Wanda Koop
{{Short description|Canadian artist}}
{{Infobox artist
| honorific_prefix =
| name = Wanda Koop
| honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|list=CM OM DFA DLitt RCA|size=100%}}
| image = Wanda Koop.jpg
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| caption = Koop at the Canadian Art Reel Artists Film Festival in 2012
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| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1951|11|05}}
| birth_place = Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
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| awards = {{awd|Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal|2002}}{{awd|Order of Canada|2006}}{{awd|Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts|2016}}
| elected = {{awd|Royal Canadian Academy of Art|2005}}
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| website = {{URL|www.wandakoop.com}}
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Wanda Koop is a Canadian interdisciplinary artist who lives and works in Winnipeg, Manitoba. As well as being an artist, she is a community activist and founded Art City, a free community art centre for inner city youth in Winnipeg (1998).{{cite web |title=Exhibitions |url=https://www.mbam.qc.ca/en/exhibitions/wanda-koop |website=www.wbam.qc.ca |publisher=MMFA |access-date=2 May 2024}}
Life
Koop was born on November 5, 1951, in Vancouver, British Columbia, to German-speaking Menonite parents from Zaporizhia region of present-day Ukraine.{{cite web |url=http://canadianart.ca/artists/wanda-koop/ |title=Wanda Koop |author= |date= |website=canadianart.ca |publisher=Canadian Art |access-date=March 8, 2015}} Koop graduated from the Lemoine FitzGerald School of Art, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg in 1973.{{cite web |url=http://www.gallery.ca/en/about/688.php |title=Major Exhibition of Winnipeg artist Wanda Koop opens at the National Gallery of Canada |author=|date=February 27, 2011 |website=www.gallery.ca |publisher=National Gallery of Canada |access-date=March 8, 2015}}
In 2002 Koop was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal, in 2005 she was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, in 2006 she was appointed a member of the Order of Canada, and in 2016 she received the Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts.{{cite web |url=http://www.gallery.ca/koop/en/30.htm |title=Wanda Koop: On the Edge of Experience |author= |date=2011 |website=www.gallery.ca |publisher=National Gallery of Canada |access-date=March 8, 2015}}{{cite web |url=http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/Wanda_Koop |title=Wanda Koop |author= |date= |website=ccca.concordia.ca |publisher=The CCCA Canadian Artist Database |access-date=March 8, 2015}}{{OCC|10624}}{{Cite web|url=http://archive.ggavma.canadacouncil.ca/2016/winners/wanda-koop|title=The Canada Council for the Arts - Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts|website=archive.ggavma.canadacouncil.ca|language=en|access-date=2017-03-02}}
Koop and her mother were the subjects of the 2007 documentary Wanda Koop: In Her Eyes about their visit to Russia, where Koop's mother was born.{{cite journal | access-date=March 8, 2015 | url=https://umanitoba.ca/cm/vol7/no16/wandakoop.html | title=Wanda Koop: In Her Eyes | publisher=University of Manitoba | date=April 13, 2001 | last=Nielsen | first=Valerie | journal=CM: Canadian Review of Materials}}{{cite web |url=http://www3.nfb.ca/acrosscultures/theme_vis.php?id=2003&mediaid=659127 |title=Wanda Koop: In Her Eyes |author=|date= |website=www3.nfb.ca |publisher=National Film Board |access-date=March 8, 2015}}
Work
While still studying at the University of Manitoba School of Art, in 1972, Koop's work was included in an exhibition at the Winnipeg Art Gallery.{{cite web | url=http://gibsongallery.com/artists/wanda-koop/ | title=Wanda Koop - Michael Gibson Gallery}} Throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, Koop was the subject of numerous solo exhibitions, including the 1985 travelling exhibition Airplanes and the Wall; the 1991 travelling exhibition Wanda Koop: Recent Paintings;{{cite web | url=http://www.galeriedivision.com/toronto/artist/wanda-koop/cv | title=Division Gallery Toronto – Wanda Koop – CV}} and the 1998 exhibit See Everything, See Nothing at The New Gallery.{{cite book|editor-last=Jacobson|editor-first=Melody|title=Silver: 25 Years of Artist-Run Culture, 1975-2000|date=2000|publisher=New Gallery Press|location=Calgary: Alberta|isbn=9781895284096|page=113|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iZczAQAAIAAJ}} From February 18 to May 15, 2011, her solo exhibition entitled On The Edge Of Experience was shown at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, Ontario.
