Results tagged “artgalleryofontario”

Glass, Aluminum, Sky & Glass, Wood, Sky

There are two ways of approaching "Edward Steichen: In High Fashion, the Condé Nast Years 1923–1937," the new exhibition opening at the AGO today: as a photography show displaying the work of a recognized hero in the field and as a fascinating bit of cultural anthropology. What we have in the first case is a master class in some of the foundational elements of photography, most especially composition and light. What we have in the second is a glimpse into the world that Steichen photographed and the cultural sensibilities that were prominent at the time.

If, like us, you're mourning the passing of this summer's fantastic indie theatre festivals (Toronto Fringe, SummerWorks) and the novel, experimental shows that go with them, you'll be pleased to know No More Masterpieces theatre company is holding a very Fringe-esque production called The Girl Who Married a Ghost at the InterAccess Gallery at Queen and Ossington. This complex play bravely steps into the landmine of North American Aboriginal history and subtly comments on the work of prominent artists of various disciplines (photography, theatre, visual art) who did the same in their day.

Aha! we thought, when news of the TTC's long-anticipated project to put art on our beloved Metropasses landed in our inbox: they get it! By issuing a public call for submissions of interest, the TTC was demonstrating not only a sensitivity to the small aesthetic details that can brighten our day, but giving Torontonians the opportunity to actively engage with the transit system on which they are most often merely passive riders. Maybe, we even dared think, Valentine Makhouleen's nifty designs might actually be put to use.

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The ten-day celebration of creativity that is Luminato effectively strives to turn the city’s cultural potential inside out. To engage the community, experiences that are typically relegated to the galleries and theatres are taken into the public realm—and conversely, the perceived barriers that keep the wider public from entering many cultural spaces are tackled through invitational and innovative programming.

Last night's Pug Awards for the city's best and worst new architecture had it all: Big buildings! Big winners! Big ideas! Big plans! And—thanks to Councillor Adam Vaughan—big awkwardness!

Ever since the Art Gallery of Ontario reopened its doors in November, its free Wednesday nights have been a big hit. The cultural access initiative has been a popular smash (gallery users line up in droves for the evening and crowd the museum’s spaces with a palpable enthusiasm) and a media slam-dunk (Toronto’s other big renovated museum, the Royal Ontario Museum, did away with their free Fridays upon reopening and came off more elitist as a result).

Welcome back to the future...of fashion. It's our current series on style in our city, in which we corner up-and-comers in the clotheshorse race to talk about our fashion-capital dreams—near, far, or never happening?

Lobster telephone? Check. Table with bird’s legs? Check. Lips sofa? Check. No—not an inventory of items from the Michael Jackson Estate Auction; these are just some pieces of artwork you can see at "Surreal Things", the latest exhibit to open at the AGO! Finally, art you’re meant to not understand!

              

It’s that time again: The annual Pug Awards are back for the fifth consecutive year! Over the month of May thirty-two projects (fourteen of which are featured above) will face off in a battle for bragging rights as the 2009 people’s choice for best and worst new buildings in Toronto. The projects are divided into two categories. Twenty-four buildings fall in the residential category and there are eight in the commercial and institutional categories. It is up to the general public to choose the winner by voting online.

If the art world is anything like the media one, we're assuming the Art Gallery of Ontario is calling this a "get": they've announced that they're bringing King Tut back to the Gallery, thirty years after a 1979 exhibit brought—the AGO says—750,000 visitors infected with "Tutmania," a deadly disease for which more Tut is the only cure. King Tutankhamun will play a prominent part in an exhibition called "Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs," which (according to the press release just sent out) features "130 remarkable pieces from the tomb of King Tut and ancient sites representing some of the most important rulers throughout 2,000 years of ancient Egyptian history...Derived from temples and royal and private tombs from 2600 B.C to 660 B.C." and "the largest image of King Tut ever unearthed—a 10-foot statue of the pharaoh found at the remains of the funerary temple of two of his high officials." "Tutankhamun" starts for members on November 21 and the general public on November 24, continuing through to April 18, 2010. You can preregister for tickets online now. As if the gallery wasn't cursed enough already!

Following Wednesday's announcement by Ontario culture minister Aileen Carroll, six GTA cultural institutions will receive an additional $43.4 million in funding that recognizes “the innovative programming and collections that attract millions of visitors and help Ontario compete on the international stage.” The beneficiaries of this one-time surge of $18.6 million and total annual operating increase of $24.8 million are the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Royal Ontario Museum, the Royal Botanical Gardens, the Ontario Science Centre, the Ontario Heritage Trust, and the McMichael Canadian Art Collection.

