SFU Galleries

Simon Fraser University's art galleries are dynamic centres for the presentation and interrogation of art practices and ideas. There are two distinct galleries: SFU Gallery on the Burnaby campus (established 1970) and Audain Gallery at the Goldcorp Centre for the Arts in Vancouver (established 2010). SFU Galleries stewards the Simon Fraser University Art Collection that includes, in its holdings of over 5,800 works, significant regional and national art works spanning the last century.

Simon Fraser University is known for its commitment to academic freedom, interdisciplinary research, and innovative pedagogy, and it has created opportunities for important local and international artists to exhibit, teach, study, and produce work. Within this context, SFU Galleries encourage conceptual and experimental programs that explore ways in which contemporary art is socially and politically engaged. 

Situated in Vancouver and Burnaby, SFU Galleries occupies the unceded territories of xʷməθkwəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh, Səl̓ílwətaɬ, and kʷikʷəƛ̓əm Nations. Acknowledging that the activities of SFU Galleries unfold on colonized Indigenous territories is both a recognition that settler colonialism is an ongoing structure and a commitment to support the capacity of art to unsettle these conditions.

Undertaken by SFU Galleries’ curatorial staff, programming includes exhibitions, publications, symposia, conversations, screenings, performances, and other events. Collaborating with SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts, Audain Gallery hosts exhibitions with Audain Visual Artists in Residence Program as well as BFA and MFA student exhibitions. SFU Galleries engage the general public and the art community as well as the SFU community. All galleries are free of charge.

^{Installation view of Ann Beam and Carl Beam: Spaces for Reading, 2019. Photo: Blaine Campbell.}

SFU Gallery presents contemporary work within a local, national, and international context. The gallery's programming addresses the specific intellectual conditions of SFU and the Lower Mainland in relationship to global contexts, as well as the region’s history of conceptual, social, and cultural practices. Located on Burnaby Mountain, SFU Gallery’s audience includes students, faculty, staff, and the general public.

Since 2017, SFU Gallery has focused on research, collections, publications, projects, and talks. Rather than presenting continuous exhibitions, it operates as a research centre for art and ideas that connect to SFU Galleries' many activities.

SFU Gallery was established as a public art gallery in 1970. In the preceding years, visual arts programming was coordinated by artist Iain Baxter, who was a Resident in the Centre for Communications and the Arts until the early 1970s. Under Baxter’s guidance, Ian Wallace exhibited early monochromes, N.E. Thing Co. Ltd. undertook multiple projects, and Seth Siegelaub curated a campus wide project entitled Catalogue for an Exhibition that included the work of Josepth Kosuth, Sol Lewitt, Lawrence Weiner, and others. Since that time, SFU Gallery has presented work by artists as diverse as Raymond Boisjoly, Andreas Bunte, R.B. Kitaj, Lyse Lemiuex, Liz Magor, Julie Mehretu, Samuel Roy-Bois, Allan Sekula, and Charlene Vickers.

Audain Gallery

SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, 149 West Hastings Street, Vancouver BC

^{Installation view of Relations of Responsibility, 2019. Photo: Blaine Campbell.}

Audain Gallery opened in 2010 and is named after patron Michael Audain. The gallery is located in downtown Vancouver in the Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, along with SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts. The gallery advances the aesthetic and discursive production and presentation of contemporary art through a responsive program of exhibitions that support engaged pedagogy. Focusing on the ways in which contemporary art is socially formed and formative, the gallery initiates local, national and international projects, including exhibitions by visiting international artists through the Audain Visual Artists in Residence Program, such as Marjetica Potrč, YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES, Raqs Media Collective, Claire Fontaine, Walid Raad, and Hito Steyerl. Other exhibitions have included the work of Dana Claxton, Ursula Mayer, Nep Sidhu, Martine Syms, and Althea Thauberger. Audain Gallery also hosts SFU SCA Visual Arts student exhibitions. Events such as artist’s talks, public discussions, and screenings are organized parallel to the gallery’s exhibitions, cultivating the cultural context and conversation around visual art. Audain Gallery offers a critical space for engagement with the diverse and timely ideas of contemporary art in a dynamic and shifting manner.