Art Gallery of Ontario: Recent Episodes
Art Gallery of Ontario
The Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto is one of North America's leading art collections. Come visit and experience more than 4,000 artworks across 110 galleries. Visit https://ago.ca
Audio recorded verbal descriptions provide an accessible and detailed narrative to extend your experience of the AGO. Explore the AGO facade and the artworks outside the building, Henry Moore's Two Forms and Brian Jungen's Couch Monster: Sadzěʔ yaaghęhch’ill. These descriptions, rich in detail and sensory language, provide a vivid exploration of form, texture, and artistic intention, ensuring that all visitors can engage deeply with these celebrated pieces of architecture and public art.
Audio recorded verbal descriptions provide an accessible and detailed narrative to extend your experience of the AGO. Explore the AGO facade and the artworks outside the building, Henry Moore's Two Forms and Brian Jungen's Couch Monster: Sadzěʔ yaaghęhch’ill. These descriptions, rich in detail and sensory language, provide a vivid exploration of form, texture, and artistic intention, ensuring that all visitors can engage deeply with these celebrated pieces of architecture and public art.
Audio recorded verbal descriptions provide an accessible and detailed narrative to extend your experience of the AGO. Explore the AGO facade and the artworks outside the building, Henry Moore's Two Forms and Brian Jungen's Couch Monster: Sadzěʔ yaaghęhch’ill. These descriptions, rich in detail and sensory language, provide a vivid exploration of form, texture, and artistic intention, ensuring that all visitors can engage deeply with these celebrated pieces of architecture and public art.
Untitled1988acrylic on canvasPrivate collectionAll images © Keith Haring FoundationThis untitled work shows a human figure struggling to walk up a staircase while carrying a massive egg tied to its back. The egg is cracked and a sperm with devil horns bursts from its shell. The painting speaks profoundly to the AIDS epidemic that took the lives of so many within Haring’s community, including his own. Using monumental scale, a palette drained of colour, and graphic imagery, Haring represented the impossible weight of the AIDS crisis.
Untitled1985Acrylic and oil on canvas Courtesy of The Parker Foundation All images © Keith Haring FoundationHaring grew up and came out as a gay man during a time that encouraged increased freedom of sexual expression, largely fuelled by the counterculture, women’s rights, and gay liberation movements of the 1960s and 1970s. By the early 1980s, a new countermovement emerged that was led by conservative politicians and the religious right. Simultaneously, the AIDS epidemic was growing. Painted in 1985, this untitled work responds to these realities, showing a fiery hellscape of sexual aggression and torture. The theme of hell—often depicted with scenes of uninhibited sexuality—has been addressed throughout art history, from Auguste Rodin’s The Gates of Hell (1880–1917) to Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights (1500s). Haring’s version remains true to his signature line, while also depicting a cast of human and animal figures as well as Christian symbols such as frogs, serpents, and angels.
Tree of Life 1985acrylic on canvas tarpaulin with metal grommetsPrivate collectionAll images © Keith Haring FoundationThis large painting is hung in landscape orientation and is approximately 10’ high x 12’ wide. It is created in Haring’s instantly recognizable style which repeats brightly coloured and stylised shapes outlined in black . Tree of Life is a painting of a large green tree contrasted against a bright pink background, underneath it, four yellow dancing figures are shown from the waist up. It is mounted directly to the wall with screws through grommets, 13 across and 11 high.The top two thirds of the painting are taken up by the trees leaves which sprout off two main branches that split off at the trunk. The branches corkscrew, as do twiggy offshoots. Each offshoot results in either an oval leaf shape with one line down the centre indicating the fold of the leaf shape or, sprouts a similar shape with an added round head and pumping arms with rounded hands on the ends. In total there are 9 tree leaf figures with arms bent at elbows and raised up and there are 12 leaves. The crown of the tree is painted so that it fills up the canvas giving it a rectangle shape. Outlining the tree leaves and bodies, are stacks of dashes which indicate movement and seem to cause the tree to visually quiver, vibrate and shake in a chorus of celebratory movement. Filling up all the available space around these shapes, Haring adds another familiar element. Straight black lines radiate outward around the heads of the tree leaf figures, using a visual shorthand for what could be interpreted as awareness, enlightenment, anger, confusion or something else. The following exhibition wall quote speaks to this: “I am interested in making art to be experienced and explored by as many individuals as possible, with as many different individual ideas about the given piece with no final meaning attached.” Keith Haring. Spread out in the lower third of the work are the head, torso and arms of four larger figures, two on each side of the tree trunk. Their arms are raised up with elbows bent, motion lines in effect. Their yellow bodies are filled in with a pattern of brighter orange squares. In the centre of their round heads in face position is a single black “x” shape.Some of Haring’s favorite party music can be heard emanating from a nearby room which celebrates his use of Day Glo paints. Day-Glo colors are shades of orange, pink, green, and yellow which are so bright that they seem to glow.The walls outside this room and in close proximity to Tree of Life are vertically striped in orange paint and pink Dayglo paint. They back a pair of architectural columns that Haring created and painted in a similar style. Also close by is a large triangular canvas entitled, “A Pile of Crowns for Jean-Michel Basquiat”, in which Haring pays homage to his contemporary, artist Jean Michel Basquiat. Haring has painted Basquiat’s signature symbol, a three pointed crown, in a triangular mound of crowns. It has black lines emanating outward around the pile. He includes a small letter c copyright symbol in the lower right corner of this work.
Untitled1984acrylic and enamel on canvasThe Broad Art Foundation, Los AngelesAll images © Keith Haring Foundation During the 1980s, wealth inequality in the United States grew significantly under Ronald Reagan’s neoliberal trickle-down economics policies known as Reaganomics. Haring criticized greed and capitalism in several works featuring the image of the “capitalist pig.” This tarp painting portrays a pig spewing money-green vomit made up of computers, televisions, clocks, airplanes, and other modern-day objects. The green bile pools on the ground from which little figures climb, suckling the sickly pig’s teats. This work is a monstrous depiction of the struggle of production in an era when everything was deemed consumable.
The Great White Way 1988 acrylic on canvasThe Keith Haring Foundation All images © Keith Haring FoundationStretched in the shape of a penis, this massive painting is a critical visualization of what author bell hooks described as “imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.” The pink phallus is decorated with black lines that make up an intricate scene of weapons, violence, torture, and other abuses of power—a visual representation of the problems of Euro-American society. Haring’s title implies the white supremacist ideology underpinning these activities. The painting shows a phallocentric world in which profit and power in the name of “good” and God are used as tools of oppression. The Great White Way is a prime example of what is perhaps Haring’s greatest skill: the ability to make something look like shallow fun—in this case, a massive, cartoonish, pink, candy-striped penis—while simultaneously speaking truth to some of society’s foremost tyrannies.