You say you want a revolution?

ART: Showcasing fifteen visual artists from Canada, United States, and Mexico, "Remix: New Modernities in a Post-Indian World" is the AGO's latest exhibition, and it opens today. The exhibit aims to redefine the modern indigenous artist by showcasing a generation of artists less compelled than their ancestors to reflect a traditional tribal identity. As a result, the paintings, drawings, and photographs on display articulate a truly unique cultural perspective and make for a fascinating exhibition. "Remix" runs until August 23. Art Gallery of Ontario (317 Dundas Street West), 10 a.m.–5:30 p.m., $10–18 (free for members).

For five years now, a camera has been keeping close watch over the Art Gallery of Ontario's development on Dundas Street. And for a minute and a half, you can watch just some of what it caught flowing by in a spectacular high-resolution time-lapse video.

Sarah Lazarovic—curator of the garage-based Montrose Portrait Gallery of Canada—painted a portrait of a Torontonian every day in 2008. And each Monday, concluding today, we featured one of those portraits here.

                     

Torontoist is ending the year by naming our Heroes and Villains of 2008--the people, places, and things that we've either fallen head over heels in love with or developed uncontrollable rage towards over the past twelve months, with one hero and one villain selected by each participating staff member. On Christmas Day: the heroes. On Boxing Day: the villains. And next week, cast your vote to determine the Superhero and Supervillain of the year.

If a Canadian is someone who gets excited when an American television show mentions Canada, then a Torontonian might be someone who gets excited when an international newspaper mentions Toronto. (And yes, we know about that list.)

In the annals of Toronto’s long and much discussed inferiority complex, the transformed AGO may go down as the moment we decided to just get over it. Not because the new gallery will become an architectural icon (it is wonderful, but in a subtle way) and not because it houses a collection of international significance (Toronto does not possess the kind of financial capital required to build one), but because it will make us realize that those are not the only tickets to greatness. The building is a perfect distillation of that very Canadian mix of beauty and restraint, and because it is so good at striking that balance, because it makes that balance look so appealing, it will hopefully encourage us all to stop equating excellence with monumentalism. Toronto is not, we constantly hear, a “statement” city; we do things quietly around here. The new AGO challenges the underlying assumption that that’s somehow a fallback position.

The AGO, on the last of the Members' Preview Days. Inside Instant Coffee's Urban Disco Trailer #3, now part of the permanent collection.

        

We’ll have a more in-depth look later this week at the new and improved Art Gallery of Ontario, which reopens Friday, with three days of free admission, after architect Frank Gehry’s $254-million facelift. But a quick peek during an AGO members’ preview reveals a lot of last-minute construction work going on, and a couple of art installations still in the process of being installed. Visitors today weren’t able to cross the soaring Walker Court or explore its serpentine walkway, or stroll along the Galleria Italia—the stunning glass-walled promenade that runs the full length of the AGO’s Dundas-Street side and was having some teething troubles last week with cracking panes.

Sarah Lazarovic—curator of the garage-based Montrose Portrait Gallery of Canada—is painting a portrait of a Torontonian every day. Each Monday, we'll feature one of those portraits here. Suggestions for subjects welcome.

Is it god or the devil that’s in the details? Gustave Flaubert believed it was the deity. His aphorism to that effect was often quoted by architects Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier (or Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, if you want to be formal). Frank Gehry must have had it in mind, too, when he was finalizing his design for the revamped Art Gallery of Ontario.

Toronto's extensive work on the silver screen reveals that, while we have the chameleonic ability to look like anywhere from New York City to Moscow, the disguise doesn't always hold up to scrutiny. Reel Toronto revels in digging up and displaying the films that attempt to mask, hide, or—in rare cases—proudly display our city.

Every Saturday morning, Historicist looks back at the events, places, and characters—good and bad—that have shaped Toronto into the city we know today.

Two weeks ago there was the unveiling of a new jittery logo, and now an end to the Art Gallery of Ontario's seemingly never-ending state of construction is finally near. A public opening date of November 14 has been announced for the museum, which has been under various states of transformation since 2005 and closed since October 2007. That first day in November, Citizenship and Immigration Canada will be inaugurating the building with a citizenship ceremony for new Canadians, who can then explore the gallery along with the general public.

Every weekday morning, bright and early, we feature a photo (or two) from a photographer in the Torontoist Flickr Pool. It's our way of giving the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention that they deserve.

Torontoist presents an imagined inside look at the creative process behind the AGO's shiny new logo, above.