Provocative sculptor earns Governor General’s award

OTTAWA A sculptor whose bestknown ceramics work the federal government once rejected for display at a World Expo is among the winners of this year’s Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts.

Glenn Lewis is one of eight laureates who will be honoured by the Canada Council for the Arts, the organization said Wednesday.

The Vancouver artist shook the art scene with his 1970 piece Artifact, which Canada commissioned for the World Expo in Osaka, Japan. But pavilion commissioner Patrick Reid rejected it as too provocative. Reid was concerned over the appearance of the work’s white-glazed tiles, which looked like either saltand-pepper shakers or damaged phalluses. After the debacle, the government refused to pay Lewis the final instalment for his work.

Lewis also joined the live performance art community with his synchronized swimming routines featuring shark-fin aquatic caps designed by artist Kate Craig.

Other recipients of the $25,000 honour include Montreal filmmaker Michele Cournoyer, whose career in the Quebec new wave movement of the 1970s led to experimental animation shorts like Le chapeau, which won best Canadian short at the 2000 Toronto International Film Festival.

Writer Philip Monk, both an exhibition curator and contemporary art critic for Maclean’s magazine, is also being honoured.

The other laureates are Toronto filmmaker Mike Hoolboom, visual artist Shelagh Keeley, painter Landon Mackenzie, Halifax jewelry artist Pamela Ritchie, and Shelley Niro, a multimedia artist from the Six Nations Reserve near Brantford, Ont.

Gov. Gen. David Johnston will present the awards at a ceremony at Rideau Hall on March 1.

The Canada Council funds and administers the awards, which recognize career achievements.