Ottawa, March 25, 2008 – The Canada Council for the Arts today announced the names of the eight winners of the 2008 Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts.
Kenojuak Ashevak, Serge Giguère, Michel Goulet, Alex Janvier,
Tanya Mars and Eric Metcalfe will receive awards for artistic achievement; Chantal Gilbert will receive the Saidye Bronfman Award for excellence in the fine crafts, while Shirley Thomson will receive the outstanding contribution award for her work as a cultural administrator, gallery director and arts advocate.
The winners were announced at a news conference in Montreal. They will be presented with their awards by Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, Governor General of Canada, at a ceremony at Rideau Hall on Friday, March 28 at 6 p.m. In addition to a $25,000 prize, the winners will be presented with original artworks created by furniture maker and designer Peter Fleming, winner of the 2000 Saidye Bronfman Award.
The Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts, funded and administered by the Canada Council for the Arts, were created in June 1999 and presented for the first time in March 2000. The awards recognize distinguished career achievement in the visual and media arts by Canadian artists, as well as outstanding contributions to the visual and media arts through voluntarism, philanthropy, board governance, community outreach or professional activities.
2008 marks the ninth annual presentation of these prestigious awards. The Saidye Bronfman Award, which recognizes excellence in the fine crafts, is part of the Governor General's Awards; it is funded from the proceeds of a $1.5 million endowment given to the Canada Council by The Samuel and Saidye Bronfman Family Foundation in 2006. In 2007, the Canada Council increased the value of the Governor General's Awards from $15, 000 to $25,000 in celebration of its 50th anniversary.
"These artists take us on an extraordinary journey, delving into the very meaning of the world around us, exploring the conscious and subconscious spaces that surround us," said the Governor General. "They are inspiring an ever-increasing number of young people of all ages, piquing their curiosity, awakening their imaginations and, best of all, stirring their artistic impulses."
Canada Council Chair Karen Kain said the winners "exemplify the breadth, depth and diversity of the visual and media arts in Canada today."
"From Inuit printmaking to the creation of wondrous works in metal, from painting, sculpture and installation to film, video, performance and multimedia, the work of these artists is rooted in a wide variety of cultural, regional and artistic traditions," she said. "While their artistic practices are vastly different, they all have distinguished themselves as outstanding Canadian artists, worthy of the honour which goes with receiving a Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts."
Images of the winners and their works can be downloaded from the Canada Council web site's GGAVMA page.
Biographical notes
Kenojuak Ashevak
Kenojuak Ashevak is probably the best known and most acclaimed of all the remarkable Inuit artists who have emerged in the North in the last half century. Her own story is as remarkable as the story of
Cape Dorset and its printmakers and sculptors. Many of Kenojuak Ashevak's drawings, prints and sculptures have become icons, etched into the public consciousness. Her bold shapes, bright colours and fantastical creatures have endured for some 50 years, reflecting a unique vision and a special relationship to the land. Born in 1927 in Ikerrasak, a campsite on southern Baffin Island, she lived a traditional nomadic life on the land before settling her family in Cape Dorset, where she still lives. Kenojuak Ashevak was featured in a National Film Board production, Eskimo Artist – Kenojuak, and her graphic images have been used on Canadian stamps. She is a Companion of the Order of Canada, a member of the Royal Canadian Academy and the recipient of two honorary doctorates.
Serge Giguère
Serge Giguère is one of Quebec's leading documentary filmmakers. Over the course of three decades and in 11 documentaries, he has forged an identity for documentaries in Quebec that reflects the collective consciousness. He began his career as a cinematographer, working on 60-odd films, before becoming a critically acclaimed director. He co-founded Les Films d'aventures sociales du Québec in 1974 and remained a partner until 1984, when he joined Sylvie Van Brabant to establish Les Productions du Rapide-Blanc. From 1998 to 2001, he was filmmaker-in-residence at the National Film Board of Canada. Mr. Giguère has sat on numerous juries and has been the recipient of many awards, including the Prix de l'Association québécoise des critiques de cinéma for best medium-length film of the year (1988, 1991, 1995), a Prix Gémeaux (1992), and a Prix Jutra (2007). Hot Docs devoted a retrospective to his work in 2006. Serge Giguère lives in Saint-Norbert-d'Arthabaska (QC).
