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A brief sketch of the man behind the art

MOU between RMOW and Michael Audain paves the way for new Whistler art museum

Michael Audain's police mug shot tells a story just as much as any of the priceless works of art he has collected over the years.

It's a small black and white snapshot of a serious young university student with close-cropped hair, a white dress shirt and a neat black tie.

A chain around his neck holds up a sign and crooked white letters spell out:

POLICE DEPT.
JACKSON, MISS
20968
6.8.61

A standard issue police mug, to be sure. Only in this one, the hooded eyes draw you a little closer, offering up another clue to the man behind prisoner 20968. In that stare there's an air of defiance, a daring nonchalance, as though this prisoner knew he had done no wrong.

It's a mug shot that stops to make you think — about the man himself and how he went on to amass one of Canada's most important private art collections. About the time and place, the Deep South in the early 1960s, and about his so-called crime, eating a fried chicken dinner in the coloured section of a bus-stop diner.

And just like Michael Audain's private collection of Emily Carrs and Haida masks and Diego Riveras, it too has a place in history. Just not on the walls of his new art museum in Whistler.

"That's a long time ago," he laughed, from his office on West Broadway in Vancouver, of his time as a "Freedom Rider," the only Canadian of the 161 Freedom Riders who went to the Mississippi State Penitentiary for daring to challenge the status quo.

It may have happened half a century ago but the story of Audain's arrest offers more insight into the man behind the name that has now become inextricably linked with Whistler.

This week Michael Audain, joined in Whistler by his wife Yoshiko Karasawa, is signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Resort Municipality of Whistler, a further commitment to their plans for the small museum, tucked in the forest, that will display their impressive private art collection.

It makes Jackson, Mississippi seem even farther away. And yet, the young Audain's passion for civil liberties — he helped start UBC's civil liberties association the year after his arrest — and his passion for art are intertwined. Around the same time as he was crusading for civil rights, he was buying his first pieces of art whenever he found something he liked that fit his $50 budget.

And so the collection began.

"I think you'll find quite a bit has to do with a theme of social protest," he said.

"Great art often grapples with the problems of the world, that's what great artists often do."

There's still much work to be done before some of the great art is hanging in Whistler but this week's MOU paves the way forward.

Among the most recent decisions is a condition that the museum only shows the works of B.C. artists — a unique concept in this province.

It will tell the rich story of the province through its art.

"I would like them (visitors) to leave with the feeling that they've come to a region of the world that has a very distinctive and important visual arts tradition, because that's what we're going to show. It's really the art of the west coast of Canada right from the early days of the First Nations up until the very celebrated contemporary artists we have whose names are very familiar to museum goers all over the world," explained Audain.

"They'll be able to see who we're about, what are the concerns and preoccupations of our artists and what are their hopes and aspirations of the time when the art was created and that's who we are as a society."

There's an added bonus to that decision.

"It also leaves me with some other art in my home!" said Audain, referring to his penchant for, among other things, Mexican Modernism.

The last three months since Audain and the RMOW first announced their joint intentions have been a whirlwind of decisions.

The architects have been hired. Consultants are working on a range of things from flood proofing — the site is opposite municipal hall in the day skier parking lots in the flood plain — to acoustics.

No red flags have been raised; in fact, just the opposite.

"I think it's all looking very promising," said Audain.

Just recently the 75-year-old Vancouver developer returned to the French Riviera to the little museum that inspired his dream. There, in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, one of the oldest medieval towns on the French Riviera, lies the Fondation Maeght, founded by Aimé and Marguerite Maeght to present modern and contemporary art in all its forms. More than 200,000 visitors go every year.

"It's very different from Whistler, I realized that," said Audain of his return visit. "It's a gorgeous, sun-drenched, south- facing Mediterranean hillside with a lot of wilderness around it above the Riviera there. The museum was created in a series of small stone buildings."

It's the kind of place where the doors can be left open year-round.

"The Whistler site is very different and we are, of course, going to emphasize sustainability and all that, so we'll likely not be able to adopt the approach that they had," he said. "That wouldn't be suitable for it."

And yet, it is similar to Whistler in that it's a home for a private collection, tucked into a natural setting.

"I think the idea of someone having a wonderful personal collection and then creating a space for it, that's really the idea, that's still relevant," he said.

He picked Whistler as the home for his prized art, a place he has no connection to, a place he's rarely visited. It just seemed to be the right fit.

"We don't know Whistler," admitted Audain. "I've never done the Village Stroll, I've never been up the mountain. That's all in the future. We're looking forward to it."