Vancouver

VAG announces acquisitions, becomes largest public museum collector of Jeff Wall.  “The Vancouver Art Gallery has announced the acquisition of new works by internationally renowned photographer Jeff Wall, Chinese artist Song Dong, and Coast Salish artist Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun. The new works include what is commonly referred to as Wall’s Ivan Sayers Photograph.”  Globe & Mail, May 1, 2012

VAG adds 13th Jeff Wall image to its collection. “The VAG now has 13 works by Wall - the largest collection of the artist's works in a public museum.” Vancouver Sun, May 1, 2012

B.C. photo set to break record. Jeff Wall's photograph, Dead Troops Talk, shot in Vancouver, could fetch $2 million at Christie’s auction in New York next week.  Wall is the only Canadian photographer whose work has cracked the $1-million mark at auction. Vancouver Sun, May 1, 2012

Kesu': Doug Cranmer, Reluctant Master. “A hereditary chief and a carver in the renowned style of the Kwakwaka’wakw people, Doug Cranmer was a master artist who loathed that term and referred to himself as a “doodler” and a “whittler.” (His Kwakwaka’wakw name, Kesu’, means “wealth being carved.”).” Canadian Art (Online), April 26, 2012

Victoria

Photographer to lead classes.  Photographer Tony Bounsall has been selected to lead the Community Arts Council of Greater Victoria's first artist-in-residence program, starting May 16. Times Colonist, April 29, 2012

Arviat, Northwest Territories

Canada loses a great artist: Lucy Tasseor Tutsweetok. After a period of declining heath, Lucy Tasseor Tutsweetok of Arviat, one of Canada’s most prominent artists, died April 12. She was 77. “This is an enormous loss to Inuit art and to Canadian culture generally,” said Judy Kardosh, director of Vancouver’s Marion Scott Gallery, where the artist’s work has been shown and exhibited for years.  Nunatsiaq Online, April 30, 2012

Toronto

Lynne Cohen at CONTACT: Where did all the people go? “The celebrated work of Lynne Cohen, winner of the 2011 Scotiabank Photography Award, is, naturally enough, a highlight of, and a designated “primary exhibition” during, the 2012 Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival. Hard to argue with that logic… The first question that will pop into most viewers’ minds upon entering Cohen’s exhibition, a micro-survey of her vast output, is a far simpler one: If the CONTACT 2012 theme is “Public” … why aren’t there any people in Cohen’s photographs?” Globe & Mail, May 1, 2012.

Norwegian cartoonist Jason’s sad-sack realism occupies a solitary world.  “The most striking thing about Norwegian cartoonist Jason’s drawings is just how much space there is. He isn’t prone to landscapes or long views… The truth of that is in the book he’ll be showing off at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, Athos in America.”  National Post, May 2, 2012

Arsenal Toronto offers new twist on contemporary art from Montreal. “Arsenal Toronto is bringing the Montreal art world to the city in a unique setting.” Toronto Star, May 2, 2012

Hot Docs 2012: Artist documentaries on the rise. “Artists fascinate us. Or at least they fascinate documentary filmmakers, who in recent years have been trying to impart that fascination to us more and more frequently, and with varying degrees of success.”   Toronto Star, May 2, 2012

Ottawa

Visiting Library and Archives in Ottawa? Not without an appointment  Library and Archives Canada will no longer have staff on hand to answer the public’s questions without an appointment as it sheds 20 per cent of its workforce. Globe and Mail, May 1, 2012  

Dallas

Renzo Piano’s Nasher Museum in Dallas Has Sunburn Problem Renzo Piano’s Nasher museum in Dallas is suffering from excessive glare shining off a new condo tower the museum’s fame helped attract to the area.  New York Times, May 2, 2012

Union City, NJ

Ève K. Tremblay: Words of Fire. “On Ève K’s worktable is a photocopied page from Ray Bradbury’s visionary 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451, marked up with blue pencil to facilitate memorization as part of her ongoing work Becoming Fahrenheit 451, which she began in 2007.” The project includes photographs, videos, installations, drawings and a performance to be presented at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal in December. Canadian Art (Online), April 26, 2012

New York

Helmut Lang Prepares an Art Exhibition Years after selling his label, the fashion designer Helmut Lang prepares for his first New York art show. New York Times, May 2, 2012

Objects in Met’s Egyptian wing temporarily removed Some of the most fragile antiquities have been taken off display as a precaution against vibrations caused by drilling under the galleries (Fragile objects have been removed from their display cases)  The Art Newspaper, May 2, 2012

Rare Cézanne watercolour soars to $19M US sale in New York.  A rare watercolour study by Paul Cézanne believed lost for nearly 60 years fetched more than $19 million US at a New York auction on Tuesday. CBC News, May 2, 2012

London

Louboutin's famous shoes on display The exhibition at the Design Museum in London features more than 200 pairs of shoes, showing the vast creativity of the designer's career  Globe and Mail, May 2, 2012

Cambridge, U.K.

Two Arrests In Big Cambridge Museum Theft "A 28-year-old man and 15-year-old boy were arrested earlier at addresses in east London by officers from Cambridgeshire and the Metropolitan Police." BBC, May 2, 2012

Sydney, Australia

Laying Conceptual Art Bare At Sydney's MoCA Last Friday, the Museum of Contemporary Art hosted "a tour of museum works that was itself billed as an artwork and had this as its title: 'Preceded by a tour of the show by artist Stuart Ringholt, 6-8pm (the artist will be naked. Those who wish to join the tour must also be naked. Adults only)'." The New York Times, May 2, 2012