The AGO is home to the Thomson Collection of Ship Models: over 130 examples of miniaturized ships spanning hundreds of years of maritime history.One of the most important models in the collection is George Stockwell’s (1729-1805) 1774 model of the Bristol. Designed in 1768 and completed in 1775, the Bristol was a 50-gun fourth-rate ship of the line built for the Royal Navy amidst England’s war to suppress the independence movement in its American colonies.Image credit:British fourth-rate two-decker 50-gun warship: Bristol (detail)1774George Stockwell, (British, 1729-1805)Georgian Model, scale1:48The Thomson CollectionArt Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
The AGO is home to the Thomson Collection of Ship Models: over 130 examples of miniaturized ships spanning hundreds of years of maritime history.One of the most important models in the collection is George Stockwell’s (1729-1805) 1774 model of the Bristol. Designed in 1768 and completed in 1775, the Bristol was a 50-gun fourth-rate ship of the line built for the Royal Navy amidst England’s war to suppress the independence movement in its American colonies.Image credit:British fourth-rate two-decker 50-gun warship: Bristol (detail)1774George Stockwell, (British, 1729-1805)Georgian Model, scale1:48The Thomson CollectionArt Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
The AGO is home to the Thomson Collection of Ship Models: over 130 examples of miniaturized ships spanning hundreds of years of maritime history.One of the most important models in the collection is George Stockwell’s (1729-1805) 1774 model of the Bristol. Designed in 1768 and completed in 1775, the Bristol was a 50-gun fourth-rate ship of the line built for the Royal Navy amidst England’s war to suppress the independence movement in its American colonies.Image credit:British fourth-rate two-decker 50-gun warship: Bristol (detail)1774George Stockwell, (British, 1729-1805)Georgian Model, scale1:48The Thomson CollectionArt Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
The AGO is home to the Thomson Collection of Ship Models: over 130 examples of miniaturized ships spanning hundreds of years of maritime history.One of the most important models in the collection is George Stockwell’s (1729-1805) 1774 model of the Bristol. Designed in 1768 and completed in 1775, the Bristol was a 50-gun fourth-rate ship of the line built for the Royal Navy amidst England’s war to suppress the independence movement in its American colonies.Image credit:British fourth-rate two-decker 50-gun warship: Bristol (detail)1774George Stockwell, (British, 1729-1805)Georgian Model, scale1:48The Thomson CollectionArt Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
The AGO is home to the Thomson Collection of Ship Models: over 130 examples of miniaturized ships spanning hundreds of years of maritime history.One of the most important models in the collection is George Stockwell’s (1729-1805) 1774 model of the Bristol. Designed in 1768 and completed in 1775, the Bristol was a 50-gun fourth-rate ship of the line built for the Royal Navy amidst England’s war to suppress the independence movement in its American colonies.Image credit:British fourth-rate two-decker 50-gun warship: Bristol (detail)1774George Stockwell, (British, 1729-1805)Georgian Model, scale1:48The Thomson CollectionArt Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
The AGO is home to the Thomson Collection of Ship Models: over 130 examples of miniaturized ships spanning hundreds of years of maritime history.One of the most important models in the collection is George Stockwell’s (1729-1805) 1774 model of the Bristol. Designed in 1768 and completed in 1775, the Bristol was a 50-gun fourth-rate ship of the line built for the Royal Navy amidst England’s war to suppress the independence movement in its American colonies.Image credit:British fourth-rate two-decker 50-gun warship: Bristol (detail)1774George Stockwell, (British, 1729-1805)Georgian Model, scale1:48The Thomson CollectionArt Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
The AGO is home to the Thomson Collection of Ship Models: over 130 examples of miniaturized ships spanning hundreds of years of maritime history.One of the most important models in the collection is George Stockwell’s (1729-1805) 1774 model of the Bristol. Designed in 1768 and completed in 1775, the Bristol was a 50-gun fourth-rate ship of the line built for the Royal Navy amidst England’s war to suppress the independence movement in its American colonies.Image credit:British fourth-rate two-decker 50-gun warship: Bristol (detail)1774George Stockwell, (British, 1729-1805)Georgian Model, scale1:48The Thomson CollectionArt Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
The AGO is home to the Thomson Collection of Ship Models: over 130 examples of miniaturized ships spanning hundreds of years of maritime history.One of the most important models in the collection is George Stockwell’s (1729-1805) 1774 model of the Bristol. Designed in 1768 and completed in 1775, the Bristol was a 50-gun fourth-rate ship of the line built for the Royal Navy amidst England’s war to suppress the independence movement in its American colonies.Image credit:British fourth-rate two-decker 50-gun warship: Bristol (detail)1774George Stockwell, (British, 1729-1805)Georgian Model, scale1:48The Thomson CollectionArt Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
The AGO is home to the Thomson Collection of Ship Models: over 130 examples of miniaturized ships spanning hundreds of years of maritime history.One of the most important models in the collection is George Stockwell’s (1729-1805) 1774 model of the Bristol. Designed in 1768 and completed in 1775, the Bristol was a 50-gun fourth-rate ship of the line built for the Royal Navy amidst England’s war to suppress the independence movement in its American colonies.Image credit:British fourth-rate two-decker 50-gun warship: Bristol (detail)1774George Stockwell, (British, 1729-1805)Georgian Model, scale1:48The Thomson CollectionArt Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
THE NEWS series 2017 acrylic on canvas Nine equally sized circle shaped paintings each with a two foot or 50 cm diameter displayed in a grid of three rows of three comprise this work. They use a bright neon palette of pinks, blues, greens and yellows; these are also a typical colour palette in KAWS’s depictions of graphic or cartoon-inspired works. Kaws uses opposing colours to create contrasts. These round canvases show layers of motifs used by KAWS. Each canvas is like a closeup of another work, in a way drawing focus to a particular aspect of something larger. They are dynamic and playful. Most of them have black outlined eyeballs that have x’d out pupils which take up half or more of the canvas. A third have eyelids and a couple have eyelashes. There is a tongue and digits of a hand and most have a line or wave of colour at the centre. They do not form an image when viewed all together, rather they present a detail that serves as the focal point for each canvas. On each canvas KAWS plays with optical illusions, the 3D effect of which can become apparent for many people if looking at the works with a fixed gaze. This is accomplished through the subtle addition of shadows which are painted on. These shadows create a sense of depth and aspects of the painting appear to pop out from the canvas.
UNTITLED (HARING) 1997 acrylic on existing advertising poster This large portrait orientation work is a painting done on a black and white poster. The original poster features a photograph of artist Keith Haring. In this framed work the height of an average person and 4 feet wide Haring is captured larger than life from the waist up. He is in profile facing left, drawing on a blank area on the left of a subway ad displayed inside a subway station. Haring is a white man with short curly mid-tone hair. He wears glasses and a leather jacket with the word champion on a patch on his left sleeve. He is drawing with chalk onto a dark background with his right hand. The drawing resembles both a cowboy hat and a UFO, and he is connecting it to a pyramid with a series of vertical dashes. On the right the ad appears to say, “now roast without risk” above a photo of a dark roast turkey. KAWS has painted onto this poster in an uncomplicated cartoonish style. Here he has added a character named “Bendy”. Bendy looms over Haring’s shoulder as he works. Bendy is a yellow creature with a big head with x’s for eyes, commas for nostrils and grey crossbones shaped protrusions. Bendy’s head narrows to a serpentine body which wraps under Haring’s right arm and around his body once and through his open left hand held at waist height as if Haring is grasping onto its tail directly in front of him. KAWS has signed the work with the year “97” and a copyright symbol and written what looks to be Keith Haring’s name but only the Keith is visible. This work is hung in between two other pieces which are existing advertising posters that KAWS painted over.
