Director of Institutional Gifts,
Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG), and independent curator
Vancouver, British Columbia
Karen Love has worked in various capacities at the Vancouver Art Gallery since 2006, including Manager of Curatorial Affairs and Manager of Publications and Grants. She currently writes and edits a wide range of documents for the Gallery’s fundraising endeavours. Love was formerly Director/Curator of Presentation House Gallery (1983-2001) and subsequently worked as an independent curator, writer and editor. She has produced over 160 exhibitions and 100 art publications. Her curatorial history includes Death and the Family; Don’t Kiss Me: Disruptions of the Self in the Work of Claude Cahun; Running Fence: Geoffrey James; War Zones, a multi-venue contemporary art project co-curated with Karen Henry; Facing History: Portraits from Vancouver, an exhibition and book co-published by PHG and Arsenal Pulp Press, and a tour to Paris and Basse Normandie in France; Weathervane, co-produced and toured by Oakville Galleries and the Ottawa Art Gallery; and Variations on the Picturesque at the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, co-curated with K. Henry. Love’s project Memory Palace [3 artists in the library] was presented at the Vancouver Public Library/Central Branch and consisted of solo photographic and video commissions and exhibitions by Carol Sawyer, Angela Grauerholz and Esther Shalev-Gerz (2008-2010). Love worked with co-founding producers of CABINET: Interdisciplinary Collaborations to present the group’s inaugural event Projections, a three-work video/live music program, for which two projects which were new commissions, at the Roundhouse in Vancouver in association with the Vancouver Art Gallery, Turning Point Ensemble and PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. She is a board member for the Doryphore Independent Curators Society, a member of the Public Art Committee for the City of Vancouver, and the author of an online Curatorial Toolkit commissioned by 2010 Legacies Now.