March, 2013

On Tuesday March 12th, the Canada Council for the Arts announced the winners of the 2013 Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts at the Cinémathèque québécoise in Montreal.

The winners are:

• Marcel Barbeau, Painter and sculptor, Montreal
• Rebecca Belmore, Visual artist, Winnipeg (featured photo : Martin Lipman)
• William D. MacGillivray, Filmmaker and director, Rose Bay, N.SGordon
• Monahan, Sound artist, composer and media artist, Meaford, Ont.
• Greg Payce, Artist-potter (Saidye Bronfman Award), Calgary
• Chantal Pontbriand, Exhibitions and events curator, art critic (Outstanding contribution), Montreal/Paris
• Colette Whiten, Sculpture installation artist, Toronto/Haliburton, Ont.

For more information, visit the Canada Council for the arts website.

Of special note:

For the first time this year, Alliance member IMAA has partnered with the Canada Council for the Arts to create artist video portraits of the laureates. Media artists and media artist-run centres were matched with each recipient in order to produce short videos to resonate with the laureates and their work. The videos are available on the Canada Council for the arts website, and will be screened at the National Gallery of Canada in the context of the exhibition featuring this year’s laureates. The exhibition can be seen from March 22nd to June 23rd 2013.

The Visual Arts Alliance applauds this initiative as it provides a glimpse of the Governor General laureates and their work, as well as recognizing the value of the artists and artist-run organisations who produced the videos as artworks in and of themselves.