GOOD INTENTIONS 2015 bronze and paint Collection of the Madison Group, Courtesy Corkin Gallery GOOD INTENTIONS is a sculpture, presenting two identical figures which stand closely side by side on a low riser against the wall. The one on the right stands at 7 feet tall.The one on the left is smaller reaching the right figure’s waist and hides, childlike, behind it’s leg. They are various shades of matte grey and white. The features and style of these figures are those of a character which KAWS has dubbed quote “COMPANION” . With its white cartoonish gloves, oversized shoes, and large-buttoned shorts, it bears an intentional resemblance to Walt Disney Studios mascot Mickey Mouse. The notable exception is the mouse head, which in the “COMPANION” character is replaced with a white “soft skull” and grey crossbones with black X’s for eyes.The figures are smooth with slightly rotund torsos and perfectly round legs. They wear brownish grey shorts with two palm sized circles in the front like buttons where suspenders might attach. Their short gloves have a bulge at the cuff, and their hands have three fingers and a thumb. They wear smooth rounded shoes that bulge above the ankle. The taller figure on the right stands with its right foot slightly forward. From behind, the smaller figure holds onto the taller figure’s right leg , threading its hand between the taller figure’s legs and leaning in as a child might do. The taller figure twists to hold its right hand behind the smaller figure’s head, shielding it or pulling it close in what could be perceived as a protective gesture. These two figures in KAWS’s “COMPANION” character style, share signature traits with other characters in the KAWS Family: Letter X’s etched into their heads instead of eyes and the same X motif on the backs of their gloves and tops of their shoes. Their large heads are in the style of a cartoon skull with two divots for nostrils and knobby “crossbone” protrusions on the sides of their heads. At the bottom of their heads they have 4 rounded bumps with teeth-like gaps. In the room around them KAWS‘s “Kimpsons” characters are displayed. These are liberal appropriations of characters from the popular long running tv show The Simpsons which are instantly recognizable. The Kimpsons have X’s for eyes and other traits KAWS has created that make up his signature style.
KAWS in Galleria ItaliaSculpture in WoodKAWSborn Jersey City, New Jersey, United States, 1974These sculptures are situated in Galleria Italia, a city-block-long 4 meter or 14 foot wide east/west thoroughfare in the Gallery building. There is a two storey window wall on the north side and warm brown coloured wood paneling on the south. Although they are placed without barriers the works are not intended to be touched and a recommended distance to be held of 1 meter or three feet is indicated. At a short distance from the passageway between the Signy Eaton gallery and the ramp on the western end of Galleria Italia is the first of three playful works called FINAL DAYS, the second is called ALONG THE WAY and the third, AT THIS TIME. All three larger than life size statues feature the character KAWS has dubbed COMPANION. The sculptures are solid, and glossed to a high shine with a veneer finish, giving them a silky appearance. They show wood grain and a vertical rectangle assembly much like a hardwood floor. The statue figures are smooth with slightly rotund torsos and perfectly round legs. Their short gloves have a bulge at the cuff, and their hands have three fingers and a thumb. They wear smooth rounded shoes that bulge above the ankle. The letter X motif is also carved on the backs of their gloves and tops of their shoes. With its cartoonish gloves, oversized shoes, and large-buttoned shorts, it bears an intentional resemblance to Walt Disney Studios mascot Mickey Mouse. The notable exception is the mouse head, which in the “COMPANION” character is replaced with a “soft skull” and crossbones and carved X’s for eyes. In these sculptures, KAWS’s ”Companion” figures veer toward the human in their poses and their implied pathos. The first work diagonally faces us at the left of the walkway near to the window wall.FINAL DAYS2014Afromosia woodHere, the character of “COMPANION” is slightly taller than average person standing height and uniquely has a small cottonball shaped tail, and does not wear gloves or shoes or have buttons on its shorts. It steps forward on its left leg with arms extended. Its arms are held wide to the side with palms vertical and fingers slightly curled reaching in joy or perhaps stretching for balance as it moves. The next sculpture stands 35 feet further east up against the south wall and faces the windows. ALONG THE WAY2013Afromosia wood This 8 feet tall and 6 feet wide statue is wood with a black finish. It has two “COMPANION” figures who stand side by side as one supports the other. The figure on the right is completely limp from mid back up and appears zapped of energy, strength or both; it uses it’s right arm to hold onto the supporting figure’s shoulder. The supporting figure braces the limp figure by leaning its body towards it. The supporting figure also holds it’s left hand on the small of the limp figures back in a consoling gesture. 30 feet further and centred in the walkway is the last physical statue towards the middle of Galleria Italia. It is placed nearest to the window wall and faces us. AT THIS TIME2013Afromosia wood The largest COMPANION character statue is a medium brown wood colour and stands nearly 8 and a half feet tall. The figure stands feet together, body slightly bent backwards with its head tilted up and back. Elbows wide, COMPANION’S gloved hands reach up and shroud its face.
MAN’S BEST FRIEND 2014 acrylic on paper This work is a massive gridded rectangle of 50 black and white line drawings. The width of the work is about 3 king size mattresses and it is almost one and a half mattresses high nearly reaching the Gallery ceiling. Each framed drawing is 22 inches tall and 18 inches wide. The grid is composed of two dimensional line drawn characters from Peanuts which resemble Snoopy, a familiar comic strip character which is a Black-spotted white beagle and Snoopy‘s friend, a small bird named Woodstock. In each of the close-ups the character’s eyes are replaced by x’s, in KAWS’s trademark X shape. Recognizable in the paintings are: the spiky feathers on the top of Woodstock’s head, Snoopy’s water bowl, the side of Snoopy’s head and floppy letter U shaped ear, Snoopy‘s short pointy tail and back foot as he walks upright, the top of Snoopy‘s head with a Mountie hat on it, his black dot of a nose, and his up-curving-line wide smile and various extreme close-ups of his eyes marked as an X. The wall on which this work is hung and two adjacent walls on either side are covered in outsized black lines that look as if they were made with a giant black pen that leapt off of one of the drawings and danced around on the walls with explosive energy. Nearby on either side of the work are sculptures called SHARE and TAKE. On the left is SHARE. SHARE features KAWS’s “Companion” Character standing holding another character dubbed “BFF” which is toy sized and dangles from it’s left hand like a stuffed animal. BFF is bright blue and resembles Sesame Street muppets like Cookie Monster or Elmo. It has bulging eyes atop it’s head with x’s for pupils a round yellow nose and a fuzzy frame like a soft toy. On the right of the grid of drawings, in the opposite corner, the sculpture titled TAKE swaps the two characters; a large BFF stands and clutches a small toy sized COMPANION character to its chest.
