Canada

Canadanews

Haida artist Tamara Bell installs 215 shoes on the steps of Vancouver Art Gallery as a memorial to Indigenous children who died at residential school

The work has become a community shrine and gathering space for mourners after the remains of children as young as three years old were discovered last week using ground-penetrating radar

Designnews

Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, landscape architect known as the ‘Queen of Green’, has died, aged 99

Responsible for green spaces that still provide respite to city dwellers around the world, the designer saw her profession as a kind of healing art

Rembrandt’s work joins with art by Black and Indigenous artists at the National Gallery of Canada this spring

A major Old Master show will keep a contemporary perspective with new commissions and acquisitions

Arts Umbrella, Canada’s largest culture educator, opens new $27m home in Vancouver

The new education centre on Granville Island with arts, music, film and dance studios, will serve 24,000 student annually

Toronto’s Contact Photography Festival expands its takeover of public spaces

Month-long event to celebrate its 25th anniversary with a series of installations across the city

Canadanews

Work for the Weekend: Vancouver unveils sound piece inspired by 1980s working-class pop anthem

The public art work by the local artist Brady Cranfield has been installed in the Vancouver Art Gallery's newly pedestrianised south plaza

Stitching together a monument to sick kids, one bead at a time

Anishinaabe artist Nico Williams’s testament to the bravery of children facing difficult illnesses has been created using pieces that record every procedure, test or jab of a needle they undergo

They see ‘dead people’: billboard works removed from Vancouver photography festival after locals complain

The images of sleeping people were too creepy for many residents, in a city where property values are a major concern

Donald R. Sobey, one of Canada’s greatest cultural philanthropists, has died, aged 86

The son of the Sobey’s grocery chain founder was a huge supporter of artists, and helped establish the country’s main art prize

World's biggest Inuit art collection revealed at Winnipeg's new museum within a museum

Qaumajuq centre aims to reframe Winnipeg Art Gallery’s colonial past with displays of more than 10,000 rarely seen Inuit works

Prizesnews

Sobey Art Awards open to Canadian artists of all ages for the first time

The country’s biggest art prize gets bigger, expanding its pool of candidates and increasing its total cash offerings

Designreview

A tribute to Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, the landscape architect who shaped Vancouver’s greenspaces

A joint retrospective organised by the West Vancouver Art Museum and Art Gallery of Alberta beautifully expresses the designer’s passion for nature and understanding of community needs

Vancouver’s street artists respond to columnist’s graffiti gripes with painted ‘letter to the editor’

A writer’s complaints about downtown tagging were met with accusations of classism—and a new mural

New Art Gallery of Nova Scotia building is inspired by indigenous Mi’kmaq culture

The winning design is meant to be both a centrepiece of Halifax’s burgeoning waterfront arts district and an earnest symbol of reconciliation, the project leads say

Never before seen Emily Carr works go from family fireplace to Canadian museum

British Columbia brothers donate paintings their grandmothers acquired to Art Gallery of Greater Victoria

Will a ‘Shakespearean tragedy’ find a happy ending in Canada?

After years of research, the only portrait of the playwright possibly painted during his lifetime still hangs in limbo—but perhaps not for long

Chair of Montreal Museum of Fine Arts steps down as former director sues over unfair dismissal

Michel de la Chenelière is not seeking term renewal as controversy over Nathalie Bondil's departure rumbles on

Canadanews

Mural memorialises Vancouver’s lost historic Black neighbourhood

Hogan’s Alley was once a thriving hub of Black Canadian culture, before it was demolished like so many communities in the name of urban renewal

Chinese Canadian Museum opens in Vancouver with pop-up show centred on food

The institution is looking for a permanent home in the city’s historic Chinatown

Haida artist Bill Reid honoured on Canadian $2 coin

The new “toonie” features an image of Reid’s striking Xhuwaji/Haida Grizzly Bear

Canadanews

Museums halt Jon Rafman shows after allegations are made online

Several women have accused the artist of misconduct, but Rafman disagrees with how their interactions have been represented

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts placed on 'concerned status' over sacking of director

Canada Council for the Arts will monitor the crisis following Nathalie Bondil’s dismissal, which could put the museum's public funding at risk

Colville’s Dog and Bridge has its day at Heffel’s live sale in Toronto

But fewer than ten buyers physically attended the auction, with most bidding done over the phone and in the “digital salesroom”

Musée d'Orsay cuts ties with Montreal Museum of Fine Arts over sacking of director Nathalie Bondil

International museum leaders speak out against the treatment of "the best, most dynamic, and most innovative art museum director in North America"

Canadanews

Art Gallery of Ontario reopens with other Canadian museums to follow this month

Institutions across the country are cautiously welcoming back visitors

Kent Monkman issues apology for painting that depicts the 'sexual assault' of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

After outcries against the work on social media, the Cree artist says that the image "failed" in its message to address the victimisation of Indigenous women

Canadanews

Vancouver street artists provide coronavirus advice to Canada’s most vulnerable communities

City council is collaborating with mural makers to paint storefronts that have closed due to Covid-19 in a neighbourhood already suffering from the opioid crisis

Market for Inuit art faces financial deep freeze after Arctic cruises put on hold

As coronavirus brings recreational tourism to a halt, artists in Canada's Nunavut territory say the economic fallout has the power to "crash the community"

Prizesnews

Citing Covid-19, Canada's Sobey Art Award increases prize to almost $500,000 and shares it among 25 longlisted artists

The Canadian "Turner Prize" made the one-off decision to reflect the "profound impact" that the pandemic is having on artists' livelihoods

Canadian Modernist painter Gordon Smith has died, aged 100

The Vancouver-based artist, one of the last of a generation that shaped the city’s mid-century cultural scene, was known for his monumental abstract canvases inspired by nature