Author: artoronto

July 5 – July 28, 2012
Opening: Thursday, July 5, 7-12 p.m.
TWIST GALLERY
1100 Queen St. West
Toronto, ON M6J 1H9
T: 416 – 588 – 2222
info@twistgallery.ca
www.twistgallery.ca
Hours: Tues–Sat 11–6 p.m.

Twist Gallery presents a solo exhibition of all new work by one of Canada’s most notable graffiti artist CASE.

His 20 years of urban beautification have spread his notoriety across the globe; showing overseas and throughout the United States including The Armoury in New York City; Carmichael Gallery of Contemporary Art in Hollywood, CA ; The Graffiti World exhibit at GO Gallery in Amsterdam; and the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.

Merging his graffiti experiences and his studio study into a style that weaves classical and street art together, while continuing to explore the industrial medium of spray paint without traditional boundaries. CASE has also directed/animated music videos for a number of recording artists including Eminem, Neil Diamond and  The Arcade Fire.

There will be drinks, standard gallery opening snacks with DJ’s Fathom and Dougie Boom spinning

Dave Dyment, One Billion Years (Past & Future), 2010. Courtesy the artist and MKG127, Toronto.

June 30 –  August 26, 2012
Summer opening: Friday, June 29, 8 p.m.
THE POWER PLANT CONTEMPORARY ART GALLERY
231 Queens Quay West
Toronto, ON M5J 2G8
T: 416.973.4949
E: info@thepowerplant.org
thepowerplant.org
Hours: Tues–Sun 12–6, Sat 12–8, Open holiday Mondays

Following its inauguration in the Spring 2012 season, the Dissenting Histories space transforms this Summer with a new project by Toronto-based artist Dave Dyment that intervenes in and responds to our archives.

Toronto artist Dave Dyment’s new project begins with his exploration of The Power Plant’s archives. Expanding on his practice of research-based conceptualism, his investigation results in a work presented within Dissenting Histories: 25 Years of The Power Plant during our Summer 2012 season.

Working with audio, video, photography, and the production of artists’ books, multiples and editions, Dyment’s witty practice mines popular culture, vernacular photography and music. His past projects include a century-aged edition of Glenfiddich malt whisky; a duet with Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo; and the photograph One Billion Years (Past & Future), which arranges dozens of books according to the time frames referenced in their titles. Dyment has exhibited across Canada and internationally, and his work is represented by MKG127, Toronto.

Oscar Tuazon, Alloy (For Steve Baer), 2011. Courtesy the artist and Parkett Editions, Zürich.

June 30 –  August 26, 2012
Summer opening: Friday, June 29, 8 p.m.
THE POWER PLANT CONTEMPORARY ART GALLERY
231 Queens Quay West
Toronto, ON M5J 2G8
T: 416.973.4949
E: info@thepowerplant.org
thepowerplant.org
Hours: Tues–Sun 12–6, Sat 12–8, Open holiday Mondays

Bringing together artists and practices that create and engage tools to effect change and reconsider social behaviour, Tools for Conviviality includes works that are interactive as well as mechanisms towards self-help, political shifts, ritual devices, potential weapons, and means for critique.

Curated by Melanie  O’Brian, curator & head of programs

Participating artists:

Abbas Akhavan, Raymond Boisjoly, Geoffrey Farmer, Claire Fontaine, Kyla Mallett, Swintak / Don Miller, Reece Terris, Oscar Tuazon, Ulla von Brandenburg, Franz West

The Power Plant’s Summer 2012 group exhibition, Tools for Conviviality, addresses social and individual agency in contemporary art and life. Bringing together artists and practices that create and engage tools to effect change and reconsider social behaviour, the exhibition includes works that are interactive as well as mechanisms towards self-help, political shifts, ritual devices, potential weapons, and means for critique. The exhibition takes place both inside and outside the gallery proper through a re-conquest of space, the reassessment of information acquisition and a politic of being more present in the world around us. Here, contemporary art is offered as a tool with which to propose alternate tactics.

Tools for Conviviality borrows its title from Ivan Illich’s 1973 philosophical text of the same name, using the reference as a framework to consider artists’ engagement with, and resistance to, contemporary strategies and dialogues. Citing a need to develop new instruments for the acquisition of knowledge by the individual, Illich’s treatise sought to dismantle the institutionalization of specialized knowledge and the dominance of technocratic elites in industrial society. The tools that most interested Illich, and are reflected in the works shown in the exhibition, have links to self-organization, wiki models, democratic space, and forms of communal activity. The engagement that the works in Tools for Conviviality propose has a strong grounding in the histories of the last five decades including conceptual art, performance, Actionism, relational aesthetics, utopian ideologies, and countercultural and grassroots movements. In many of these works, a methodology of looking back in order to move forward is at play.

