Thursday, November 26th 2009

By Lily Panamsky

The McMaster Museum of Art has recently hired Ihor Holubizky as the new Senior Curator. Holubizsky, who is an avid art critic, has had experience working both in university museums and public galleries. “They all do slightly different things, but at a university museum, the emphasis is on scholarship, research, teaching facility, [although] it does have a public dimension. We operate as a public gallery, but it’s not exactly the same as the Art Gallery of Hamilton.” Holubizsky was curator at the Hamilton Museum of Art for eight and a half years. He has also done research and contract work in Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Southeast Asia.

Referring to McMaster’s collection of art, Holubizsky explained, “This collection is a little different. It’s not a Canadian collection. It’s emphasis is not Canadian, about 23 per cent of the whole collection is Canadian. So it’s actually carved out its own particular uniqueness”. There are approximately 7000 objects in the collection. As senior curator at the museum, Holubizsky is in charge of the physical and intellectual maintenance of the objects. “You don’t play favourites; you have to kind of pay attention to all of them, that is, their actual physical condition, and their intellectual property.” He is also responsible for presenting ideas to audiences, primarily university members.

“You bring your own knowledge and expertise and then you keep learning,” concluded Holubizsky. “I go in there when I get tired of doing paperwork, I go into the vaults and look at art. You get to see a lot more art when you work in a gallery.”

Tags: curator, ihor holubizky, McMaster Museum of Art