About
The executive directors of the three art galleries presenting the touring exhibition Conceptions of White: John G. Hampton (MacKenzie Art Gallery), Barbara Fischer (Art Museum at the University of Toronto), and Anthony Kiendl (Vancouver Art Gallery), will reflect on urgent questions and strategies for dismantling the White institution, changing the traditionally White frameworks of art museums, and imagining a decolonized visual space.
Presented in partnership with the Canadian Art Museum Directors Organization–Organisation des directeurs des musées d’art Canadiens (CAMDO-ODMAC).
This event is free and is open to the public.
Panelists
-
John G. Hampton
Executive Director & CEO, MacKenzie Art Gallery
John G. Hampton (they/them) is a curator, artist, administrator, and the current Executive Director and CEO of the MacKenzie Art Gallery. They hold a Masters of Visual Studies in Curatorial Studies from the University of Toronto, and a BA in Visual Arts from the University of Regina. John is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, the United States, and Canada, and grew up in Regina. They have previously held positions as Executive Director of the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba, Artistic Director of Trinity Square Video, Curator-in-Residency at the Art Musem at the University of Toronto and Curator at Neutral Ground Artist-Run Centre.
-
Barbara Fischer
Executive Director/Chief Curator
Barbara Fischer is the Executive Director/Chief Curator of the Art Museum at the University of Toronto (comprised of the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery and the University of Toronto Art Centre) as well as an Associate Professor, Teaching Stream in the Master of Visual Studies program in Curatorial Studies at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto.
Fischer has curated award-winning exhibitions in the area of contemporary art and its histories, including solo exhibitions of Stan Douglas, Rebecca Belmore, Will Kwan, John Greyson, Wendy Coburn, Deanna Bowen, and Kent Monkman’s Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience—which toured across Canada from 2017–2021—among many others. She curated the internationally circulating retrospective exhibition General Idea Editions 1967–1995 (Kunstverein Munich, Kunsthalle Zurich, Kunst-Werke ICA Berlin, CAAC Seville, Henry Art Gallery Seattle, and the Andy Warhol Museum Pittsburgh, among others); and Projections (2007), the first major survey and touring exhibition on projection-based works in the history of contemporary art in Canada. In 2010, she partnered with five curators from across Canada to produce Traffic: Conceptual Art in Canada 1965-1980, the first survey of conceptual art in Canada. The exhibition toured across Canada and in reconfigured form to the Badischer Kunstverein (Germany) and to the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris (2010–2014).
Barbara Fischer is the recipient of the 2008 Hnatyshyn Award for Curatorial Excellence in Contemporary Art. She curated Mark Lewis’ project and was part of the curatorial team for Isuma, presented at the Canadian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (in 2009 and 2019 respectively).
-
Anthony Kiendl
CEO & Director of the Vancouver Art Gallery
Anthony Kiendl is the CEO & Director of the Vancouver Art Gallery. He is an award-winning curator, writer, arts administrator and educator, and a community builder with over 25 years of experience in the arts. Prior to the Vancouver Art Gallery, Anthony was the Executive Director & CEO of the Mackenzie Gallery in Regina, Saskatchewan; the Executive & Artistic Director of Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art in Winnipeg, Manitoba; and the Director of Visual Arts, Walter Phillips Gallery, and the Banff International Curatorial Institute at the Banff Centre, Alberta.
Kiendl has worked internationally, in 2011 he was appointed curator of Contour: Biennale of the Moving Image in Mechelen, Belgium. In 2007 he was Leverhulme Visiting Research Fellow at Middlesex University, London, UK.
He has been an invited guest mentor or advisor on leadership in the arts by the Museum Leadership Institute (formerly the Getty) and Business / Arts (Canada).