Koop's work often combines aspects of video, performance, or photography. As Robin Laurence describes in the Spring 2000 issue of Canadian Art, Koop "is interested in expanding the languages of paint and video, integrating them into the complex terms of loss and grief and reclamation."{{cite web | access-date=March 8, 2015 | url=http://canadianart.ca/microsites/cover-stories/2000-spring.pdf | title=Moving Pictures | publisher=Canadian Art | date=2000 | last=Laurence | first=Robin | page=87 | website=canadianart.ca}}
Her "Barcode Face" series created a new Canadian landscape. Koop revisited the series in 2021, as it was included in the group exhibition, A Thought Sublime at Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York City.{{cite web |title=A Thought Sublime |url=https://www.artforum.com/artguide/marianne-boesky-gallery--west-th-street-12340/a-thought-sublime-195212 |website=www.artforum.com |publisher=Artforum magazine |access-date=2021-11-19}} In 2022, her exhibition View From Here was one of the shows which accompanied the opening of the new Inuit art building at the Winnipeg Art Gallery.{{cite web |title=Wanda Koop: View From Here |url=https://www.wag.ca/art/exhibitions |website=www.wag.ca |publisher=Winnipeg Art Gallery |access-date=17 July 2022}} Also in 2022, her exhibition Wanda Koop: Lightworks was shown at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection.{{cite web |title=Wanda Koop: Lightworks |url=https://mcmichael.com/event/wanda-koop-lightworks/ |website=mcmichael.com |publisher=McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg |access-date=19 July 2022}} In 2024, she showed a new body of work at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in her first monographic exhibition in Quebec titled Wanda Koop: Who Owns the Moon.
Community activism
In addition to her art, Koop is an ardent community activist. In 1998 she founded Art City, a community art centre in Winnipeg's West Broadway neighbourhood as a way to bring together contemporary visual artists and inner-city youth.{{cite web |url=http://www.artcityinc.com/p/about.html |title=Art City: About |author=|date= |website=artcityinc.com |publisher=Art City |access-date=March 8, 2015}}
Selected awards and honours
- Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal (2002){{cite web |title=Queen Elizabeth Medals |url=https://www.gg.ca/en/honours/recipients?filter_name=wanda+koop&city_custom= |website=www.gg.ca | date=11 June 2018 |publisher=Governor General of Canada |access-date=17 August 2022}}
- Doctor of Letters from the University of Winnipeg (2002){{cite web |title=Wanda Koop |url=http://ccca.concordia.ca/artists/Wanda_Koop |website=ccca.concordia.ca |publisher=CCCA Art Data base |access-date=17 August 2022}}
- Order of Canada (2006){{cite web |title=Wanda Koop |url=https://archive.gg.ca/honours/search-recherche/honours-desc.asp?lang=e&TypeID=orc&id=10624 |website=archive.gg.ca |publisher=Government of Canada |access-date=17 August 2022}}
- Honorary Doctorate from the Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design in Vancouver (2007)
- Honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Manitoba (2009)
- Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal (2012)
- Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts (2016){{cite web |title=GG Awards archives |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoL2tT5b_jE |website=www.youtube.com |publisher=Governor General of Canada |access-date=17 August 2022}}
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{official website|http://www.wandakoop.com/}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Koop, Wanda}}
Category:20th-century Canadian women artists
Category:21st-century Canadian women artists
Category:Artists from Vancouver
Category:Artists from Winnipeg
Category:Canadian landscape painters
Category:Canadian people of Russian descent
Category:Canadian women painters
Category:Members of the Order of Canada
Category:Members of the Order of Manitoba
Category:Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts winners