Vancouver

ECUAD’s 2011 Degree Exhibition features an overwhelming variety of expression.  The amount of work, range of media, and variety of expression on view in ECUAD’s 2011 Degree Exhibition are so overwhelming that it makes sense to consult an on-site expert to identify a thematic thread. Our go-to guy here is Greg Bellerby, director and curator of ECUAD’s Charles H. Scott Gallery. Georgia Straight, May 12, 2011

Art's next generation. Emily Carr grad's creative alchemy transforms digital information into paint, yarn and metal. Vancouver Sun, May 12, 2011

Portrait of an Artist: Attila Richard Lukacs. A collection of new abstract works by internationally renowned, Vancouver-based painter Attila Richard Lukacs is on display at Winsor Gallery.  Georgia Straight, May 10, 2011

This Is East Van captures and creates community.  The images in This is East Van are culled from a new community-photography project that aims to go some way in defining a grittily gleaming neighbourhood—from the inside.  Georgia Straight, May 12, 2011

Kitchener-Waterloo

Art gallery welcomes new executive director.  Previously director of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria and the Rodman Hall Art Centre at Brock University,  Shirley Madill becomes the new director of the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery. The Record (Kitchener Waterloo), May 11, 2011

Toronto

Gregory Burke pulled the Power Plant out of debt and enhanced its international reputation. Then, he quit..  Gregory Burke’s resignation came at a particularly awkward moment. The Power Plant was nearing the end of a $750,000 renovation that was meant to reintroduce it to the city when completed this spring. The gallery was also preparing to unveil an ambitious installation by the celebrated Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn. The news of Burke’s resignation signalled that he was so unhappy he’d eclipse the grand reopening with his departure. Toronto Life, May 11, 2011

Ford arts adviser quits to take prestigious Banff job.  Less than six months after he was appointed as Mayor Rob Ford’s special arts and culture adviser, National Ballet School executive director Jeff Melanson has announced he will soon leave Toronto to become president of Alberta’s Banff Centre.  Toronto Star, May 11, 2011

Neutral territory.  Edward Burtynsky’s imposing studies of the oil economy are as austere as they are strikingly beautiful.  Now Magazine, May 12, 2011

Montreal (St. Léonard)

In the mind of the Renaissance man.  Renaissance genius Leonardo da Vinci did it all: paint, sculpt, engineer, dissect, map, invent, design, play music, experiment, write. Now a small fraction of his legacy is on display in a new show at the cultural centre that bears his name in St. Léonard. Montreal Gazette, May 11, 2011

New York

Met Museum To Take Over Whitney's Soon-To-Be-Former Building "The Metropolitan Museum of Art will take over the Whitney Museum of American Art's Marcel Breuer building in 2015, when the Whitney opens its new museum in Manhattan's meatpacking district, according to the terms of a real estate agreement that the museum boards are pursuing." New York Times, May 12, 2011

Moods as Well as Gavels Swing as Contemporary Sales Continue  At Sotheby's art sale on Tuesday, bidders displayed a new resistance against wild estimates for artists like Warhol and Koons. New York Times, May 12, 2011

Washington, D.C.

Presidential Commission Looks At Arts Education "Among children of a college graduate, 27% said they had never taken even one arts class, compared with 12% in 1982. For children of high school graduates, the number who'd never had any arts study rose from 30% nearly 30 years ago to 66% in 2008." Los Angeles Times, May 11, 2011

Beijing

Why Western Artists Aren't Protesting Ai Weiwei's Arrest? "Young Western artists are producing works that amount to nothing more than footnotes in art history, and then this Chinese artist appears who takes a totally different approach and makes 98 percent of the art world look very, very old." Der Spiegel, May 11, 2011

Art Theft At Beijing's Forbidden City Guards saw a suspect leaving the area early on Monday but failed to stop him, a spokesman said. An investigation found nine pieces - all small Western-style, 20th-century gold purses and mirrored compacts covered with jewels - were missing from a temporary exhibition, on loan from the private Liang Yi. The Guardian (UK) May 12, 2011