I Am Delighted to Have the Opportunity Today to Share with You Some of the Recent Activities

CANADIAM MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY

Martha Hanna

Director

Good evening

I am delighted to have the opportunity to share with you some of the recent activities of the National Gallery of Canada’s affiliate, the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography (CMCP).

Those of you who are regular visitors to the CMCP and its on-line presence, will be aware that over the past year the galleries at 1 Rideau Canal have been closed to the public due to construction. The repairs to the building’s exterior and surrounding property, which has been undertaken by CMCP’s landlord, the National Capital Commission, is scheduled for completion early in the new year.

All the while, CMCP’s activities continue at the National Gallery of Canada. The recent exhibitions, on view at the National Gallery, have included Cheryl Sourkes: Public Camera and the current exhibition, Pascal Grandmaison, which is on loan from the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, opened on the 16 November.

The exhibition that will follow brings together contemporary Canadian photographers with their American counterparts, whose images explore issues related to the natural environment, in the exhibition, Imaging a Shattering Earth. Additional information on the photographs in each of these exhibitions can be found in the accompanying catalogues or through the interviews with select artists online, on CyberMuse.

In 2008, the touring exhibition The Painted Photograph, seen here last year, will be featured at the Centre national d’exposition de Jonquière, Quebec and at the Nanaimo Art Gallery in British Columbia. Individual works from the collection are also made available elsewhere, through loans to exhibitions organized by other institutions.

I will conclude my presentation by talking about two recent acquisitions.

Korean-Canadian artist, Jin-me Yoon, explores how traumatic events such as war and exile maintain a presence within the lives of individuals. In her self-portraits, she re-enacts imagined events for the camera.

During the 1950s and 1960s Fred Herzog used colour photography to document the social landscape of Vancouver. This photograph taken on Granville Street is one of several prints by the photographer that were added to the collection this year. Thank you.