Portrait of Madame J (Young Woman in Black), 1883, oil on canvas, Collection of the Maryland State Archives, MSA SC 4680-10-0010.This work is one of 5 spotlit paintings in this section of the exhibition which has 5 angled walls, giving each work its own wall. Here, each of three works by McNicoll and two by Cassatt present us with an elegantly dressed woman posed indoors. In three paintings the woman is positioned on or beside a Chintz sofa or chair. This work is 80 by 64 cm hung and in portrait orientation. The work is framed by a gold-coloured wood frame which is 10 cm wide and embellished with carved rope and ribbon patterns. A slim young white woman sits forward on an upholstered chair in a tasteful interior. She rests her left elbow on the arm of the chair and gazes off to the left, thinking.The young woman is dressed in a black, long sleeve riding jacket. It has a high collar with a small decorative swatch of white fabric at the left of her neck. Her dark hair is almost completely covered by a short brimmed black hat with feathers and a thin veil which comes down to just under her lips. The veil gives her face a light greyish hue, making her face appear to be bright between the blacks of her outfit. Her lips are rosy and suggest a slight smile. The chair’s fabric is pale yellow with a floral pattern in red and dark green. Thick, long brushstrokes create the flowers and leaves of the fabric behind the woman and in a small triangle between her side and the bend of her elbow on the armrest. The wall behind her is a brownish purple of mauve and taupe hues with two horizontal lines of gold chair rail moulding on it. Hung above this and behind the top of her hat is a rectangular artwork. Against a white background it features the shape of an arch in brown and yellow which resembles the shape of a handheld fan when opened.The artist's signature is in black at the bottom right of the work.Also on display nearby is a video of a discussion in ASL between artists Rae Rezwell and Peter Owusu-Ansah about the work of McNicoll who was also d/Deaf.
The Open Door, around 1913, oil on canvas, Lent by Samuel & Esther Sarick. First, a moment to discuss the painting techniques which are hallmarks of these impressionist works that will be described in this exhibition. Impressionism is an art movement that was first named in France in the 1870s. Artists took their subject matter from contemporary life, and instead of using a highly realistic style of painting, artists created an ‘impression’ of what they saw through light and colour. In each of the audio described paintings the directionality of light is evident. The artists' techniques vary but can include thick layers of paint, visible brushstrokes such as cross hatching and the layering of colours. This work is 76 by 63 cm and in portrait orientation. The work is framed by a gold-coloured wood frame which is 8 cm wide and embellished with ornate carved curlicues. In The Open Door, a vibrantly painted thicket, viewed through a door which sits opened, takes up much of the left half of the painting. A white woman stands just inside the door on the right, focused on her sewing held in her hands. The colours in this piece are muted bluish greys with the exception of the brilliant bright yellows of the foliage, which is one the painting’s focal points.The woman is slim, young and dark haired with her hair pulled back and worn up. She wears a collared, white floor-length dress cinched at the waist with the sleeves folded to her elbows. Her back is to the door and her slightly raised shoulders are curled forward. Her mouth has fallen slightly open as she focuses on a small swatch of gauzy white fabric or lace. She holds the cloth up for examination close to her face, the tail end of which falls to her waist. Inside the door to her right is a dresser with a mirror that has a gold candlestick and silver metal kettle on it. Out the door, the lush tangle of bushes and a tree glistens with the daylight that filters inside and highlights the woman’s right shoulder, collar, knuckles and skirt. Leaves are indicated with a cross-hatched texture that fill the entire outdoor view. On the far left, on the back of the open door, hang a coat and hat. The woman’s short shadow is cast against the wooden floor. This work is paired with a Cassatt painting which hangs to its left and is called Young Girl at a Window. It features a young elegantly dressed woman sitting with her back to a window opened to the Paris skyline.
Francoise in Green, Sewing, 1908–1909, oil on Canvas, Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, Alabama, Gift of the Ida Belle Young Art Acquisition Fund, 2009.0006. Nearby other works in which young working-class children are dressed and posed as upper-class children, this painting captures a fair-skinned white girl of about 10 seated, opulently dressed, and engaged with her sewing pastime. This work is 81 by 65 cm and hung in portrait orientation. The work is framed by a gold-coloured wood frame which is 12 cm wide and embellished with carved decorative reliefs. The girl has fine brown hair parted at the side and falling over her shoulder in loose ringlets. Her hair is held back with a red bow over her left ear. She looks down at her fingers, a hands-length from her face, as they presumably thread a needle. Her top is a cape or shawl-like lacy construction that appears through the painting technique to be like frothy foamy water with layers of bright white peeping through blues, greys and muted white brushstrokes. Her green skirt fills the bottom third of the painting, thick brushstrokes cascade its four vertically striped tiers down towards the observer in a symphony of greens. Sunlight spills into the scene from the left above the girl’s shoulder, highlighting the skirt and giving it a satiny glow. Her temple, cheek, shoulder and arm are also lit, giving them a smooth appearance in contrast to the blurred edges of the painting technique. The light also touches the back and arm of the padded, wide, King Louis the 16th style wooden chair she sits on. The chair back is a brownish grey fabric and has a lightly sketched floral pattern set in a decoratively carved thick wood frame. Behind her on the left is a bright green drape, and to the far right past her shoulder is the edge of a wall. Between them, a glimpse into another room with a muted yellow patterned rug, a chair back, and a section of mantlepiece against a far wall.The artist's signature is in dark blue at the bottom right of the work.
Wood Green and Broadstairs, 1903, from Gower Sketchbook, graphite and watercolour on wove paper, Art Gallery of Ontario, Gift of Jane and John McNicoll, 2002, 2002/9441.Displayed on a table and under Plexiglas, this is one of 8 sketchbooks at the centre of the last room in the exhibition. This room displays the two artists' works in their own right. A series of five colour prints on paper by Cassatt are on one wall, and on the others are paintings from McNicoll’s travels of landscapes and figures. The vertically oriented sketchbook is 20 cm tall by 16 cm wide and is open to a small watercolour sketch and life drawings of figures in pencil on both of its off-white pages. In the right upper half of the top page is the watercolour which is slightly larger than a business card. Two thirds is of a dramatic sky with towering grey clouds and one patch of pastel blue near the top. The lower third is a landscape with still waters on the left and a sandy beach and an escarpment rising on the right. Patches of grey, blue and brown dot the beach and indicate bathers at the shore.Under the watercolour is a sketch of the rear view of a child holding a pail and walking in the sand wearing a sunhat with a ribboned band. In a sketch to the left, another child, also seen from behind, sways in a swimming dress with horizontal stripes. To the top left and bottom right of the bottom page are inscriptions. The writing at the top left reads: Wood Green May 1903. Under this are three rear view sketches of a barefoot adolescent figure in a skirt. One is standing with their arms in front of them, presumably carrying something. The remaining two sit perched on a ledge, with one facing left with their left knee raised to also rest on the wall. Writing at the bottom right reads Broadstairs 1903. Spaced around the bottom page are 6 walnut sized sketches of scenes that the artist would have seen during a trip to Broadstairs, on the coast of England. Two depict a child in a sun hat playing with a bucket on the beach. Four are of a person in what resembles a long wool bathing dress and beret-shaped swimming cap. They alternately sit up and recline, leaning on an elbow in the sand, with two sketched as outlines with only a few short strokes of pencil.Around 60 additional images from all the sketchbooks are shown on a monitor mounted on the wall nearby. The other sketchbooks in the case are opened to show drawings such as: sketches of models, females in the nude and males wearing only loincloths, seaside landscapes and village scenes, pencil portrait sketches, a young boy leaning on a staircase, women beside an easel talking in an art class, and a man standing behind a tripod with a surveyor’s instrument called a Survey Transit Telescope.
