The Art Gallery of Ontario has announced the team of architects charged with designing an expansion to boost exhibition space for its global collection. The team includes a leading New York firm, Selldorf Architects, as well as Toronto-based Don Schmitt, of Diamond Schmitt, and Brian Porter, of Six Nations of the Grand River’s Two Row Architect. The Toronto gallery expects to unveil a concept plan later this year. Gallery director Stephan Jost called the team "unmatched in its experience and calibre." Selldorf Architects recently completed the Luma Arles in France, and is now working on the Frick Collection in New York. “A project with global impact requires an international perspective, grounded in this land and this city,” he said. “AGO Global Contemporary is poised to launch the museum as a force in the international art world – and this team will get us there."
Winnipeg residents will soon have a new exhibition space to check out following the Hudson’s Bay Co.'s recent announcement that it is gifting a former store to the Southern Chiefs’ Organization – a group representing 34 Manitoba First Nations. The move, being called a model for reconciliation, will see the 600,000-square-foot building transformed with 300 housing units, a child-care centre, a health facility, and a museum and art gallery. The six-storey store, which opened in 1926, had less and less traffic in recent decades as nearby malls drew shoppers away. It was closed in 2020.
NSCAD University in Halifax is awarding honorary doctorates to two artists – Luc Courchesne and Zainub Verjee – at its graduation ceremony this month. Courchesne has created engaging works from interactive portraits to immersive apparatuses and has received numerous awards, including a 2021 Governor General’s Award in Media Arts. Verjee, a senior fellow of Massey College and a McLaughlin College Fellow, received a 2020 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts for Outstanding Contribution.