Raymond Boisjoly’s new exterior text-based work considers The Power Plant’s location within a cultural and geographical history. Works by Abbas Akhavan and Claire Fontaine include homemade armaments, while Franz West’s interactive Adaptives reconnect viewers with their individual visual and tactile experience of objects. Geoffrey Farmer’s changing iterations of a continuous work finds an extension in a new interactive project around the half-formed figure, and Ulla von Brandenburg’s related engagement with stage and props results in a film installation that approaches the power of ritual. Kyla Mallett’s appropriated constellation-like diagrams are pulled from a self-improvement manual, Oscar Tuazon’s sculptural work brings an industrial aesthetic to utopian and playful architecture, and Swintak/Don Miller’s new work created for the exhibition grafts both an experiential and spatial location from the countryside into the gallery. Reece Terris’s new work examines the tools needed to maintain social and professional relationships.

The artists in the exhibition situate themselves within old and new strategies, using tools to ask us to look anew at the social and physical spaces around us.

Dan Morrison, Old Nelson Quarry, from the series Molded Ground, 2012

June 29 – July 28, 2012
Opening reception: Friday June 29, 6-9 p.m.
GALLERY 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography
401 Richmond Street West, Suite 120
Toronto, ON M5V 3A8
T: 416.979.3941
E: stu@gallery44.org
www.gallery44.org
Hours: Tue-Sat  11 – 5 p.m.

Dan Morrison is the 2011 Verant Richards Scholarship Award’s Recipient

In Molded Ground, photographs of the depleted floors of abandoned quarries are covered with a nutrient rich growing medium to create biologically sensitive plates. The photographs are then returned to the exact location where they were originally captured and exposed to microscopic fungal spores floating in the air. The resulting decomposition of these miniature environments alludes to the adaptive growth the artist has observed in these quarried sites, where without fungi the process of reclamation would not be possible.

Dan Morrison is an OCAD U graduate, photographic artist, and highly skilled woodsmith working predominently with naturally occurring raw materials. He seeks to capture the extraordinary, and often unnoticed, facets of the southern Ontario forests where he grew up. His recent photographs reveal the adaptive qualities of trees and fungi as they survive in the unique landscapes along the Niagara Escarpment.

Kelly Markovich, 7476 St. Rose, digital photography/sewn Tyvek, 2011

June 29 – July 28, 2012
Opening reception: Friday June 29, 6-9 p.m.
GALLERY 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography
401 Richmond Street West, Suite 120
Toronto, ON M5V 3A8
T: 416.979.3941
E: stu@gallery44.org
www.gallery44.org
Hours: Tue-Sat  11 – 5 p.m.

For nearly two decades, Gallery 44 has reserved a unique place in its exhibition season to highlight emerging talent in Canadian photography. Proof 19 is an annual non-thematic group exhibition of work by artists of any age who are in the early stage of their careers.

This year, Jasmine Bakalarz, Daniel Frawley, Stacey Ho, Laurie Kang, Kelly Markovich, and Garett Walker provide fresh contributions to contemporary photography in Proof 19. Each of the artists beautifully elicits what photography is capable of depicting in the domains of portraiture, performance, time-based work, materiality, memory, and document. Of these artists, no two are working in the same way, and together, with new ideas and directions, they inspire us with work that reveals the range and potential of photography’s applications.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Jasmine Bakalarz is an Argentine-Canadian photographer who completed her BFA at
Concordia University, Montreal, and has exhibited her work across Canada, the United
States, Europe and Latin America. She is the recipient of several grants including
the Ontario Arts Council Emerging Artist Grant, and is a recipient of Magenta’s
Flash Forward Award. Her work is in private and public collections.0„2

Daniel Frawley was born in Guelph, Ontario in 1987. He received his BA with Honours in Studio Art from the University of Guelph in 2011. He works as a tree planter and crew boss in Manitoba and Northern Ontario, and splits his art practice between Guelph and Toronto.

Stacey Ho works in art-making, art-curating, art-writing, and art-participating, focusing on sound, photography, performance, and printed matter. She often uses text, history, and everyday objects in the creation of her work. She has a BFA from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University, Halifax, and recently completed a residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts, and performed for Vancouver’s LIVE 2011 Biennale.

