Hadani Ditmars

Vancouver Art Gallery expands Asian art programme with $1.1m gift

The museum’s renamed Centre for Global Asias seeks to “recognise the many Asias that exist, within the geography of Asia itself and in the global diaspora”

Project to put art on the moon seeks Indigenous music recordings

The Lunar Codex has partnered with the estate of Canadian Ojibway artist Norval Morrisseau to collect contemporary and traditional music that will be sent into space in 2025

Prizesnews

Anishinaabe artist Nico Williams wins Canada’s top art prize

The Montréal-based artist, known for his intricate sculptural beadwork, received the C$100,000 Sobey Art Award for 2024

Leila Zelli foregrounds Iranian women’s protest movement at the Toronto Biennial

The artist’s videos and installations reinterpret acts of resistance staged in the streets and on social media

Sameer Farooq’s library of flatbreads at the Toronto Biennial serves as a map of the city’s diasporic communities

The artist has been researching flatbreads and tandoors, the community ovens where they are often baked, in countries around the world since 2020

Art Toronto offers moments of connection, catharsis and commerce for Canada's art world

The country’s biggest art fair, with more than 100 exhibitors, is both a centre of commercial activity and a sprawling diorama of a national aesthetic

An exhibition at the pyramids of Giza invites artists and visitors to become modern-day archaeologists

In its fourth iteration, Forever is Now continues its tradition of installing contemporary works next to ancient sites

Early Emily Carr watercolour acquired by Canada’s Audain Art Museum

The museum already owns a subsequent, oil-on-canvas work depicting the same subject; both versions of “War Canoes, Alert Bay” will now be displayed together

Filmsreview

New Niki de Saint Phalle documentary chronicles her personal struggles and aesthetic triumphs

Michiko Matsumoto’s film “Viva Niki”, which recently premiered at the Vancouver International Film Festival, also attests to the artist’s enduring popularity in Japan

Avoiding the mistakes of the past: symbolic sculptures by Indigenous artists unveiled at site of historic Canadian battlefield

The permanent sculptures by Chief 7IDANsuu James Hart and Wendat Nation artist Ludovic Boney were unveiled in Québec City’s Cap Diamant on Canada’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation

Awardsnews

Anishinaabe artist Rebecca Belmore wins the Audain Prize, one of Canada’s top art awards

The annual prize, which honours an artist based in British Columbia, comes with C$100,000 cash

Alleged leader of ‘biggest art fraud in the world’ sentenced in Canada

Prosecutors described David Voss as the leader of a forgery ring that created thousands of fake works by Norval Morrisseau

‘This is a farce’: heritage activists react as historic minaret in Iraq covered in white plaster

The Zumurrud Khatun Mosque and Mausoleum have undergone a heavy-handed restoration—and there is a risk of further damage to come

Cost of Vancouver Art Gallery's new building balloons by 50%, reaching $444m

The museum’s director claimed the sharp increase was due to a precipitous rise in construction costs in recent years, though a prominent collector called this explanation “preposterous”

Alex Janvier, visionary First Nations artist based in Canada, has died, aged 89

A prolific painter helped open doors for contemporary artists at a time when Indigenous art was often confined to ethnographic museums

Prizesnews

Artists Christi Belcourt, Joe Average and bill bissett receive one of Canada’s highest honours

The artists—and pop star Avril Lavigne—were among 83 new appointees to the Order of Canada

The Indigenous artist brightly patching up a Toronto expressway

Nico Williams has created a series of colourful interventions along an elevated highway that cuts through the city centre

After meeting with Pope Francis, Canada’s Justin Trudeau reiterates call for return of Indigenous artefacts from Vatican Museums

Last spring Pope Francis said “this is going on, with Canada”, but since there has been little movement on repatriation

Wreck of the ship Ernest Shackleton died on found off the coast of Canada

The famed explorer died aboard the Quest in 1922; the ship sank in the Labrador Sea 40 years later

Artist who created Queen Elizabeth II portrait on Canadian coins sues dealer over stolen and damaged works

Susanna Blunt alleges the dealer Benjamin Lumb promised to compensate her for a stolen piece and knocked over several works in a “domino effect”

Fire guts historic Toronto church, destroying its Group of Seven murals

A restoration campaign for St Anne’s Anglican Church in Toronto is already underway, but its historic art is lost forever

Artists withdraw from Toronto photography festival due to its ties to Israeli weapons manufacturer

The Contact Photography Festival’s main sponsor, Scotiabank, has a large stake in Elbit Systems, which makes armoured vehicles, drones and other weapons

Armenian heritage threatened by Jerusalem hotel plan

Deal puts 12th-century monastery, Ottoman-era houses and Roman ruins at risk

Art Gallery of Ontario closes as more than 400 workers go on strike

The strike comes after a breakdown in negotiations between the workers’ union and museum administrators, and as the institution pursues a C$100m expansion

Antoine Predock, architect of distinctive museums in the US and Canada, has died, aged 87

His Canadian Museum for Human Rights, Tang Teaching Museum and Tacoma Art Museum were typical of an approach that melded modernism and post-modernism into a characteristically unpredictable aesthetic

Prizesnews

Eight artists and curators receive Canada’s Governor General’s Award

This year’s winners of the prestigious Canadian honour include the Inuk artist Shuvinai Ashoona and Saskatchewan-based curator Michelle Jacques

New show dedicated to Palestinian art to open in London

The exhibition, originally held at the 2022 Venice Biennale, will open at P21 Gallery with new works on show

Art Gallery of Ontario under pressure to explain Indigenous art curator’s ousting

Wanda Nanibush left the institution after a letter accusing her of “hate speech” was circulated by the group Israel Museums and Arts, Canada

Archaeologyanalysis

Why the ancient Amazonian cities recently discovered in Ecuador are so significant

The findings in the Upano Valley, researchers say, counter racist and dismissive attitudes about Amazonian heritage

Toronto construction crew unearths ancient Indigenous burial ground

Work on a water line near the city’s Greektown section has turned up human remains believed to be at least 700 years old