Art Metropole

Stephen Andrews was born in 1956 in Sarnia, Ontario Canada. Over the last twenty five years he has exhibited his work in Canada, the U.S., Brazil, Scotland, France and Japan. He is represented in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Belkin Art Gallery, the Schwartz Collection, Harvard as well as many private collections. His work deals with memory, identity, technology and their representations in various media including drawing, animation and recently painting.

The UBC Fine Arts Gallery was founded in 1948 and located in the basement of Main Library on the University campus. For much of its early history, the Fine Arts Gallery was the only venue in the Vancouver region to focus exclusively on contemporary art. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Gallery achieved a national profile with exhibitions that explored what is now known as cultural studies, and by presenting innovative work by artists who would establish Vancouver as an international centre. The Gallery was used exclusively as exhibition space until 1994, when it began to house and administrate the University Art Collection.

On June 14, 1995, the Fine Arts Gallery was rededicated the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery and opened its new premises at 1825 Main Mall. The building, designed by Peter Cardew Architects, was made possible by the generous support of Dr. Helen E. Belkin and the Government of British Columbia through the World of Opportunity Campaign and the University of British Columbia.

Satellite Gallery

In 2010, the Michael O’Brian Family Foundation launched Satellite Gallery located at 560 Seymour Street, on the second floor above Club 560, a nightclub in the centre of downtown Vancouver. Shared between three institutions – the Belkin Art Gallery, the UBC Museum of Anthropology and Presentation House Gallery – this collaborative space is devoted to exploring the boundaries of artistic and institutional practices.

www.satellitegallery.ca

Between 2001 to 2008 the Belkin Gallery ran the Belkin Satellite, an auxiliary space in downtown Vancouver which presented a mix of exhibitions by local artists, new projects by mid-career artists, experimental projects by UBC curatorial studies students, and served as an additional venue for the Belkin permanent collection. The Belkin Satellite, located at 555 Hamilton Street, originated as the Bau-Xi Gallery in 1965, and is Vancouver’s most enduring single gallery space. In August 2008, the Or Gallery took over the site.

Scott Watson is Head (2012- ) and Professor (2003- ) at the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory and Director/Curator of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery (1989- ) at the University of British Columbia. He is Director and Graduate Advisor for the Critical Curatorial Studies program, which he helped initiate in September 2002. Recent distinctions include the Hnatyshyn Foundation Award for Curatorial Excellence in Contemporary Art (2010), Alvin Balkind Award for Creative Curatorship in British Columbia Arts (2008), the UBC Dorothy Sommerset Award for Performance Development in the Visual and Performing Arts (2005), and invitation to the UBC Chancellor’s Circle (2005).

Professor Watson has published extensively in the areas of contemporary Canadian and international art. His 1990 monograph on Jack Shadbolt earned the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize (B.C. Book Prize) in 1991. Recent publications include Thrown: British Columbia’s Apprentices of Bernard Leach and their Contemporaries (2011) (finalist for the 2012 Roderick Haig Brown Regional BC Book Prize), “Race, wilderness, territory and the origins of the Modern Canadian landscape” and “Disfigured Nature” (in Beyond Wilderness, Montreal: McGill University Press, 2007); “Transmission difficulties: Vancouver painting in the 1960s” (in Paint, Vancouver: Vancouver Art Gallery, 2006); and “The Lost City : Vancouver Painting in the 1950s” (in A Modern Life : Art and Design in British Columbia 1945-1960, Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2004). Recent and upcoming curated exhibitions include Letters: Michael Morris and Concrete Poetry (2012); Mark Boulos (2010); Jack Shadbolt: Underpinnings (2009); Exponential Future (2008); Intertidal : Vancouver art & artists (2005/06) at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp; Stan Douglas : Inconsolable Memories (2005/06); Rebecca Belmore : Fountain (2005) for the Venice Biennale Canadian Pavilion; and Thrown : Influences and Intentions of West Coast Ceramics (2004).

Professor Watson’s research focus is contemporary art and issues, art theory and criticism, 20th century art history, curatorial and exhibition studies.