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Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver)

The Contemporary Art Gallery (CAG) is the only independent, non-profit public art gallery in downtown Vancouver. The CAG exhibits local, national, and international artists, primarily featuring emerging local artists producing Canadian contemporary art. It has exhibited work by many of Vancouver’s most acclaimed artists, including Stan Douglas, Ian Wallace, Rodney Graham, Liz Magor, and Brian Jungen, and it continues to feature local artists such as Damian Moppett, Stephen Waddell, Shannon Oksanen, Elspeth Pratt, Myfanwy MacLeod, and many others. International artists who have had exhibitions at the CAG include Dan Graham, Christopher Williams, Rachel Harrison, Hans-Peter Feldmann and Ceal Floyer. Other notable people that have curated or written for the CAG include Douglas Coupland, Beatriz Colomina, Roy Arden, and John Welchman. Apart from the exhibition of visual art, the Contemporary Art Gallery produces publications, facilitates education and outreach programs, public talks, and visiting artist/curator programs, and maintains a library.

History
Established in 1971, the Contemporary Art Gallery (originally called the Greater Vancouver Artist's Gallery) began as an outgrowth of the Social Planning Department of the City of Vancouver, in which Vancouver artists were hired for a six month period to produce art for exhibition at the gallery, and for inclusion in the City of Vancouver Art Collection. In 1976, the CAG was incorporated as a registered federal charity and a non-profit society under the Societies Act of British Columbia. In 1984, the Contemporary Art Gallery became an artist-run centre. It was widely recognized for providing initial solo exhibitions and catalogues for many of Vancouver’s now well-known artists. By the early 1990s the exhibition program had expanded to include artists of national and international origin. In 1996, the Contemporary Art Gallery was transformed from an artist-run centre into an independent public art gallery, fulfilling the need for a contemporary visual arts institution with programming positioned between the vibrant experimentalism of Vancouver’s artist-run centres and the more popular programs of large general-interest institutions. In May of 2001, the Contemporary Art Gallery moved to a new purpose-built facility.

Gallery
The Contemporary Art Gallery is located in the ground floor and mezzanine of a residential condominium building at 555 Nelson Street, at the corner of Nelson and Richards, just on the edge of Yaletown, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. In 2001, architects Martin Lewis and Noel Best designed the facility the CAG now occupies. The exhibition facility consists of two galleries and a series of window vitrines on the façade that provide an additional opportunity for exhibition. The B.C. Binning Gallery is 1,040 sq. feet and the Alvin Balkind Gallery is 676 sq. feet. A reception area adjoins the reading room, in which visitors can access information on current and past exhibitions. The Abraham Rogatnick Library, which participates in an international catalogue exchange with other galleries and museums, is located on the second floor and is open to the public by appointment.