Laurie Kang is a Toronto-based artist working in photography, collage and sculpture/installation. She received her BFA from Concordia University in Montreal. She explores abstraction through layering photography with collage and sculpture. Her work has been exhibited in Canada, the United States, and Italy, with print publishing in Canada, the United States, and United Kingdom.

Kelly Markovich is a photo-based artist who lives and works in the Halifax area. She received a BFA with Honours in Photography from the University of Windsor, and an MFA from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University, Halifax.

Garett Walker is a Toronto-based artist and photographer. He completed both his BFA in Photography and MFA in Documentary Media at Ryerson University. He has travelled extensively across Canada, documenting the country’s varied regional cultural heritage. Walker has received numerous grants supporting his work, which is held by
private collectors and public institutions in Canada.

 

July 6, 7 & 8, 2012
NATHAN PHILLIPS SQUARE
Free Admission
Hours: Friday & Saturday 10:30am-7:30,  Sunday 10:30am-6:30pm

Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition
401 Richmond Street West
Suite 264
Toronto ON
M5V 3A8
T: (416) 408-2754
E-mail: toae@torontooutdoorart.org
www.torontooutdoorart.org

Now in its 51st year, the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition [TOAE] is a juried showcase featuring contemporary fine art and craft that takes place annually on Nathan Phillips Square, every July.

As the largest juried outdoor art exhibition in Canada, TOAE offers a fresh-air alternative to conventional art shows and galleries. Hundreds of artists participate and an estimated 100,000 visitors attend the exhibition every year. Side by side, established artists, undiscovered talents and innovative students sell their work directly to the public and make lasting connections with art dealers and collectors.

In 2011, the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition’s award program presented over $30,000 in cash awards and prizes to participating artists.

The Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition is a charitable, non-profit organization supported by a group of volunteers active in the art and corporate communities. The exhibition is financed through registration fees, and by government, corporate and individual sponsors, enabling the TOAE to charge one of the lowest registration fees in North America. No percentage of the artists’ sales is taken by the organizers.

TOAE is recognized as a festival and event of distinction by the Top 100 Festivals and Events in Ontario.

 

 

 

July 4 – July 31, 2012
Opening party:Wednesday, July 4, 7-11 p.m.
STEAM WHISTLE GALLERY
255 Bremner Blvd.
Toronto, ON, M5V 3M9
T: 416.362.2337 x 246
E: info@steamwhistle.ca
www.steamwhistle.ca
Hours: Mon–Thurs 12–6, Fri–Sat 11–6, Sun 11–5 p.m.

The Untold City celebrates three years of documenting urban life in Toronto.

Three Years is an exhibit by Toronto collective The Untold City. The work is centred on the collective’s two primary subjects – Toronto street culture and the city’s music scene.

Displayed are works accumulated since the collective’s 2009 inception. Large format photography and mixed media live visuals will be accompanied by musical performances by Rattail and Army Girls as well as interludes from Mark Andrade and Marcus Belardi.

The Opening Night Party will take place on Wednesday July 4th 2012 from 7-11pm at Steam Whistle Brewing at 255 Bremner Blvd or visit the brewery during all of July to see the exhibition.

Artists:
The Untold City is Aaron Miller, Joel Barnes and Nick Merzetti.

“As a man, who has lost family and friends, while spending years trying to learn to walk again after a career changing accident I learned the secret to life.”
It surrounds us everywhere and I try to capture it one second at a time through my camera. I am motivated by the fluidity of nature and all that it encompasses.
Canadian Photography Magazine said in an article about Robert, the following:
“Robert is drawn to capture free-flowing images, and attempts to connect to the fluidity they represent. His use of photographic materials to document this search is engaging and at the same time challenging. Film is a static medium and to strive to represent motion, in its purest sense, to a frozen moment of time may be beyond the ability of most skilled image makers.”
Life is short, Capture it!” Robert MacNeil

 Robert MacNeil
Macrocosm
photography
16 x 20 inches, prints are available in different sizes
$750. Auctions starts at $400

Robert MacNeil
Continuum 12
photography
16 x 20 inches, prints are available in different sizes
$750. Auctions starts at $400

June 28 ­- July 28, 2012
Opening: Thursday, June 28, 7-9 p.m.
Artist Talks: Thursday, June 28, 6-7 p.m.
OPEN STUDIO GALLERY
401 Richmond Street West #104
Toronto, ON M5V 3A8
T: 416.504.8238
E: office@openstudio.on.ca
Hours: Tue – Sat 12 – 5 p.m.