Michel Goulet
Since the early 1980s, Michel Goulet has been part of the movement for the renewal of sculpture, both in terms of formal vocabulary and at the level of content and meaning. From a background of minimalism and conceptual art, he has developed, over the past 30 years, an eloquent body of work based on the object and human postures. His work has been shown in more than 100 exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale in 1988, as well as a major retrospective at the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal in 2005. His works are also included in many private collections and over 15 public collections in Canada. He is equally renowned for having renewed public art, and for having created theatre and opera stage designs in Quebec and around the world. He has contributed to teaching new generations of emerging artists at the University of Ottawa and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Michel Goulet lives in Montreal.
Alex Janvier
Alex Janvier has been painting for over 40 years and has created a unique style, his own "visual language," informed by the rich cultural and spiritual traditions and heritage of the Dene in northern Alberta. Alex Janvier was born on Le Goff Reserve, Cold Lake First Nations, northern Alberta in 1935. At the age of eight, he was sent to the Blue Quills Residential Indian School near St. Paul, Alberta, where the principal recognized his innate artistic talent and encouraged him in his art. Mr. Janvier received formal art training from the Alberta Institute of Technology and Art in Calgary (now the Alberta College of Art and Design) and graduated with honours in 1960. In 1966, the federal Department of Indian and Northern Affairs commissioned him to produce 80 paintings. He helped bring together a group of artists for the Indians of Canada Pavilion at Expo '67, among them Norval Morrisseau and Bill Reid. In recent years, his work has been characterized by flowing, curvilinear lines and more abstraction. His unique language has made its mark, cementing his legacy as one of the country's foremost painters. Alex Janvier lives in Cold Lake, Alberta.
Tanya Mars
Considered one of Canada's most innovative multidisciplinary artists, Tanya Mars has been active in the Canadian alternative art scene since the early 1970s. Her dramatic, humorous and satirical works–ranging from performance through to sculpture and video–have influenced an entire generation of artists over some 30 years. An admirer of Dada and Surrealism, among other art movements, she is equally attracted to cheerleading and vaudeville. Her work is witty, entertaining and at times bawdy; it is inspired by feminist and utopian perspectives. Tanya Mars is a mentor to many emerging artists as an artist, teacher, curator and editor. She is a member of the curatorial collective that organizes Toronto's 7a*11d International Festival of Performance Art. She helped found Powerhouse in Montreal in 1973, one of the first feminist art collectives in Canada. She edited Parallelogramme from 1976 to 1989 and co-edited (with Johanna Householder) the definitive Caught in the Act: An Anthology of Performance Art by Canadian Women (2005). She has taught and given workshops at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD University) and currently teaches at the University of Toronto Scarborough. Tanya Mars lives in Toronto.
Eric Metcalfe
Eric Metcalfe epitomizes the avant-garde in Canadian art. Since the late 1960s, his art practice has crossed, and merged, disciplines: painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, printmaking, performance, video and film. His work has close ties with conceptual art and the Fluxus movement, which focused on the many intersections and blendings of different artistic media and disciplines, as well as contemporary cultural activities, especially jazz, which was an early interest and an important influence. Born in Vancouver in 1940, Eric Metcalfe grew up in Victoria and was exposed to his lifelong passions of art and jazz as a boy. His first public show was in 1966, and in 1973, he co-founded Western Front, a pioneering, artist-run centre in Vancouver. Mr. Metcalfe has a BFA (Visual Arts) with Distinction from the University of Victoria (1970); he has taught at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, at the University of British Columbia (as visiting artist), and through the Vancouver School Board. Laura, his most recent project, is a personal riff on film noir, the genre that had its heyday from the mid-forties to the mid-fifties. Eric Metcalfe lives in Vancouver.
