2008

Canada
Raymonde April was born in Moncton, New Brunswick, in 1953 and grew up in Rivière-du-Loup, in eastern Quebec. She lives and works in Montreal where she has taught photography at Concordia University since 1985.

A photographer and artist, she has been known from the late 70s on for her minimalist practice inspired by the day-to-day, at the junction point of documentary, autobiography and fiction. Her work is often exhibited in Canada and abroad, and major solo exhibitions include «Voyage dans le monde des choses», organized by the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal in 1986, «Les Fleuves invisibles», produced by the Musée d’art de Joliette in 1997 and circulated in Canada and France until 2000, and «Tout embrasser», presented at the Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery of Concordia University as part of Le Mois de la photo à Montréal 2001.

Raymonde April’s works are in leading Canadian museums and many private collections. In November 2003, Raymonde April received the Prix Paul-Émile Borduas, the highest distinction attributed by the Government of Quebec to an artist working in the visual arts. In 2004, she was artist-in-residence at the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec studio in New York City.

Raymonde April, Autoportrait au rideau, 1991-2004, from "Migration", gelatin silver print, courtesy of the artist, 61 cm x 91.5 cm

China
Huang Yan was born in 1966, in Jilin Province, where he still lives and works. His artistic trajectory is interesting. During the 1990’s he primarily followed conceptual approaches and conducted mail art projects. For his thirtieth birthday he published a series of postcards illustrating his own work (including a photograph of his own faked suicide) and posted them to addresses throughout the country. He also handed out invitations for a big solo exhibition that existed only in his imagination.

His biggest contribution to experimental Chinese contemporary art, however, is his combination of classical landscape painting and body art. Huang Yan sees himself as a landscape painter. “Landscape is a way for me to reason things out; landscape is proof that I can use objects to unburden my feelings; landscape is a place where my soul is at peace; landscape is an abode in which my mortal body can reside; landscape is a release for my Buddhist ideas. I am a man who paints landscapes on the body. In the midst of a big city teeming with human life, in the humble room where I lead a secluded life, I am not a swordsman; I am not a gambler, still less am I a blind person. There are times when, like flowers fallen into a stream, I forget both the material world and myself, and I just paint landscapes; I just paint on the body with wild strokes and haphazard smears. This is enough, it’s a state of mind that I get into; I believe in intuition; I believe in landscape, I while away the time amid these landscapes…”

Huang Yan, Brother and Sister, 2006, C-Print, 120 cm x 150 cm,

China
The works of Chinese photographer Miao Xiaochun (b. 1964) deal with the temporal, visual and conceptual dimension of photography. He resists those universal features of medium that generally involve the search for and the capturing of moments, and the tension between observer and observed.

In his photographic works is a figure looking like a sage, or an official from Ancient China, who processes the artist's facial features. Miao sees it as a symbol of classical Chinese culture, which he describes as a brilliant and powerful period lasting from the Han (206 BC–9 AD) to the Song Dynasty (960–1276). Various features of the figure's clothing and hairstyle stem from this long stretch of time. In Miao Xiaochun's works from his student life in Kassel Art College, he sits, stands or lies in recognizably Central European surroundings such as an airport, a factory, a phone booth, in the Wilhelmshöhe park above Kassel, or "as a guest of German friends" (1999).

Miao Xiaochun, Congressman, 2002, 120 cm x 315 cm, chromogenic print

China
Liu Zheng was born in 1969 in Wuqiang County in Hebei province and grew up in Shanxi province. After studying optical engineering at Beijing Technology Institute, he served as a professional photojournalist for Worker's Daily from 1991 to 1997. For the past decade, Chinese artist Liu Zheng has been working on his ambitious photographic project "The Chinese." In the finished work, Zheng has captured a people and a country in a unique time of flux.

Zheng seeks out moments in which archetypal Chinese characters are encountered in extreme and unexpected situations. His subjects have included street eccentrics, homeless children, street performers, provincial drug traffickers, coal miners, Buddhist monks, prison inmates, Taoist priests, waxwork figures in historical museums, and the dead and dying. Zheng's photographs betray a dark vision, albeit one that is laced with offsetting humor.

