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Feds give Gordon Smith gallery $350K

New NV gallery will gain climate control

NORTH Vancouver's new youth-oriented art gallery will be able to attract some big-name exhibits when it opens next year thanks to a grant from the federal government, according to its organizers.

The $350,000 cash injection, announced by Minister of Canadian Heritage James Moore at a North Vancouver event Nov. 9, will go toward ventilation and environmental controls for the facility, slated for the main floor of the school district's planned office building on Lonsdale Avenue.

The specialized system will allow the gallery to properly store and maintain pieces under its care, meaning it will likely be able to borrow collections from high-profile institutions such as the Vancouver Art Gallery.

"I'm jumping up and down with excitement," said Bill MacDonald, executive director of the Gordon and Marion Smith Foundation for Young Artists, which is helping to back the project. "Having the federal government as a partner is huge."

The new facility, dubbed officially the Gordon Smith Gallery of Canadian Art, will also serve as a permanent home for the Artists for Kids collection, a group of works by some of the country's leading artists. The intention is to make contemporary art more accessible to the younger generation.

"Young people need to have . . . the skills to interact with our visual culture," said MacDonald. "We give them the skills . . . so they can look at it and say not just, 'That's weird and semi-interesting.' They see the depth of these masterpieces."

Last week's grant was one of 77 handed out by the federal government to cultural organizations across the province. Also among the recipients were West Vancouver's Dundarave Festival of Lights Society, which received $41,000, and the West Vancouver Historical Society, which took home $95,000.

In all, the government dispersed more than $3.7 million.

jweldon@nsnews.com