My Mother’s Last Hand from Untitled (Watercolour Notebook)1980–1985notebook with 13 watercoloursAudio description of the workThis is a description of a watercolour painting in a notebook which is slightly larger than letter paper size. The notebook is displayed under a plexiglass case at standing height eye level and is open to this watercolour of the palm of a left hand, made as a part of a daily practice of drawing.Taking up a full page of the right side of the notebook, this line drawing is of a left hand, palm up angling from the bottom left to the top right of the page. The thumb is parallel to the other fingers and is held in a resting position between the pointer and middle fingers. It is in profile and has a short nail quite close to it’s knuckle. The hand, drawn in black ink, has cross hatched shading on the right side of the fingers and on it’s heel and springlike coils of hair along its thick wrist. It is shaded in with a watery magenta. The space on the page above it, on the left, is purple and below it, is yellow. Written diagonally along its upper flank are the words -Quote “My mother’s last hand” end quote.Looming large beside the work on the right is a giant reproduction of a watercolour painting of a woman reclining, A work Cohen created after the style of a painting featuring what he would have called an Odalisque, an eroticized artistic genre in which a concubine is represented mostly or completely nude in a reclining position.End of Audio Description.Exhibition label text:This watercolour notebook contains 13 drawings made by Cohen over several years and executed in a consistent style. The full selection can be seen on the monitor to the left. Many are annotated with a single line or couplet that responds to the content and mood suggested by the drawing. The notebook is open at the page that shows the hand of his mother, Masha, who died in 1978. He later explained: quote “Drawn in the last few months of her life, it is her hand and my hand drawn as one.” end quoteEnd of Exhibition label text.
Green Chair Leonard Cohen Green Chair2007Inkjet printAudio description of the workThis framed image in portrait orientation is an enlarged print of a watercolor painting of a green armchair. It is 30 inches by 20 inches or 76 by 50 cm.Originally painted on a sheet of lined notebook paper in the watercolour notebook just steps away, the page’s lines are still visible, especially on the borders of the work. Similar in style to the other watercolours this bright green rounded back chair plays with shape and perspective. The seat and curved upholstered armrests seem to pitch forward by showing both the perspective from in front of and looking down on the seat cushion at the same time. It has a wide seat with sturdy wooden legs which are on casters. Draped over the back of the chair is a rectangular white crocheted doily with an eight sided star shape and scalloped edges. On the seat of the chair is a square cushion on which are sprigs of pink flowers and what resemble two yellow birds and a purplish blue three sided shape on a white background. The chair is on a wooden floor coloured in yellow with wide planks set near to a white wall. In the painting everything is playfully tilted towards the right. On the bottom left are two stamps. A red circle with an upside down and rightside up heart and a red square. Beside this in handwriting is the print number listed as 90 out of 200. In the bottom center green chair is written and on the bottom right is a signature Leonard Cohen 2011. This is the only work centered on a wide blue wall. Written in large white print above it is a quote by Leonard Cohen Quote, “If you liberate yourself, anything you lay your hand on can sparkle”. End quoteEnd of Audio Description.
Desk in Room 12191968notebook page with Polaroid Type 20 instant printsSet against a deep blue wall a square plexiglass case displays two wall mounted items from the collection of Cohen’s personal journals displayed in this area of the exhibition labeled “Tennessee 1968”. On the left, at standing-height eye level, is a page from a tall and narrow lined notebook with five palm sized black and white polaroid photos stuck in it. Next to this on the right is a typed sheet of paper with a block of text on the top half. The journal page will be described followed by a reading of the typed text. Cohen on Guns 1968typed pageMoving to the typed paper displayed alongside the journal page: The paper has yellowed slightly by time and the darkness of the letters of the text is slightly irregular as were the products of manual typewriters of the day. The handwritten number 88 is in the top right corner. The typed text reads:NashvilleDecember 20, 1968My heart leaped up when I beheld the glass counterWith its magic row of revolvers in the WoodbineArmy Surplus Store. My eyes devoured the preciousmachinery. I had to keep myself from laughingout in joy. To be so close!Magic moves from poem to gun.I came close to loving the automobile but I never quite succeeded. Watches and clocks have their fascination but I am so uninvolved in the jewels and the wheels. It is like watching fish in abowl, one cannot interfere, only behold. Theartifacts in museums interested me by the mere accident of their survival. I never loved a shardor a painting. I’ve walked through factories,rebuking myself for my indifference, straining to be a modern man who at least respects his utensils,stifling a yawn. But these guns, I loved themas my eye fell upon them, as one loves beautifulwomen. I bought the tear gas pen, dreaming.
Still Life1976–1980ink and crayon on paperAudio description of the workDrawn on a leaf of slightly larger than letter sized white paper is a dynamic arrangement of everyday objects drawn in blueish-metallic hues. In this work Cohen has drawn a canister of paint thinner, a candle stick, a salt shaker and a can of root beer and arranged them in an equally spaced zigzag on the page, two in the background and two in the foreground. On the left the paint thinner is a rectangular tin which sits in the middle of the page and is half it’s height. The company name GRUMBACHER is printed down the side of the pale blue receptacle. The label is white and reads DILUANTS ODEUR PRE-TEST. Under this is a skull and crossbones to indicate it is poison. Just to the left of centre positioned with its base at the bottom of the page is a plain gray candlestick holder with a nub of a white candle. It is three quarters the height of the page. On the right side is a typical restaurant type glass salt shaker placed slightly higher than the candlestick and slightly shorter than half of the page height. It is a quarter full of white salt. Its glass sides appear with slightly diagonal edges as if its twisted to the right. Nestled into the bottom right corner is the top half of a can of root beer. Brown with a red label that has a mini mug of root beer at the top of it, the letters “I-R-E-S” are the end letters of the label’s brand. The can has been opened and the lid is entirely visible at an odd angle. On the left side of the can written vertically is the signature Leonard Cohen. The other works on the same wall are similar line drawings, a kleenex tissue box and a heater as well as a floor to ceiling enlargement of a photobooth photo strip of Cohen in his 40’s. This work also marks a shift in the exhibition material from primarily photos and artifacts to paintings and drawings made by Cohen.End of Audio Description.Exhibition label text:Central to Cohen’s personal taste and way of life was a deep attachment to everyday household objects, such as a table, chair, or mirror. There is a studied purpose to this still-life arrangement, with a can of paint thinner, a candlestick, a salt shaker, and a soda can forming a quartet of objects to which he has given his full attention.End of Exhibition label text.
