The jury—Canadian Art editor Richard Rhodes, Galerie de l’UQAM director Louise Déry, and Presentation House Gallery director/curator Reid Shier—chose Leblanc from a competitive field of 34 applicants.
Jury member Louise Déry describes Véronique Leblanc in the following terms: “She shows great analytical maturity; her writing, which is meticulous as well as rigorous, is a testament to her profound reflection on the concepts she develops and the works she examines. Véronique Leblanc expresses her interest in the political stakes within art with assuredness, something which, in the future, will prove to be a desirable, perhaps even necessary, contribution to art criticism. This young writer shows promising talent and winning the Canadian Art Foundation Writing Prize will certainly encourage the continued development of her ideas and of her work as a writer.”
Véronique Leblanc currently works as a researcher at Galerie de l’UQAM and also teaches art history at Université du Québec à Montréal and Université Laval. As a curator, she recently co-organized the exhibition “Artur Zmijewski: Scenarios of Dissidence” at Galerie de l’UQAM with Louise Déry. Upcoming projects include the Geopolitics of Infinity featuring new works from Jean-Pierre Aubé and Patrick Beaulieu at at Sporobole in 2012. Her essays have been published in the journals ETC and Espace Sculpture.
Congratulations also go to the prize’s two runners-up: Stefan Hancherow (recently moved from Halifax to Toronto) and Kelly Phillips (based in Vancouver), each of whom will receive $1,000.
For more details and a list of past Writing Prize winners, visit canadianart.ca/writingprize.
