UBC Appoints New Head of Department of Art History, Visual Art, and Theory

The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at The University of British Columbia is pleased to announce that the Gallery’s Director/Curator Scott Watson has been appointed Head of the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory for a 3-year term effective July 1, 2012. Watson has served as the Department’s Acting Head since January 1, 2012.  He has been a Professor in the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory since 2003, and is Director and Graduate Advisor for the Critical and Curatorial Studies program in the Department, which he helped initiate in September 2002.

Watson is internationally recognized for his research and work in the curatorial field, which focuses on contemporary art, theory and criticism.  His recent distinctions include the Hnatyshyn Foundation Award for Curatorial Excellence in Contemporary Art (2010), the 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).  Recently curated exhibitions at the Belkin Art Gallery include Letters: Michael Morris and Concrete Poetry (2012); Mark Boulos (2010); and Jack Shadbolt: Underpinnings – Works on Paper from the Collection (2009).  Watson has published extensively in the areas of contemporary Canadian and international art; his recent publication Thrown: British Columbia’s Apprentices of Bernard Leach and their Contemporaries (2011), was recognized as a Finalist for the 2012 Roderick Haig Brown Regional BC Book Prize.

Watson will continue in his role as Director of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, formerly the UBC Fine Arts Gallery, a position that he has held since 1989.

Keith Wallace was appointed Associate Director/Curator of the Belkin Art Gallery on January 1, 2012.  Wallace has been a curator of contemporary art since 1979. From 1991 to 2001 he was Curator, then Director/Curator, of Vancouver’s Contemporary Art Gallery, where he developed and presented a program of regional, national and international exhibitions.  He served as Associate and Acting Director/Curator at the Belkin Art Gallery from 2005 to 2007. Wallace has organized exhibitions of artists from Canada, USA, Cuba, India, China, Thailand, France, Germany, England and Columbia.  Wallace is also Editor-in-Chief of Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, which is published in Taipei.

For more information, please contact Jana Tyner
jana.tyner@ubc.ca or 604.822.1389