Portrait of Georgianna (Anne) Sherman and Leonard Cohenaround 1958gelatin silver printAudio description of the workDisplayed against a black backdrop, this palm sized black and white photo is in a keepsake tin frame with a shiny metallic relief border. This photobooth photo depicts a young Leonard Cohen with his then love interest Anne. The couple in their 20’s take up the bottom two thirds of the photograph. Cohen is on the right and looks directly at the camera, his mouth open in the process of a smile. On the left is Anne in profile. She is in front of Cohen and her forehead touches his temple. She is a white woman with straight brown shoulder length hair held back by a kerchief worn as a hairband. She has high cheekbones and wears lipstick and a light shirt. She smiles as she looks. He is a white man and his dark hair is worn short. He has a five o’clock shadow and wears a collared knit shirt which is undone. In this area depicting Cohen’s early life this plexiglass topped display table shows a collection of writing and other artifacts. Also in this case is a sample of Cohen’s social network and community including a photo of Cohen with his lifetime friend, Morton Rosegarden. The documents include personal letters to his mother from summer camp, a school report card, and a letter from his camp counselor. End of Audio Description.Exhibition label text:Cohen’s first serious love affair was with Georgianna Sherman, whom he referred to as Anne or Annie. They met at Columbia University in New York City, where Cohen was pursuing graduate studies in literature and Sherman was a program coordinator. The innocence of their young love is captured in this gem-like, framed photo-booth portrait. Their relationship ended due to Cohen’s strong resistance to settling down, but he continued to write to Sherman and send poems such as the following, which was published in Selected Poems: 1956–1968:For Anne (Audio of Leonard Cohen)With Annie gone,Whose eyes to compareWith the morning sun? Not that I did compare,But I do compareNow that she’s gone.End of Exhibition label text.
The Spice Box of Eartharound 1960ink on cardboardLeonard Cohen archives, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of TorontoAudio description of the workThis work is a drawing on a piece of sand brown cardboard slightly smaller than letter paper size. The cardboard is the everyday corrugated sort that would make up a cardboard box and the drawing is presumed to be made by a black ball point pen.Written in three lines and in all capital letters, The text “SPICE BOX” “OF” and “EARTH” takes up the centre of the cardboard. On the right hand side is a two dimensional drawing of a traditional Jewish Besamim container, also known as a spice box or spice tower. The spice box is drawn as a triangle on top of a square. Its base is three long thin tripod-like legs protruding from the bottom. At the very top of the spice box is a little pointed flag bearing three Hebrew letters, right to left, Kaf He Nun-Sofit. The triangle top of the spice box has its scaly texture indicated by row upon row of backwards letter C‘s . The body of the box is filled with fine looping doodles that resemble the curved metal of a filigree pattern. Along the bottom there are three rows of the scale pattern which continues on the tripod legs which travel straight down and then curve out quite close to their base. The cardboard has a few grease stains in the centre and a few dabs of dirt near the bottom. On the top left corner written in pencil is the word box and the roman numeral for 3 which is three straight vertical lines.The book “Spice Box of Earth” is on display in a case nearby. Also displayed on the same wall as this work is a typical Cohen doodle and a poem on the back of a napkin. A floor to ceiling reproduction of a black and white photograph of a young Cohen sitting at his writing desk in his creative space in Hydra, Greece is affixed to this wall at the far left. End of Audio Description.Exhibition label text:Published in 1961, Spice-Box of Earth was the most popular and commercially successful of Cohen’s early books, and established his reputation as a leading poet in Canada. Its title draws from the ceremonial object— usually made of silver and decorated with elaborate filigree—used in the Havdalah (“separation” in Hebrew) ritual that marks the end of the Jewish Sabbath on Saturday evening. Cohen’s poem “Out of the Land of Heaven” celebrates the joy and sacredness of the Sabbath and the role of the spice box in it. This distinctive sketch made by Cohen, drawn in ink on a scrap of cardboard, includes his family name—Kohen— writtenin Hebrew in the flag attached to the finial.End of Exhibition label text.
We’re all ears! Are you? As part of the Multisensory Art Cart, we invite you to find an artwork that inspires you to think about sound. You can use this curated audio playlist to accompany your journey through the AGO!Spend a few moments listening to the sounds in the playlist as you spend time with the artwork and consider:Do the sounds change the artwork?How does the audio affect your experience of looking at art? Did you discover anything new about the artwork?
We’re all ears! Are you? As part of the Multisensory Art Cart, we invite you to find an artwork that inspires you to think about sound. You can use this curated audio playlist to accompany your journey through the AGO!Spend a few moments listening to the sounds in the playlist as you spend time with the artwork and consider:Do the sounds change the artwork?How does the audio affect your experience of looking at art? Did you discover anything new about the artwork?
We’re all ears! Are you? As part of the Multisensory Art Cart, we invite you to find an artwork that inspires you to think about sound. You can use this curated audio playlist to accompany your journey through the AGO!Spend a few moments listening to the sounds in the playlist as you spend time with the artwork and consider:Do the sounds change the artwork?How does the audio affect your experience of looking at art? Did you discover anything new about the artwork?
We’re all ears! Are you? As part of the Multisensory Art Cart, we invite you to find an artwork that inspires you to think about sound. You can use this curated audio playlist to accompany your journey through the AGO!Spend a few moments listening to the sounds in the playlist as you spend time with the artwork and consider:Do the sounds change the artwork?How does the audio affect your experience of looking at art? Did you discover anything new about the artwork?
We’re all ears! Are you? As part of the Multisensory Art Cart, we invite you to find an artwork that inspires you to think about sound. You can use this curated audio playlist to accompany your journey through the AGO!Spend a few moments listening to the sounds in the playlist as you spend time with the artwork and consider:Do the sounds change the artwork?How does the audio affect your experience of looking at art? Did you discover anything new about the artwork?
We’re all ears! Are you? As part of the Multisensory Art Cart, we invite you to find an artwork that inspires you to think about sound. You can use this curated audio playlist to accompany your journey through the AGO!Spend a few moments listening to the sounds in the playlist as you spend time with the artwork and consider:Do the sounds change the artwork?How does the audio affect your experience of looking at art? Did you discover anything new about the artwork?
We’re all ears! Are you? As part of the Multisensory Art Cart, we invite you to find an artwork that inspires you to think about sound. You can use this curated audio playlist to accompany your journey through the AGO!Spend a few moments listening to the sounds in the playlist as you spend time with the artwork and consider:Do the sounds change the artwork?How does the audio affect your experience of looking at art? Did you discover anything new about the artwork?
We’re all ears! Are you? As part of the Multisensory Art Cart, we invite you to find an artwork that inspires you to think about sound. You can use this curated audio playlist to accompany your journey through the AGO!Spend a few moments listening to the sounds in the playlist as you spend time with the artwork and consider:Do the sounds change the artwork?How does the audio affect your experience of looking at art? Did you discover anything new about the artwork?
