The Venue: Audain Gallery
The Venue is a profile series from Laura Murray Public Relations that ventures behind the scenes of Metro Vancouver’s foremost arts and culture venues, diving into the past and unveiling the unique stories and events that have made an indelible impact on our city’s creative community.
This week we spoke with Brady Cranfield, artist, musician, instructor, and gallery assistant at Vancouver’s Audain Gallery.
As one of Vancouver’s newest contemporary art galleries, the Audain Gallery leads a double life.
Working closely with SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts, which relocated to SFU’s Vancouver campus at Goldcorp Centre for the Arts in 2010, the Audain Gallery is a thriving member of the artistic community-at-large and a partner in the SFU Woodward’s Cultural Unit.
Audain Gallery's current exhibition "The Primary Education of the Autodidact" is presented in partnership with Indian Summer Festival.
“We’re very much a member of both worlds,” says gallery assistant Brady Cranfield. “We are integrated into the curriculum of the School for the Contemporary Arts, and we also work with established international artists to produce works that speak to the community. As a relatively young space, we are still constantly changing and evolving.”
First opened in February 2010, the Audain Gallery has presented works by a number of renowned international artists through its Audain Visual Artists in Residence Program, funded by faithful arts supporter and gallery namesake Michael Audain.
Highlights have included the gallery’s inaugural exhibition First Nations/Second Nature, a show curated by National Gallery of Canada Resident of Indigenous Art Candice Hopkins, and most recently a community-based project presented by artist-in-residence Elke Krasny, who collaborated with the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre.
Audain Gallery's inaugural exhibit "First Nations/Second Nature" launched in February 2010.
This fall, the Audain will welcome Paris-based collective Claire Fontaine.
“Our artists are always socially engaged and critically minded,” notes Cranfield. “We make a strong effort to be accessible and to tackle issues such as the redevelopment of the Downtown Eastside head on.”
Check out the gallery this summer to view current exhibition The Primary Education of the Autodidact by New Delhi-based Raqs Media Collective, commissioned by Audain curator Sabine Bitter and presented in partnership with the Indian Summer Festival, on at the Goldcorp Centre for the Arts from July 5-15, 2012.
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