The Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG) had a tremendous year in 2016, and 2017 is promising to keep the momentum going, according to WAG Director and CEO Stephen Borys.

Borys says exhibits like Olympus: The Greco-Roman Collections of Berlin, Making Good, Karel Funk, Boarder X, The Thinker and the arrival of close to 8,000 works from the Government of Nunavut’s fine art collection highlight a very successful 2016 for the WAG.

They also opened a pair of new galleries, WAG@TheForks and WAG@ThePark. 

There’s a lot to look forward to in 2017 as well - according to Borys - including the beginning of construction for the Inuit Art Centre and a lot of important exhibits.

“I think the biggest thing this summer would be two big Picasso exhibitions, Picasso in Canada and Picasso: Man and Beast,” said Borys. “These will combine to bring in over 130 works by Picasso, including paintings, prints, drawings, water colours and ceramic works.”

Borys says they also have a lot planned in conjunction with the Canada 150 celebrations taking place throughout the year. Earlier in 2016, the WAG announced a project called Art Express'd where three art studios located inside of shipping containers will travel to 15 communities throughout the country, eventually making their way back to Winnipeg. At each stop people from those communities will produce art that will culminate into its own exhibit at the WAG.

There’s also an exhibit entitled Resurgence and Insurgence that will open in 2017, which Borys says will highlight the 

largest collection of contemporary Indigenous art the WAG has ever displayed.

Borys says having these big exhibits come to the WAG is important because they’re constantly finding ways to make every visit educational for people.

“Art changes lives and exposes people to things they haven’t thought about,” he said. “Regardless of what your understanding or knowledge or interest is there is always something going on at the WAG that will pull you or push you in a certain direction to make you a better person.”

Attendance the Same as Recent Years, But More Kids Visited in 2016

Borys says the WAG was close to their yearly average amount of visitors in 2016, clocking in approximately 120,000 people. One thing that caught his eye, though, was a spike in the attendance of students from Kindergarten to grade 12 on field trips. In fact, 11,000 students visited Olympus, according to Borys.  

The spike in student attendance is something he says is both positive and negative.

“Sometimes the first programs to be cut and reduced in schools are arts and culture programs,” said Borys. “But when these programs get cut museums and galleries have to pick up the slack because we are filling a roll that is not being filled by schools, and that’s exciting for us.”

He believes art has the power to educate kids in a number of fields, including math, geography, language arts, cultural studies and reconciliation studies.

“I watched my son grow up in terms of his exposure to arts and culture in formal and informal ways,” said Borys.“For kids who get that exposure early on – whether it’s a studio experience or a trip to an exhibition or a film – it feeds something to them nothing else can and it gives them a bit of an appetite and exposure to ideas they wouldn’t normally get.”

“As they get older I think their perspective and approach to life is richer and broader in terms of what they understand and in their own understanding of the way they look at people.”  

For more information on what the WAG has planned for 2017, visit wag.ca.