Courtesy of CUAG

Each year the American Association of Museums (AAM) chooses the best publication for an exhibition. Big-budget (over US$750,000) institutions like the Smithsonian and Museum of Modern Art are regular winners.  Smaller exhibits (under US$750,000) include winners like the Amistad Centre for Art and Culture and the Jones Centre. For the first time since the awards began in 2000, a Canadian institution won in the latter category.

Last fall the Carleton University Arts Gallery mounted Sanattiaqsimajut: Inuit Artfrom the Carleton University Art Gallery Collection. The 232-page catalogue of the same name that accompanied the show has just been chosen as the AAM’s top publication. It includes longer essays by Sandra Dyck, the gallery’s curator and catalogue’s editor, and by Ingo Hessel, the exhibition’s guest curator. Shorter pieces on Inuit art came from 33 other experts. Photographs used in the publication were by Hessel’s father Dieter and Stephen Fenn.