We’re all ears! Are you? As part of the Multisensory Art Cart, we invite you to find an artwork that inspires you to think about sound. You can use this curated audio playlist to accompany your journey through the AGO!Spend a few moments listening to the sounds in the playlist as you spend time with the artwork and consider:Do the sounds change the artwork?How does the audio affect your experience of looking at art? Did you discover anything new about the artwork?
We’re all ears! Are you? As part of the Multisensory Art Cart, we invite you to find an artwork that inspires you to think about sound. You can use this curated audio playlist to accompany your journey through the AGO!Spend a few moments listening to the sounds in the playlist as you spend time with the artwork and consider:Do the sounds change the artwork?How does the audio affect your experience of looking at art? Did you discover anything new about the artwork?
We’re all ears! Are you? As part of the Multisensory Art Cart, we invite you to find an artwork that inspires you to think about sound. You can use this curated audio playlist to accompany your journey through the AGO!Spend a few moments listening to the sounds in the playlist as you spend time with the artwork and consider:Do the sounds change the artwork?How does the audio affect your experience of looking at art? Did you discover anything new about the artwork?
We’re all ears! Are you? As part of the Multisensory Art Cart, we invite you to find an artwork that inspires you to think about sound. You can use this curated audio playlist to accompany your journey through the AGO!Spend a few moments listening to the sounds in the playlist as you spend time with the artwork and consider:Do the sounds change the artwork?How does the audio affect your experience of looking at art? Did you discover anything new about the artwork?
We’re all ears! Are you? As part of the Multisensory Art Cart, we invite you to find an artwork that inspires you to think about sound. You can use this curated audio playlist to accompany your journey through the AGO!Spend a few moments listening to the sounds in the playlist as you spend time with the artwork and consider:Do the sounds change the artwork?How does the audio affect your experience of looking at art? Did you discover anything new about the artwork?
Sacrifice 1989acrylic on canvasGift of The Estate of Denyse Thomasos, through the American Friends of the Art Galleryof Ontario, Inc., 20222022/9Audio description of the workThis work is a figurative painting in a portrait orientation and is about the size of a queen size mattress at 6 and a half feet or 2 meters tall by 5 and a half feet or 1.7 meters wide.It depicts a black horse suspended in a white cloth harness dangling beside a mound of skulls piled against an interior wall. The colours in this work are hues of browns with beige and yellow tones. With it’s body facing right, the dark horse dominates the top half of the painting. The harness has openings for the horse's legs and its tail. In the upper right corner is a high up small deep set window. It’s bright on the other side of it.The horse’s head is down and it has its nose in what is presumably a bag of feed. Thin rope dangles down at the far left and connects to a large heavy counterweight which is a long sack that lays on the ground at the bottom left beside a canvas horse trough water bag. On the right side, the skulls are piled to the height of the horse’s knees and cascade downward toward centre. The skulls have dark eye sockets and are various shades, some are black some are bleached completely white which blend in with the back wall.Hung to the left of the painting is a small framed black and white work which is the same image as an etching. It is signed by the artist.End of Audio Description.Exhibition label text:This early work is among the first major paintings in which Thomasos directly references her research on slavery. To create this dark and confined space, she uses a muted colour palette. A black horse hangs above a pile of human skulls, hoisted in the air by an old-fashioned sling with pulls, straps, and a large counterweight resembling a body bag. The looseness of Thomasos’s approach is evident in her gestural brushstrokes. In this haunting and unnerving scene, the skulls fade into the background as though they are infinite.Preparatory photographs and a related print are on view nearby.End of Exhibition label text.
Untitled (Kingdom Come) 2011acrylic on paperCollection of Dr. Carlyle Farrell Audio description of the work This room contains 7 colourful fast sketches and a table displaying photos and painting materials including shoes. The painted sketches are all in landscape orientation, two and a half feet or three quarters of a meter high by three and a half feet or just over one meter wide and focus on different motifs and approaches to painting a wall with a corner at the centre of it. The sketch beside the label with the QR code in this room has 4 colours : green, grey, aqua and red and writing marking out elements of the design. Along the top the writing points to floating pod-like structures which have the label “prisons as pods growing green” and “pods of boats , coffins, prisons” between these an area near the centre or room corner is marked “matrix prison”. Along the bottom are stair and ladder like structures lying horizontal, they are marked “rectangle roof”, “roof innovation” “roofing device”, “containers of moss growing green” and “green garden moss insulator”, a swath of red along the bottom is labeled “high tech cutting edge”. Across from the sketch is the close end of the long table displaying studio material, it’s furthest end has about 35 medium sized clear plastic containers, of the sort you might find in a grocery store or deli. In them are paint in all of the colours in the room and common colours in the artists work. At the centre of the table is a pair of clog style shoes, about a womens size 7, they are black and have splotches and drips of paint on them. Displayed at the closest end and to be viewed with the wall with the entrance to the room behind you, are 9 photographs of wall works in various stages including the artist in action and shots with a staging area with tables of multiple cans of paint. End of Audio Description. Exhibition label text:This is one of several preparatory works Thomasos made for Kingdom Come, her site-specific installation at Oakville Galleries in 2011. She marked up the paper with ideas she wanted to convey in her installation; scribbled across the page are words and phrases like “prisons as pods,” “boats, coffins,” “high tech. cutting edge,” “roof innovation,” “green garden,” “moss insulation,” and more. Through this glimpse into her working process, we can see how she came to infuse the mural, a futuristic urban-scape, with issues of class and race. End of Exhibition label text.
Arc2009acrylic on canvasPurchase, with funds from the Women's Art Initiative, 20222021/356Audio description of the workHung with its lower edge at bench height, This monumental painting is the only work on this wall. It is 11 feet or almost three and a half meters tall and 20 feet or 6 meters wide. It is an abstract painting in a landscape orientation. This vigorous canvas uses a kaleidoscope of patterns. It’s colours consist of black, light green, light blue, dark blue, pink, grey and yellow and will be described using a clock face. At its centre is a pod structure (topped by a little red house) and knots of black. The 8 o’clock to 4 o’clock area is occupied by two mashed together arching pipe-like structures made of grills, grids and black lines over multiple layers of bright colours. Between 2 o’clock and 4 o’clock, it resembles a ladder and then, the hull of a ship. From 4 o’clock to 6 o’clock and filling in most of the centre of the clock face is a mound of abstract human skulls. Some of the skulls closest to centre have an additional layer of a sketch of a face overlaid on them. From 6 o’clock to 8 o’clock is a decaying industrial structure. The four outside corners of the work are repeated variations of coloured rectangles and squares with the top left corner being brightest with a yellow rectangle overlaid by black vertical bars. End of Audio Description.Exhibition label text:This vibrant, eleven-by-twenty-foot painting—the same dimensions as Thomasos’s former East Village studio wall— reveals traces of the artist’s body through swoops, strokes, and drips of paint. This was the largest scale in which the artist worked.Two massive ribcage-like forms dominate the upper half of the composition. The ribcage—an arc in itself—appears sporadically throughout Thomasos’s work. She subtly infuses her work with personal meaning (once revealing that the ribcage motif symbolizes her father), while simultaneously addressing larger political concerns. She again employs the skull motif in this work, but here she renders the forms loosely and colourfully. Spilling into the foreground and commanding our attention, the skulls represent Thomasos’s commitment to calling out systemic racism and structures of oppression. End of Exhibition label text.
