This spring, Whistler will debut the highly anticipated Audain Art Museum to the general public.
The contemporary building found in a grove of spruce trees adjacent to Whistler Village at 4350 Blackcomb Way will be the nation’s newest Category A Museum, and house a large portion of personal art collected by Michael Audain and wife Yoshiki Karasawa over the past 40 years.
Among other displays, one of the permanent collections the museum will showcase includes extensive early First Nations art work which spans back to 200 years of art making on British Columbia’s coast. Leading collections by Emily Carr, E.J. Hughes and numerous other British Columbia artists will also be found throughout the building.
To ensure there’s always something new, the Museum plans to offer temporary exhibitions from across Canada and the around the world year round, opening with a collection of Mexican Modernist works by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros and José Clemente Orozco, known as Los Trés Grandes. A selection of works by Oaxaca artist Rufino Tamayo will round out the exhibition, under the direction of Chief Curator Darrin Martens.
The Audain Art Museum officially opens doors on March 12, 2016, and hopes to be a hot attraction for Whistler’s 10,000 residents, and 2.7 million annual tourists.