Reid Shier
Vancouver's Reid Shier will be the curator for the Stan Douglas exhibition at the Canada Pavilion of the Venice Biennale, postponed a year until 2022 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The biennale, one of the world's most prestigious art events, will run from April 23, 2022 until November, 27, 2022.
Shier, the director of the Polygon Art Gallery in North Vancouver, says Douglas has been a colleague and friend for more than three decades.
"I’ve had the privilege of watching his international reputation as one of Canada’s most significant contemporary artists grow and flourish," Shier said. "I’m particularly excited to help realize Douglas’ presentation for Venice, and to assist in the ambition of an artist at such a key moment in their career."
The announcement, made by the National Gallery of Canada, noted that the curator is traditionally selected by the artist.
Shier first worked with Douglas in 1996, including him in the first group exhibition he curated. In 2002, Shier organized Douglas’ solo exhibition, Journey into Fear, featuring the eponymous video installation together with a suite of photographs, including the epic, 16-foot image, Every Building on 100 West Hastings.
This photograph was the first in a growing body of work Douglas made using filmic staging, editing and post-production techniques to create ambitious mise-en-scène and historical re-enactments. The photograph spurred the production of its own stand-alone publication, Stan Douglas: Every Building on 100 West Hastings, edited by Shier, which won the City of Vancouver’s book prize in 2002.
Since joining the Polygon (formerly Presentation House) in 2006, Shier spearheaded the development of a new $17.5-million waterfront facility, which opened in 2017.
Prior to this, Shier was chief curator of the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto from 2004 to 2006, curator of the Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver from 2002 to 2004, and director/curator of the artist-run Or Gallery in Vancouver from 1996 to 2001.
He has curated more than 80 exhibitions and his critical writing has been published broadly, including a recent essay on Douglas’ public artwork, Abbott and Cordova, 7 August 1971.
Douglas lives and works in Vancouver and Los Angeles. His films and photographs have been featured in international exhibitions since the early 1980s and in four Venice Biennales (1990, 2001, 2005 and 2019).
Exhibitions at the Canada Pavilion are commissioned by the National Gallery of Canada and produced in partnership with the Canada Council for the Arts.
Source: National Gallery of Canada