Audain Art Museum

The museum displays up to three temporary exhibitions a year, creating an ever-changing display to delight locals and visitors alike. Including both historical and contemporary art, they produce their own exhibitions and showcase art from leading art institutions around the world to complement their permanent collection.

Current Special Exhibitions

Louie Palu: Distant Early Warning

Date: June 10 – September 6, 2021
Description: Louie Palu’s documentary project provides a window onto the evolving militarization of the North American Arctic, documenting the vestigial legacies of the Cold War and the increased military presence in the North today. The changes in the region are exacerbated by the many unknowns the Arctic faces, among them the warming of the planet and the increasing global traffic in the region. Over several years, from 2015 to 2018, what began for Palu as a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship evolved into an assignment for National Geographic magazine, as he deepened his engagement with his subject. Taken as a whole, the series examines the growing geopolitical tensions and changing life around Inuit communities in one of the planet’s most extreme and challenging places.

Itee Pootoogook: Hymns to the Silence

Date: June 10 – September 6, 2021
Description: This exhibition of the art of Itee Pootoogook (1951 – 2014) gathers together more than 60 drawings from the late artist’s body of work and is the first full-scale retrospective of his art. As one of the key members of the third generation of Inuit artists from Kinngait (Cape Dorset), Itee contributed to the transformation of the creative traditions inherited from his elders at the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative’s Kinngait Studios. Known as a meticulous draftsperson and an inventive landscapist, Itee looked primarily to contemporary Northern life for his subject matter. Although he produced his compositions from a combination of memory and imagination, Itee also based many of his drawings on photographs, an aspect of his artistic process that further highlights his contemporaneity. Featuring a minimum of incident, these understated images celebrate the mundane moments that make up the everyday but also the flashes of unrivalled natural beauty that are the delight of all who live in the North.

Permanent Collection

The Museum contains a permanent collection of nearly 200 works of art from coastal British Columbia, including an outstanding collection of nineteenth century Northwest Coast masks, one of Canada’s strongest Emily Carr collections, as well as art by notable post-war modernists such as E.J. Hughes, Gordon Smith and Jack Shadbolt.

The collection includes The Crazy Stair, a painting by Emily Carr which sold at auction for a record-breaking $3.3 million. This price was the highest ever paid for an Emily Carr at auction, the highest for a work by a Canadian female artist and the fourth most expensive work at an art auction in Canada.

Admission

Adult: $20
Senior: $18
Young Adult (19 to 25): $10
Youth & Children (18 and under): Free
Members: Free

When to Visit

Gift Shop

The Audain Art Museum Shop features a wide selection of handmade jewellery, pottery, wood work and homeware from British Columbia artists, as well as artist prints and collector books from the Audain's permanent collection and temporary exhibits.

Where is the Audain Art Museum?

The Audain Art Museum is located at 4350 Blackcomb Way. Parking is available in the day lots.

View Map of Audain Art Museum

Whistler Cultural Pass

The Whistler Cultural Pass provides access to the Audain Art Museum as well as the Squamish Lil' Wat Cultural Centre at a reduced price. Save up to 20% when you purchase tickets as a dual admission pass.

Please note that the Audain Art Gallery and Squamish Lil'wat Cultural Centre are closed from Monday to Wednesday. Passes are not dated and can be used at any time.

Whistler Cultural Pass – $30 per person

The Whistler Cultural Pass provides access to the Audain Art Museum as well as the Squamish Lil'wat Cultural Centre at a reduced price. Save up to 20% when you purchase tickets as a dual admission pass.

Please note that the Audain Art Museum and the Squamish Lil'wat Cultural Centre are closed on Monday to Wednesday. Passes are not dated and can be used at any time.