The Musée d’art de Joliette (MAJ) is the winner of the Canada Council’s 2011 York Wilson Endowment Award. Through this award, it will receive $30,000 to purchase a series of drawings, Drawing on Hell, Paris, by Toronto artist Ed Pien.
Located in Joliette, Québec, the MAJ has been interested in Ed Pien’s work for some time. It organized the first retrospective of his work in 2008, L’antre des délices, which it toured to major galleries across Canada. However, to date, the MAJ has no works by Pien in its collection. With the York Wilson Endowment Award, it will be able to continue to promote the artist to its visitors and enhance its impressive collection of contemporary art. Museum visitors can see the new work in January 2012 in an exhibition dedicated to new acquisitions from the past five years.
Born in Taiwan, Ed Pien immigrated to Canada when he was eleven. In Drawings on Hell, he brings together Taiwanese folklore and representations of Western Hell and martyrdom to create images that explore our primal fears and anxieties of contemporary life. His drawings, paper cuttings and installations have been shown across Canada and internationally, and he will be represented at the 2012 Sydney Biennale. He currently teaches at the University of Toronto and the Ontario College of Art and Design
Each year, the York Wilson Endowment Award is given to an eligible Canadian art museum or public gallery to help it purchase work by a Canadian artist that will significantly enhance its collection. Created in 1997 through a generous donation by Lela Wilson and the late Maxwell Henderson, it honours the contribution of Canadian painter York Wilson (1907-1984) by encouraging and promoting works of art created by Canadian painters or sculptors.
