Vicky Chainey Gagnon, director/curator of the Foreman Art Gallery and curator for Manif d'art 7 / photo François Lafrance
Yesterday in Quebec City, Manifestation internationale d’art de Québec announced Vicky Chainey Gagnon as the curator of its seventh biennial exhibition, Manif d’art 7, which will take place in Quebec City between May and June 2014. Chainey Gagnon is currently director and curator of the Foreman Art Gallery at Bishop’s University in Sherbrooke.
Since its first edition in 2000, Manif d’art has grown to become one of the key biennial exhibitions in Canada, presenting works by some 100 national and international artists in galleries and public spaces as well as a series of parallel programs throughout the provincial capital. Known for its rigorous approach to social and political themes, the exhibition has brought a welcome critical heft and widespread international engagement to the city’s network of galleries and artist-run centres. Past Manif d’art curators include Bernard Lamarche, the current curator of 21st-century contemporary art at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec; Sylvie Fortin, who up until this year was editor of the Atlanta-based journal Art Papers; and Nicole Gingras, a long-time programmer for the Festival international du film sur l’art de Montréal who was recently named general and artistic director of the Biennale de Montréal.
For her part, Chainey Gagnon’s exhibition promises to address the critical role of resistance, both politically and personally, and the radical tactics used by artists to mediate, oppose and counteract the status quo. As she states in the Manif d’art press release: “Worrisome trends exist today, such as extreme fundamentalism, euphoric speculation and consumerism, combined with mass unemployment, banking crises and overheated stock markets, notwithstanding ecological duress. In the context of a very recent global economic meltdown, the time is right to look at contemporary artistic productions that speak to articulations of resistance today.”
This article was corrected on November 22, 2012. The original copy incorrectly referred to Nicole Gingras as curator of the Biennale de Montréal.
