The Process
Artist Selection
The Grange Prize Nominating Jury serves to nominate four living photographic artists - two from Canada and two from a partner country - for excellence in the medium. The Grange Prize recognizes that contemporary photography includes a broad range of diverse practices and places no limitations on approach, subject matter, technology, or presentation.
Each year, an Art Gallery of Ontario curator is appointed lead curator for The Grange Prize. In partnership with a photographic expert from the international partner country, a nominating jury of four is selected, comprised of the lead curator, the international expert, and one additional representative each from Canada and from the partner country. Jury members can be other curators, academics, writers, or collectors - the only criterion is that each jury member must possess a noted expertise in contemporary photography.
The shortlist is determined through a series of in-person conversations among all four jurors, each of whom is required to bring several potential nominees to the table. The shortlist is finalized when the jury unanimously agrees on four outstanding photographic artists - two from Canada, and two from the partner country.
The Grange Prize 2010 Nominating Jury is:
Sophie Hackett, Assistant Curator of Photography, Art Gallery of Ontario
Karen Irvine, Curator, Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College, Chicago
Dominic Molon, Associate Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
Dr. Kenneth Montague, Independent Curator and Collector
Sophie Hackett
Sophie Hackett is the assistant curator, photography at the Art Gallery of Ontario and adjunct faculty in Ryerson University's Masters Program in photographic preservation and collections management. She holds a BFA in photography from the Emily Carr University of Art & Design and an MA from the University of Chicago. Over the last decade, she has contributed to several Canadian art magazines and international journals and curated many shows independently, including The Found and the Familiar: Snapshots in Contemporary Canadian Art in 2002, co-curated with Jennifer Long, which toured nationally. In her role at the Art Gallery of Ontario, she worked with Toronto artist Suzy Lake to create Rhythm of a True Space (2008); co-organized Connecting with Photography, the reinstallation of the permanent photography collection for the Gallery's reopening in November 2008; and in 2010, she commissioned Barbara Kruger to create a new work for the front façade of the AGO, Untitled (It) - the first time the façade has been used as a site for art.
Karen Irvine
Karen Irvine is curator of the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College, Chicago. She has organized numerous one-person exhibitions including: Anthony Goicolea; Shirana Shahbazi: Goftare Nik/Good Words; Jason Salavon; Paul Shambroom: Evidence of Democracy; and Alec Soth: Sleeping by the Mississippi. Thematic group exhibitions include Audible Imagery: Sound and Photography; The Furtive Gaze, works by artists who use the camera as an instrument of surveillance; Camera/Action: Performance and Photography; and Anticipation, exploring strategies of slowness and suspense in time-based art. She is a part-time instructor of photography at Columbia College, Chicago. She received her MFA in photography from FAMU, Prague, and a Masters of Arts degree in art history at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Dominic Molon
Dominic Molon is an associate curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Chicago, where he has curated the major thematic exhibitions Production Site: The Artist's Studio Inside-Out (2010) and Sympathy for the Devil: Art and Rock and Roll Since 1967 (2007), as well as solo exhibitions of Liam Gillick (2009), Wolfgang Tillmans (2006), Gillian Wearing (2002), and Sharon Lockhart (2001). Molon has contributed to numerous publications, including: Art Review, Whitewall, Vitamin D: New Perspectives in Drawing; Art on Paper; Contemporary; Trans; and Tate Etc., as well as exhibition catalogues for Karen Kilimnik, Elmgreen & Dragset, and Muntean & Rosenblum.
Dr. Kenneth Montague
Dr. Kenneth Montague is an art collector and curator based in Toronto and the founder and director of Wedge Curatorial Projects. Since 1997, he has been investigating photo-based work that explores black identity and the African diaspora. FLAVA: Wedge Curatorial Projects 1977 - 2007, an art book published in 2007, documents the projects, exhibitions and community workshops produced during its first decade. The Wedge Collection has grown to encompass both historical and contemporary photography, as well as non-photo based works that challenge notions of representation and identity.
Exhibitions curated by Dr. Montague include Becoming at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit; head room at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto; CONTACT 2010 exhibition Always Moving Forward: Contemporary African Photography from the Wedge Collection at Gallery 44, Toronto; and the upcoming Position As Desired / Exploring African-Canadian Identity: Photographs from the Wedge Collection at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto (Fall 2010).
