Rebecca Belmore Wins 2016 Gershon Iskowitz Prize

REBECCA BELMORE | IMAGE: CBC

The Gershon Iskowitz Foundation in partnership with the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) announced Rebecca Belmore as the winner on the 2016 Gershon Iskowitz Prize on November 16. The award, which is presented annually to an artist who has made an outstanding contribution to the visual arts in Canada, includes a $50,000 cash prize and a solo exhibition at the AGO within two years.

Belmore, a Montreal-based artist born in Ontario, was awarded the Governor General’s Visual Arts Award in 2013 as well as the Lynch-Staunton Award in Media Arts in 2005 and the Hnatyshyn Foundation Visual Arts award in 2009. Belmore’s work is in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, The Mendel Art Gallery, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Art Bank of Canada, the Hood Museum, Thunder Bay Art Gallery and private collections throughout Canada and the USA. Her many solo exhibitions include Rising to the Occasion at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

“Rebecca Belmore is one of Canada's most important visual artists as her work crosses disciplines between film, installation and performance. As the thirtieth winner of the prize she joins a distinguished group of Canadian artists,” said Thomas Bjarnason, President of the Iskowitz Foundation. “Rebecca is renowned for a consistently provocative interrogation of the status of our Indigenous peoples through work that tests the relationship of audience, artist and art.”

More details about Rebecca Belmore’s exhibition at the AGO in 2018 will be announced as they become available.