Sunday, June 13, 2021

Visual Art in Canada


The seasoned patron can tell what a fundraising museum means to the artists it solicits donations from. Judging from the donated work on display at North Vancouver's Polygon Gallery, the Polygon appears to be well-respected (see Gabrielle L'Hirondelle Hill's Braided Grass, 2013 above). I wish I could say the same of the donated work at the Vancouver Art Gallery, which, for some reason, chose to overlap its silent art auction with Polygon's. 

Speaking of the VAG, it is now rumoured that its new building (or location, since it will be housed in a mall) will no longer be built to the scale it was first announced, but to budget. What that budget is remains to be seen.

Just how long the new VAG building remains to be seen is anybody's guess. Will news of the latest version of the VAG be announced in the "preeminent platform for journalism and criticism about art and culture in Canada"? That, too, remains to be seen, as the Canadian Art Foundation has once again hit "pause" after withdrawing its plan to send Canadian Art to a re-education camp (OCADU, for a "10-weeks process of reimagining") due to public protest.

Speaking of visual arts magazines, yesterday evening I received an email from C Magazine publisher Kate Monro announcing that C was named "Best Magazine: Art, Literary and Culture" at the 2021 National Magazine Awards. I am honoured to have a piece in C's "Issue 145", just as I am honoured to have sat on the board of the gallery that moved from Presentation House to become what is known today as the Polygon.

No comments:

Post a Comment