Gale, Peggy

Peggy Gale (b.1944) is an independent curator, critic, and writer based in Toronto who specializes in contemporary time-based and media art. Gale studied at the Università degli Studi (Florence, Italy, 1965-66) and graduated from the University of Toronto with an honours BA in 1967. She then worked at the Art Gallery of Ontario from 1967 to 1974, first in the Audio Visual Library and then as an Education Officer, where she was responsible for originating and coordinating all lectures, concerts, films, and performance events. She served as the Assistant Film and Video Officer at the Canada Council (1974-75), returning to Toronto to act as the Video/Film director at Art Metropole from 1975 to 79. From 1980 to 1982, Gale served as the executive director of A Space. She returned to Art Metropole as Special Projects Coordinator from 1985 to 1987, and again in 2001-02 as Acting Director. As an art writer, Gale was a regular contributor to Parachute magazine (Montreal) and has been writing for Canadian Art since 1986. She has edited three books in the “By Artists” series published by Art Metropole, in addition to Video re/View: The (best) Source for Critical Writings on Canadian Artists' Video in collaboration with Lisa Steele (1996). Gale’s work as an independent curator includes Videoscape (1974), a monumental exhibition of video art at the AGO and the first of its kind in Canada. Other notable curatorial projects include: InVideo (Dalhousie Art Gallery 1977, Art Gallery of Ontario 1978, Winnipeg Art Gallery 1978), OKanada (curator of performance art, Berlin 1983), Electronic Landscapes (National Gallery of Canada 1989), Northern Lights (The Canadian Embassy in Tokyo 1991) co-curated with Akihiko Morishita, Ecstatic Memory (Art Gallery of Ontario 1996-97), and the Biennale de Montréal (2014), co-curated with Gregory Burke. Gale is married to the artist Michael Snow.

Revised 23 May 2018, 4 June 2018, 7 November 2018

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