Emily Carr University's Wilson Plaza. Photo: Facebook.
So far this week, our news section has covered a unanimous strike mandate at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal; the launch of a new Montreal foundation devoted to Jean Paul Riopelle; and one artist-run auction house’s push to pay out an artist resale right, even before one is legislated. Read on for additional news.
Following a suspicious fire on October 5, the campus of Vancouver’s Emily Carr University of Art and Design will remain closed until October 15. The fire was described by university administration as “small.” Releases added: “The fire was fully extinguished, and thankfully, no one was hurt. The Vancouver Police Department is investigating the incident and believes the fire may have been deliberately set by a person who broke into the university early Saturday morning…. The areas most impacted are the Research and Industry Office and Painting and Drawing studios on Level 4. There is also some water damage in other areas of the building.” Cancelled classes will be rescheduled at the end of the semester. (Emily Carr University release)
OCADU professors have created an exhibition about precarious labour at the school. “Contract faculty teach more than half the courses at Ontario universities, but are employed precariously,” says a release from the Ontario College of Art and Design Faculty Association. “Many have to regularly reapply for their jobs, are denied access to benefits, and are paid less than their full-time tenure-stream colleagues.” The association’s new installation by Ines Scepanovic is a wall-sized work using imagery from Francois Millet’s 1857 painting The Gleaners, which depicts three impoverished farm workers collecting grain left behind after the harvest. “This installation is a reminder of the struggle that many workers still face at universities and colleges across Canada, including OCADU,” said Surendra Lawoti, interim president of OCADFA. “It’s time for OCADU to step up and show our contract faculty members the respect they have earned after years and years of hard work and dedication.” The installation coincides with the Canadian Association of University Teachers’ Fair Employment Week. (emailed release)
A new book about artists Christopher Pratt and Mary Pratt is hitting bookstores this month. “Art and Rivalry is a great read and a vivid exploration of a complicated union, Canada’s answer to the tempestuous on-again, off-again relationship between Mexican artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera,” writes Paul Gessell in a review in Galleries West. “Sometimes, with Art and Rivalry, one can feel like a voyeur, peering into forbidden spaces. Yet [author Carol] Bishop-Gwyn is never exploitative. She shows, without judgment, how the troubled marriage affected the artistic trajectory of two of the country’s most loved artists.” (Galleries West)
The Sobey Art Award exhibition just opened in Western Canada for the first time. Launched on October 5 at the Art Gallery of Alberta, the exhibition features work by shortlisted artists Stephanie Comilang, Nicolas Grenier, Kablusiak, Anne Low and D’Arcy Wilson. The winner, to be announced November 15, will receive $100,000. (National Gallery of Canada press release)
The Reel Asian International Film Festival has released its lineup. Among the highlights are a 100th-anniversary screening of the silent film classic The Dragon Painter with a live performance of a reimagined score by singer-songwriter Goh Nakamura. There’s also East of the Rockies, an augmented-reality experience written by Joy Kogawa. The festival will take place November 7 to 15 in Toronto. (Reel Asian)
The closure of Canada’s only design museum, the Design Exchange, is receiving more international attention. Following Canadian Art’s report on the museum’s mass deaccessioning in March 2019 and UK-based Canadian curator Brendan Cormier’s Globe and Mail op-ed in August 2019, international design website Dezeen has picked up on the story. “Canada will become one of the few advanced economies in the world without its own design museum,” Toronto architect Heather Dubbledam told Dezeen. (Dezeen, Globe and Mail, Canadian Art)
Felicia Gay has been appointed curatorial fellow at the MacKenzie Art Gallery. “The position is a cross-appointment with the University of Regina and runs until April 2021,” says Galleries West. “She was the founding artistic director of the Red Shift Gallery in Saskatoon, alongside co-founder Joi Arcand, and was most recently the curator at the Wanuskewin Galleries. During the fellowship, Gay will work on multiple exhibitions and projects at the MacKenzie. She will contribute to a joint conference organized by the Aboriginal Curatorial Collective and the Initiative for Indigenous Futures that will be hosted by the MacKenzie and the Sâkêwêwak First Nations Artists’ Collective in June.” (Galleries West)
India Rael Young is the new curator of art and images at the Royal BC Museum. “Young, an art historian and curator, specializes in media arts and North American Indigenous arts,” says a museum release. “She joins the museum and archives from the Princeton University Art Museum, where she was the Andrew W. Mellon Research Specialist in Native American Art. Before Princeton she was at the University of New Mexico, where she completed her Ph.D. in 2017…. Young is currently working on the publication of her dissertation on the history of Northwest Coast Native and First Nations prints, scholarly articles on decolonizing actions within museums and an exhibition on collaborations in the arts.” (Royal BC Museum emailed press release)
Liz Park is the new curator of exhibitions at UB Art Galleries in Buffalo, New York. “A Korean-born Canadian curator hailing from Vancouver, Park joins UB from Pittsburgh where she recently completed a three-year term as Associate Curator of the 2018 Carnegie International alongside Curator Ingrid Schaffner at Carnegie Museum of Art,” say a galleries release. “Prior to coming to the US as a Helena Rubinstein Curatorial Fellow at the Whitney Independent Study Program in 2011, Park held a number of curatorial positions in Vancouver, where she also received an MA in Critical Curatorial Studies at the University of British Columbia.” (emailed press release)