Liu Zheng, Peking Opera - Quelling The White Bone Demon,1997, Gelatin Sliver Print, 46 cm x 46 cm

Maia-Mari Sutnik is the Curator of Photography at the Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), where she began developing the photography collection in 1979. She has contributed to many publications, including international editions of Contemporary Photographers and Contemporary Masterpieces, and more recently, Imaging a Shattering Earth: Contemporary Photography and the Environmental Debate. Major exhibitions curated include Gutmann, Michel Lambeth: Photographer, and Pop Photographica: Photography’s Objects in Everyday Life. Her last curatorial project, Eisenstaedt: Two Visions, was produced in conjunction with the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston) exhibition Ansel Adams. Her recent essay, Deuil: New Work by Spring Hurlbut appears in Prefix Photo 15: Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art, Toronto, 2007.

Matthew Teitelbaum became the fifth Director of the Art Gallery of Ontario in September 1998. His leadership and vision was instrumental in achieving the $300 million transformation of the AGO by world-renowned, Toronto-born architect Frank Gehry in November 2008. During his tenure at the AGO, its permanent collection has experienced significant growth – the Gallery has acquired nearly 60,000 works - and its international reputation has been strengthened.

Under his leadership, the AGO has become the central repository of works by such contemporary artists as Betty Goodwin, Paterson Ewen, Kazao Nakamura, Jack Chambers, David Blackwood and Greg Curnoe, reinforcing the AGO's position as a passionate advocate for Canadian art. In 2001, Mr. Teitelbaum created the first permanent archival position in a Canadian art museum, positioning the Gallery as a leader in research and study of the lives, contributions and working methods of artists.

Mr. Teitelbaum is a past president of the Association of Art Museum Directors and is a member of its futures task force and sanctions task force committees. He is actively involved in Luminato: Toronto’s festival of Arts & Creativity, serving on both the Festival Advisory Committee and its Board of Directors. In 2006, Mr. Teitelbaum received the honour of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres from the French government for his ongoing commitment and contributions to the arts. In 2008 he received the RCA medal from the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts for his outstanding contribution to the development of the visual arts in Canada. In addition, in 2009 he was awarded the MOCCA award for his leadership in the completion of Transformation AGO, as well as the Canadian Centre for Diversity’s Human Relations Award.

Born in Toronto in 1956, he holds an honours bachelor of arts in Canadian history from Carleton University, a master of philosophy in modern European painting and sculpture from the Courtauld Institute of Art, and an honorary Doctor of Laws from Queen's University. He has taught at Harvard, York University and the University of Western Ontario, and has lectured across North America. He and his wife Susan Cohen have two sons.

David Moos is the former Curator of Contemporary Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario, where he curated the exhibition The Shape of Colour: Excursions in Colour Field Art, 1950-2005. He holds a doctorate in art history from Columbia University, New York, and is a contributing editor to Art Papers and Art US.

Rupert Duchesne is Group Chief Executive of Aimia. In this role, Mr. Duchesne culminates a decade of innovative stewardship of the rapid growth of the organization from its carve-out as a division of Air Canada in 2002, the initial public offering as the Aeroplan Income Fund in 2005, conversion to corporate status as Groupe Aeroplan Inc. in 2008 and the re-branding of the Corporation as Aimia in 2011. Prior to his current position, Mr. Duchesne spent twelve years in strategy and investment consulting around the world before he joined Air Canada in 1996 as Vice President, Marketing, and in 1999 was promoted to Senior Vice President, International. During that year, he served on the Executive team which defeated the Onex take-over bid, and was appointed Chief Integration Executive, overseeing the integration of Canadian Airlines and Air Canada. Mr. Duchesne holds a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Manchester and a Bachelor Honours degree in Pharmacology from the University of Leeds, both in England. He is a Director of Dorel Industries Inc., and was previously a Director of Alliance Atlantis Communications Inc. He is Chair of the boards of the NeuroScience Canada Partnership and Brain Canada Foundation. He is Vice President of the Art Gallery Ontario’s Board of Trustees, where he chairs both the Finance and Photography committees, co-chairs the Grange Park Advisory Council and is a member of the Executive, Nominating and Strategic Directions Committee. He is also a member of the boards of Greenwood College School, Business for the Arts and the Luminato Festival in Toronto.