A rendering of We Are Shaped By The Obstacles We Face, a new memorial in development for Terry Fox on the Toronto waterfront. Rendering by Jon Sasaki and DTAH.
A new Terry Fox memorial is coming to the Toronto waterfront. We Are Shaped By The Obstacles We Face by Jon Sasaki + DTAH is due to be unveiled in Fall 2020. One-storey-high sculpted granite slabs will be placed along a curving pathway. From many perspectives, they will appear as separate elements. But when viewed from west end of the path, they present as a single figure: a silhouette of Fox. (press release)
New artworks by Alex Janvier have been installed in the Alberta legislature in Edmonton. “Sunrise and Sunset, a diptych, was unveiled Monday with an ‘honour song’ featuring traditional Indigenous drummers, a prayer and smudging,” CBC reports. It also notes: “The Alberta Union of Provincial Employees commissioned the work as a gift to Alberta.” Alex Janvier, a residential school survivor, is also known, among other works, for his striking 62-foot dome painting, Morning Star, in the foyer of the Canadian Museum of History. “Janvier said it was an honour to show his work in the ‘house of talk,’ which is how the legislature is described in his language,” CBC reports. “‘I want to congratulate Alberta for [inviting] for the first time our people to come into a place of speaking and to be allowed to be heard,’ he said.” (CBC)
Two new public billboard works in Montreal re-envision the Canadian $100 bill. $100 Bill With South Asian Scientist Added Back In is a work especially conceived by the artist duo Life of a Craphead for Dazibao satellite. “The artists revisit a 2012 controversy around the potential design of a new $100 Canadian bill,” says a release. “The original design, presented in 2012, included the depiction of a scientist. However, after having supposedly received a number of critiques vis-à-vis the scientist appearing too ‘Asian- looking,’ the design was changed in favour of a more ‘ethnically neutral’ (meaning White) depiction—an incident which solicited a formal apology from the Bank of Canada.” The billboards are near Café Cherrier and the Bonsecours Market. (press release)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is commissioning new paintings by Kent Monkman for its Great Hall. A Met release says the new Kent Monkman paintings will be “monumental” in nature. They will be on view from December 19, 2019, through April 12, 2020. Other new commissions and premieres in the same Met announcement are to be by Wangechi Mutu and Ragnar Kjartansson. (press release)
The High Line Network’s New Monuments for New Cities opens at Toronto’s Bentway May 11. The touring public art exhibition will feature 25 artists from Toronto, Houston, Austin, Chicago and New York that explore new monuments for today’s changing social and political landscape. May 11 will also see a related event called the Monuments Summit. The project will run in Toronto, its sole Canadian venue, until August 30. (press release)
Monika Szewczyk is the new director of de Appel in Amsterdam. The former assistant curator at the Vancouver Art Gallery and former instructor at Emily Carr University of Art + Design will head up the art museum starting May 1. Szewczyk was recently a curator for documenta 14: Learning from Athens. (press release)
Lisa Charleyboy is the new manager of Indigenous initiatives and Jocelyn Piirainen is the new assistant curator of Inuit art at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Charleyboy has worked with CBC and City TV, as well as editing Urban Native Magazine, and creating the documentary series Urban Native Girl for APTN. She holds an MBA in Aboriginal Business & Leadership from Simon Fraser University. Piirainen took part in the first-ever Indigenous Curatorial Incubator and went on to curate major exhibitions at SAW Gallery and the Art Gallery of Ontario. She recently worked with the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and the WAG Inuit Art Centre to create an exhibition relating to Inuit sovereignty. Both Charleyboy and Piirainen began their roles at the WAG on March 18. (Winnipeg Art Gallery)
Tak Pham is the new assistant curator at the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina. He holds a BA Hons. in History and Theory of Architecture from Carleton University, and an MFA in Criticism and Curatorial Practice from OCAD University. He has curated exhibitions, projects and public programming at Art Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario, Y+ Contemporary and other venues. He begins May 6. (press release)
Saskatchewan artist Joe Fafard has died. Fafard died on Saturday at the age of 76, the Globe reports. “His work is iconic,” said Anthony Kiendl, executive director and chief executive of the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina, in the Globe. “When travelling elsewhere, if you mention Saskatchewan, Joe Fafard is always the first artist people mention. He’s the one that everyone has heard of.” Fafard’s retrospective at the MacKenzie, the Globe notes, was one of its most popular shows ever. (Globe and Mail)
Halifax craft historian and NSCAD faculty member Sandra Alfoldy has died. According to a post on the NSCAD University website, Sandra Alfoldy died February 24 at the age of 49. “Her research in craft history was unique and established her as a leading academic authority in craft scholarship,” says the NSCAD post. “Her commitment to craft, to the NSCAD Craft Institute, that she co-founded with Prof. Gary Markle and Prof. Rory MacDonald, and her most recent international research curatorial and commissioning project, responding to the dominant history of the Great Exhibition of 1851 from the vantage point of the Commonwealth, will be sorely missed.” In her honour, the university is establishing Dr. Sandra Alfoldy Memorial Scholarships. A public celebration of her life is being planned for March 24. (NSCAD University)
In case you missed it: The 2019 federal budget has changed Canada’s art laws—much to the relief of many of Canada’s leading art museums. The Design Exchange is deaccessioning its entire collection and pivoting to a festival-centric strategy. Three artists have been shortlisted for the Scotiabank Photography Award. The Audain Prize for BC artists has been boosted to $100,000, and moved to the Audain Art Museum. Gregory Burke, the former leader of the Remai Modern in Saskatoon and the Power Plant in Toronto, has rescinded his application for a leadership post at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki at the last minute, following public disclosure of a Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission complaint. Last but not least, Concordia University Faculty of Fine Arts received a $5.6-million gift this week from a family trust, which it will put it toward student scholarships and other supports.
