2015 MPfYCC Winner Announced

The Art Gallery of Guelph is pleased to announce that Adam Barbu has been awarded the 3rd Annual Middlebrook Prize for Young Canadian Curators. Barbu’s project, The Queer Feeling of Tomorrow, has been selected as the winning submission and will be featured at the Art Gallery of Guelph from September 17 December 13, 2015.

The jury, composed of Katherine Dennis (1st Annual Middlebrook Prize Recipient),
Dawn Owen (Acting Director, Art Gallery of Guelph), and Jennifer Rudder
(Associate Professor of Curatorial Studies, OCAD University), cited the complexity and scope of Barbu’s proposal in their basis for selection, describing the exhibition as: “A cohesive and refined selection of works that meet Barbu’s conceptual objectives, coupled with extension programming that is dynamic and elastic in bridging a diversity of communities.”

The Queer Feeling of Tomorrow seeks to explore themes of doubt, resilience, and political agency. Featuring works by John Hanning (Brooklyn, NY), David Poolman (Toronto, ON), Sunil Gupta (London, EN), Laurel Woodcock (Guelph, ON), Shan Kelley (Montreal, QC), and Julia Martin (Ottawa, ON), the exhibition traces a kind of queer orientation to the world expressed through a pursuit of the ambiguous enclaves and shadows of “official culture.” A national outreach writing project titled Queer Futures will run in conjunction with the exhibition.

The Middlebrook Prize for Young Canadian Curators is funded by the Centre Wellington Community Foundation’s Middlebrook Social Innovation Fund, with support from John and Miranda Kissick and the Guelph Community Foundation: Musagetes Fund.

The Art Gallery of Guelph and its sponsors — University of Guelph, City of Guelph, and the Upper Grand District School Board — acknowledge the support of the Ontario Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Trillium Foundation, and the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Curator’s Biography

Adam Barbu is an independent writer and curator currently living in Ottawa. He has produced contemporary art exhibitions nationally and internationally that explore themes of cultural memory, the politics of spectatorship, and alternative modes of public engagement. His current critical research focuses on queer theory, “post AIDS” discourses, and early minimalist art. This fall, Barbu will begin his M.A. in Art History at the University of Toronto.