Chantal Gilbert – Saidye Bronfman Award
Nationally renowned jeweller Chantal Gilbert penetrated the global market as an artistic knifemaker. This new direction has allowed her to take a different approach to silversmithing while continuing her aesthetic research on the symbols and rituals that shape the human psyche. Her pieces, at once primitive and sophisticated, have been presented in 40 exhibitions in Canada and abroad, and have earned her the recognition of international guilds as well as prizes, including the Grand Prix des métiers d'art du Québec (1998) and the Prix du rayonnement international du Québec (2001). Ms. Gilbert has a master's degree in visual art from Université Laval (2000) and has taught at the École de joaillerie de Québec since 1991. She has been president of the Conseil des Métiers d'art du Québec since 2000. She lives in Quebec City.
Shirley Thomson – Outstanding Contribution
Shirley Thomson's career has been both distinguished and adventurous. Born and raised in St. Mary's, Ontario, she left a teaching job for Montreal and, ultimately, Paris, where she worked as an editor for NATO. She returned to Canada to become assistant secretary-general of World University Service of Canada (WUSC), and later assistant secretary-general of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, working in the un agency's fields of education, science and culture. A decade later she was back in Montreal, enrolled at McGill as a Ph.D. student in art history, exploring the hunt theme in 18th-century palace decoration in France. Her McGill experience launched her career as a cultural administrator. As director of the McCord Museum (1982-1985), she turned a small university museum into a public research and teaching museum dedicated to the preservation, study and appreciation of Canadian history. After serving as secretary-general of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, she was appointed director of the National Gallery of Canada in 1987. Dr. Thomson and her professional team developed, over the decade of her tenure, a strong program that helped raise the Gallery's profile. She served as director of the Canada Council for the Arts from 1998 to 2002, and as chair of the Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board from 2003 to 2007.
Selection of winners
To be nominated for one of the artistic awards, candidates must have created an outstanding body of work and have made a significant contribution to the development of the visual or media arts over a significant period of time. Nominees for the Saidye Bronfman Award must have made a substantial contribution to the development of crafts in Canada over a significant period of time.
The winners of the Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts were chosen by independent peer juries of visual and media artists and arts professionals from across Canada. The jury for the six artistic achievement awards and the outstanding contribution award consisted of artists Greg Payce (Calgary), Robert Houle (Toronto) and Jin-me Yoon (Vancouver), educator and curator Christine Ross (Montreal) and Carol Phillips, executive director of the Winnipeg Arts Council and former director of the Plug In Institute for Contemporary Art. The jury for the Saidye Bronfman Award consisted of Greg Payce and Carol Phillips, as well as fine craft artists Micheline Beauchemin (Grondines, QC) and Laura Donefer (Harrowsmith, ON), and Paul Greenhalgh, president and director of the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. and former president of NSCAD University.
Exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada – Thursday, March 27, 2008
The National Gallery of Canada will present an exhibition in celebration of the winners and their works. Media representatives are invited to attend the official opening on Thursday, March 27, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the Great Hall of the National Gallery, 380 Sussex Drive, Ottawa.
Media wishing to preview the exhibition and interview the winners may do so on Thursday, March 27 at 10 a.m. Please contact
Josée-Britanie Mallet at 613-990-6835 or bmallet@gallery.ca to RSVP for the media preview.
Awards ceremony – Friday, March 28, 2008
Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, Governor General of Canada, will present the 2008 awards on Friday, March 28 at 6 p.m. in the Ballroom of Rideau Hall (the official residence and workplace of the Governor General in Ottawa), One Sussex Drive. A dinner in honour of the winners will be held that evening (by invitation only).
In addition to the $25,000 prize, the winners will be presented with original artworks created by furniture designer and maker Peter Fleming, winner of the 2000 Saidye Bronfman Award.
Media wishing to cover the ceremony should contact Isabelle Serrurier at the Rideau Hall Press Office at 613-998-7280 or iserrurier@gg.ca.
Special screening – Sunday, March 30, 2008
The National Gallery of Canada will hold a special screening of Serge Giguère's award-winning film
À force des rêves on Sunday, March 30 at 2 p.m. in the Gallery's Lecture Hall. The film will be shown in French with English subtitles, and Mr. Giguère will be on hand to answer questions following the screening.
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