Steven Shearer to represent Canada in Venice

The National Gallery of Canada have announced Steven Shearer – known for his interest in teen culture, materialising itself as photo montage works and playful sculptural installations – as its representative in next year's Venice Biennale. the gallery's director and CEO Marc Mayer said of Shearer "Under its pop cultural surface, Steven Shearer's work is surprisingly complex and insightful. By showing us aspects of popular culture anachronistically, and from so many different points of view, he exposes the false hierarchy of high and low art and prompts us to consider the more interesting differences between the cultural industries and the art world. Shearer's intelligence and originality are now widely recognized among the cognoscenti. It is time to broaden the audience for this brilliant young Canadian artist and Venice will do that".