemporary Canadian art collection.” (CBC New Brunswick)

He also helped build art scenes in Alberta. “He was one of Canada’s really gifted artists,” said Whyte Museum CEO Donna Livingstone, who was also a president and CEO of the Glenbow for a time, as Spalding was. “He was an amazing artist. He was also one of the most brilliant curators of contemporary art that I know. He was infectious in his enthusiasm and encyclopedic in his knowledge.” Dealer Jarvis Hall said, “He was an absolute marvel to watch…when Jeffrey got it in his mind to do something or that something was important enough to be done, he really, really went after it. He was a massive supporter of artists, a massive supporter of this region of Canada. When he put his mind to things, he could move mountains, literally.” (Calgary Herald)

Remembering Matthew Wong

Internationally recognized, Edmonton-based Canadian artist Matthew Wong has died at the age of 35. He died on October 2. “Family and friends confirmed he died by suicide,” CBC Edmonton reports. “There’s a plain spoken beauty in his work that I think is genuine and earnest,” former Art Gallery of Ontario curator David Moos told CBC. Wong had been diagnosed with autism as a child and at the age of 14, and with depression. He studied art at the City University of Hong Kong and moved to Edmonton with his parents in 2016. A memorial will be held in Edmonton on October 21, while Karma gallery in New York will continue with a previously planned show of Wong’s work, on view from November 8 to December 22. (CBC Edmonton)

Wong was acclaimed, and is missed, in New York. “With just three solo shows and a handful of star turns in group exhibitions, Wong established himself as a quicksilver talent, with an almost preternatural sense for creating gripping, idiosyncratic scenes, which he sometimes populated with a solitary figure (or merely a trace of one, as in the footprints that lead over a snow-covered hill in Winter Nocturne, 2017),” Andrew Russeth writes in Artnews. “He borrowed slivers of ideas from painters of the past two centuries, and used them to create worlds that were strange and a little lonesome, exhilarating and new.” (Artnews)

Wong exhibited at White Columns, Frieze and other venues. “While he was not in London last week during Frieze, he was represented by a gorgeous landscape painting from 2019 at the Karma booth,” says Nate Freeman in a remembrance. (Artnet)

Awards and Honours

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts director Nathalie Bondil receives French Legion of Honour. “At a ceremony at the Museum, Franck Riester, the French Culture Minister, presented Ms. Bondil with the rank of Knight of the Legion. The highest national distinction in France, the Legion of Honour celebrates people with outstanding achievements in their field. The Museum is delighted with this honour, which recognizes its Director General’s exceptional accomplishments and her substantial contribution to the world of culture,” says a release. (MMFA press release)

Arts Nova Scotia and the Creative Nova Scotia Leadership Council have announced artist award winners for this year. Amy Brandon, Raven Davis and Lindsay Dobbin will receive the Emerging Artist Recognition Award. Carol Bruneau and Ariella Pahlke will receive the Established Artist Recognition Award. Arielle Twist will receive the Indigenous Artist Recognition Award. Each artist will receive $5,000 at a celebratory ceremony on November 2. (emailed press release)

Municipal Moves

Victoria ponders affordable housing for artists. It’s a matter not without controversy in that city, where many remain homeless while many buildings are underused. “If the motion means anything, it means that if you are a server or a plumber’s apprentice and you have such and such an income, you get put lower on the list than someone who qualifies in some way as an artist,” said Councillor Geoff Young in Victoria’s Times Colonist. Councillor Ben Isitt took a different tack: “I think we don’t want to create unfairness, but presumably there are other communities that have grappled with…how to implement this [in] a way that’s fair to both artists and others in need of housing.” (Times Colonist)

Calgary may move its public art program out of city hall. “City council suspended the [public art] program in 2017 while it undergoes a review,” CBC Calgary notes. Now, “artists have been invited to public engagement sessions on the future of the program this fall. They have been told that it’s possible council direction and budget cuts will result in the program being managed outside of city hall. No details are available on what that might look like.” A report based on international and local research is due to be tabled with city council in the first quarter of 2020. (CBC Calgary)

Big Transitions

On Kathleen Bartels’s legacy at the Vancouver Art Gallery, and her next steps. The Globe and Mail has published a lengthy opinion piece about Bartels’s achievements from her 18 years leading the gallery. Bartels, who is moving to Southern California, is praised by artist Jeff Wall in the article for revitalizing the institution. “Kathleen’s arrival at the VAG ended a long drab period when the gallery was very poorly directed. She brought the place back to life and began a reinvention process that kept expanding,” Wall wrote. “The gallery once again became a place where people interested in art actually wanted to go.” (Globe and Mail)

“A year after Syrian artist Houssam Alloum’s arrival in Canada, his portrait work is nominated for the Kingston Prize.” That’s the headline on a Globe and Mail story about Alloum, who previously worked as an art director at a television station in Turkey. He portrays foil in his recent hyperrealistic portraits and self portraits to, as he puts it, “see reflections from [our] surroundings because our lives are not just our own; it is touched by people around us.” His painting shortlisted for the prize “depicts Joyce McLaughlin, an 85-year-old resident of Gananoque who has been helping Alloum and his family settle in their new community.” (Globe and Mail)

Staffing Updates

Michelle Schultz has been appointed executive director of Latitude 53 in Edmonton for a three-year term. Schultz has served as interim executive director since October 2018. “During her tenure, Schultz established The Garage space for local emerging artist projects, reinvigorated the gallery publishing program and established the Curator-in-Residence program,” says a gallery release. “Over the coming months, Schultz will be working closely with the Board of Directors to establish a new Strategic Plan for the organization for 2020-25.“ (press release)

Also at Latitude 53, Adam Waldron-Blain has been promoted to the role of program manager. Waldron-Blain has worked with Latitude 53 since 2009. During his tenure, Waldron-Blain has served the gallery in communications and program coordinator roles. Of late, Waldron-Blain has overseen the relaunch of the gallery’s publication program. (press release)