Open Studio is pleased to present the second of two 2012 Visiting Artists’  Exhibitions featuring Toronto-based artists Tom Ngo and Derek Sullivan.

Each year, Open Studio selects four professional artists with or without printmaking experience to create works in the print medium of their choice, working closely with a professional print artist to realize their projects. These exhibitions by Ngo and Sullivan are the result of this intensive work period.

Derek Sullivan’s recent solo exhibitions include Albatross Omnibus at The Power Plant, Toronto and Young Americans at KIOSK in Ghent, Belgium (both 2011), and his work is included in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada. His collaboration with Gareth Long, The Illustrated Dictionary of Received Ideas, has been performed at numerous venues including PS.1,Queens, NY; Art Metropole, Toronto; Artexte, Montréal; and Wiels, Brussels. Sullivan was recently short-listed for the 2012 Sobey Art Award.

During hisVisiting Artist Residency at Open Studio, Derek Sullivan produced Surplus Portfolio 2012, a suite of seven relief prints printed on Japanese Kozuke paper using two woodblocks carved into variously shaped parallelograms. Each edition within the suite mimics the open spread in a book, with paired parallelograms as abstract book pages. Each print shares one block from the
previous edition, so looking through the suite evokes the act of turning pages in a book. The prints can be read as pages or fragments from an artist’s book; as Sullivan writes in his artist’s statement, the most obvious way to read a book is front-to-back, and blank books are endlessly written.

A text by Jen Hutton accompanies the exhibition.

June 28 ­-  July 28, 2012
Opening: Thursday, June 28, 7-9 p.m.
Artist Talks: Thursday, June 28, 6-7 p.m.
OPEN STUDIO GALLERY
401 Richmond Street West #104
Toronto, ON M5V 3A8
T: 416.504.8238
E: office@openstudio.on.ca
Hours: Tue – Sat 12 – 5 p.m.

Open Studio is pleased to present the second of two 2012 Visiting Artists’  Exhibitions featuring Toronto-based artists Tom Ngo and Derek Sullivan.

Each year, Open Studio selects four professional artists with or without printmaking experience to create works in the print medium of their choice, working closely with a professional print artist to realize their projects. These exhibitions by Ngo and Sullivan are the result of this intensive work period.

After receiving his Master’s of Architecture, Tom Ngo began to explore architectural representation in the field of art, and has since been working as a mixed media artist. He is represented by LE Gallery and also produces designs and concepts for the firm of Moriyama & Teshima. Keeping current with architectural practice informs his artwork ‹ melding it with his work to shape a critical outlook on contemporary art and architecture. Ngo’s work employs absurdity and nonsense as a means of questioning the logic of building design.

His print series Refractions, created during his Visiting Artist Residency at Open Studio, adds another variable to his exploration of structures by examining the effect of screenprinting on the design of his absurd constructions. Each piece was generated by printing fragments of floor plans and then extrapolating the plans into buildings. These buildings then went through another stage of splicing, collage and multiple-timed exposures to create new arrangements. The arrangements were edited and redrawn to create the final constructions. The resulting works stand as absurd buildings seen through the lens of the screenprinting process.

A text by Chloe Town accompanies the exhibition.

June 27 – August 5, 2012
Reception: Thursday, June 28, 7 p.m.
GALLERY 1313
Window Box Gallery
1313 Queen St. W.
Toronto, ON, M6K 1L8
T: 416.536.6778
E: director@g1313.org
www.g1313.org
Hours: Wed. – Sun. 1 – 6 p.m.

Window Jars – installation By Ella Day

Window Jars is a nomadic time-based project ongoing since 2001. The ever-expanding work is an exploration of place and perception.

Day has photographically documented the view looking out from behind the windows of each place she has visited or dwelled in during the past 10 years. Each photographic view is preserved in a jar and set within a window at the artist’s current residence, offering a link to a past familiar view. Each time Day relocates to a new dwelling the Window Jars are placed in a new arrangement in a new window and the arrangement is documented. This image of this new grouping is then placed in a jar alongside the others.

The project eventually evolved into a large-scale collaboration when Day began to collect the window views of friends, family and other artists.Window Jars is a work that presents perceived memories that are both private and communal. The ephemeral nature of photographs exposed to light is analogous to that of fleeting remembrances.