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The winner of the second $50,000 Sobey Art Award for contemporary Canadian art was announced in Halifax on Thursday evening. Kinetic sculptor and bricoleur Jean-Pierre Gauthier, 39, has won the prize.

Shortlisted for the second time this year, Gauthier beat out other contenders from across the country: conceptual artist Germaine Koh (figured by many to be the front-runner, given her growing international reputation), Vancouver's Althea Thauberger (a video artist and photographer), Marcel Dzama from Winnipeg (well-known in Canada and abroad for his quirky and darkly humorous drawings), and Halifax artist Greg Forrest, who updates the venerable tradition of metal casting in his sculptural replications of everyday objects. To be eligible, the artist must be 39 or younger, and must have exhibited in a Canadian museum or commercial gallery in the past 18 months.

For Gauthier, the win was a particularly satisfying surprise; it was his second time in the running. On the phone after the announcement, he admitted, ironically; "This time I thought I was prepared; I had been particularly well-conditioned to the idea of losing."

In the Sobey Art Award show at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Gauthier is exhibiting two installations typical of his approach to sculpture, drawing on the precedents of 20th-century European artists like Jean Tinguely (famous for his anarchic sound sculptures made from found materials) and the Greek artist Takis, who animated objects with magnets. Unlike Tinguely's, though, Gauthier's sculptures give off a very human vibe. "It's as if they are incarnated with personality," Gauthier says of his creations.

The first work in the Sobey show is a kind of drawing machine -- a row of five metal tape measures anchored to the floor along the length of a wall, their retractable tapes affixed to motorized pulleys on the ceiling that draw them out and then release them. A stick of graphite is attached to the end tab of each, and each one leaves its own fidgety trace on the wall.

The Quebec artist developed the piece in response to the experience of being a contender for last year's prize and finding himself, again, being measured against his peers. "The interesting things about the piece is that each one of them ends up having its own character . . .."

Gauthier's second work here is a distinctly Canadian nod to the life of the great outdoors. A pair of cross-country skis is placed on the gallery floor, and, beside the skis, two ski poles have been segmented into short sections and are manipulated from above to mimic, in a rustic and charmingly forlorn way, the swinging motion of poling through the snow. The skis are fitted out with little motors that produce a chattering in the bindings.

While other pieces by Gauthier have had an explicitly musical cast, these works rely upon the rattling, clattering or squeaking sound qualities of their moving parts to enhance their delicately absurd aura of mechanical improbability. "For me," says Gauthier, "sound is just another material that I work with."

Gauthier, of course, is delighted by his win, but he is more focused on the artistic freedom that the prize makes possible. Some of his more complex pieces can cost more than $10,000 to make. The timing of this prize, he says, is fortuitous, because he is currently working on a major new piece for an exhibition in Norway. "When you develop a piece using grant money," he says, "you have to be respectful of the initial plan you had in mind, and follow through with it." With this windfall, he can afford to improvise. "It gives me that bit more liberty for doing the work I want."

The exhibition of selected works by the five shortlisted award candidates will remain on show at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in Halifax until Nov. 21, and will circulate to the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art in Toronto (fall, 2005) and the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (summer, 2005), with other venues to be announced.

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