Sketchbooks and notebooks2000sCourtesy of the Estate of Denyse ThomasosAudio description of the workEight open notebooks make up this table display. They range in size from a pocket notebook to slightly larger than letter paper size. In the middle of the glass encased table is a book open to a 4 colour sketch of structures. At the centre of the sketch is a low green circular structure that resembles a wheel with six spokes. It is surrounded by sketches of taller architectural structures in black brown or blue. Three other sketchbooks are open to what appear to be architectural sketches and the other books are open to pages with neat handwriting in black ink.A pad of parchment tracing paper is flipped open, it reads:My work is about cages. About enclosure. Being enveloped. I think of the “cage” as a political object. The cage is however an animal object. My idea is a visual object – it is not an idea really. It is like saying my idea is a “line“. That is not an idea – it is still visual. What is my idea. Many artists never really have an idea. When I critique them I realize they are looking or waiting for their idea. The activity in the studio is just keeping them busy until something happens. I never thought of myself as one of “those“ artist but now I am wondering. What is my idea outside or apart from a visual language. Should a minimum mural artist have an idea outside of a visual idea – is it possible. End of text.This room also displays seven similar medium sized paintings on the walls, they all show a variation on a grid pattern.End of Audio Description. Exhibition label text:WORKING PROCESS: ARCHIVES AND SKETCHBOOKSSome of Thomasos’s diaries, sketches, photo albums, slides, and other objects (including the shoes she wore while painting) are presented in display cases and on screens throughout the exhibition. These items have graciously been loaned to the AGO by members of the artist’s family, and give us an intimate view into the methods that were foundational to Thomasos’s working process.The exhibition includes a selection of photographic materials from her extensive documentation of the indigenous structures she saw during her travels and that came to inspire her approach to abstraction. Similarly, the sketches reveal how her real-world experiences were translated into her personal, painted vocabulary. These sketchbooks are more accurately described as diaries because they contain as much personal reflection on Thomasos’s life as they do artistic exploration. For Thomasos, life and art were inextricably linked.End of Exhibition label text.
Rally1994acrylic on canvasCourtesy of the Estate of Denyse Thomasos and Olga Korper GalleryAudio description of the work.This monumental work is an abstract painting in landscape orientation.It is 9 feet or almost 3 meters tall by 14 feet or around 4 meters wide.This painting is composed of tight stacks of similar horizontal brush strokes in multiple vivid colours. There are 22 stacks from left to right and an average of 50 brush strokes in each stack. By this count the work totals 1100 repeated brushstrokes. Each column counts multiple short stacks. In each stack the same colour is repeated an average of 6 times; the predominant colours are orange, blue and red and less so, purple, white and yellow. The canvas behind the brushstrokes is painted with vivid colours which peek through. In the sixth stack near the top left there is one small section where the brush strokes line up vertically instead of horizontally and close by another small section has both horizontal and vertical lines.End of Audio description.Exhibition label text:Thomasos spent the early 1990s teaching art in Philadelphia. During this period, she witnessed the devastating conditions many Black people lived in due to poverty. The artist revealed that “the immediate experience of urban collapse had a psychological effect on my works.” She also began her research on mass incarceration during this time. Here, Thomasos paints countless grids in a variety of colours, inspired by the brightly painted row houses she saw in Philadelphia. In a 2012 artist statement, she described seeing pink, green, and bright- blue homes situated beside bombed-out or abandoned houses. She wrote, “I developed my palette from the contradiction of brights and greys intermingled, symbolizing life among the dead.” End of Exhibition label text.
Dos Amigos (Slave Boat)1993acrylic on canvasCollection of Cadillac FairviewAudio description of the workThis work is an abstract painting in a landscape orientation. It is 9 feet or almost 3 meters tall by 14 feet or around 4 meters wide.Taking up the majority of the canvas is an architectural structure shaped like a capsule which is broken open. It is composed of black and white cross hatched lines. Above it the sky is a crosshatched grey and white. Where the capsule breaks, the space between is filled with intersecting white lines forming an X. The lines in this work range in thickness from very refined to very thick. The vertical lines are the thickest, they appear in front of the structure. The left half is higher than the right and takes up the top two thirds of the canvas while the right half takes up the lower two thirds of the canvas. End of Audio description.Exhibition label text:The early 1990s signaled Thomasos’s shift into abstraction. In this work, she references the transatlantic slave trade—specifically, the claustrophobic boats constructed to transport enslaved Africans to the Americas. These structures of confinement would continue to preoccupy her research. Thomasos uses line to convey the inhumane conditions of the boats, arranging the black marks in a way to suggest a suffocating cage. The title, Dos Amigos, references a 19th-century slave ship that carried enslaved Africans to Cuba. Using an unassuming palette of black, white, and grey, and employing a deceptively simple painting vocabulary of gridded latticework, Thomasos creates a visual experience that conjures the stifling intensity of a ship’s hold.End of Exhibition label text.
Babylon 2005acrylic on canvasThe Donovan Collection, University of St. Michael’s CollegeThis massive wallwork is an abstract painting. With it’s bottom edge at bench height, the work is hung in landscape orientation. It is 11 feet or three point three meters tall by 20 feet or six meters wide. The artist creates a spatially complex scene with brushstrokes and rollers. The upper part of the landscape has some bent grey and blue lines forming casual swirls. Below and behind this are straight line brush strokes which pull upwards, grids and rows of lines make layers of abstract structures. These structures (including buildings, spaces of confinement, bridges, and boats) are also explored in many of her other works. This huge composition uses a palette mostly of creamy whites, shades of grays, brown, black with lots of blue background on the left and lots of oranges on the right. There are also pops of greens on both sides. Described from left to right: The artist has painted many vertical lines of relatively equal width in brown and terracotta oranges, some of which resemble, rungs of a ladder and building frames.Under this is a background of grey, then light blue, then white. Moving towards the centre, the colours become more vibrant and the lines are sparser and thinner. The upper part of the image has grey and light blue grids over blue and three bright blue horizontal stripes. in the lower half of this section a cloud of grey loops pour upwards from a sketch of thin horizontal lines which seemingly form the walls of industrial structures. Moving to the right, the top of the next section introduces roller lines (where the paint was thicker) in areas that now repeat. High up is a brown roller mark that goes from vertical to curving right and a red one that is straight up and down. Beside it are light grey and brown swirls over an orange background. The lower part of this section is streaked with drips of paint from above. It has an arch and layers of knots of green, choral and burgundy. Thick dark brown vertical lines descend from them. The farthest right section has a light grey swirl against a dark grey background. The lower right corner of the work has an abstract structure resembling a cargo boat hull in brown and black which is highlighted with light grey. End of Audio Description.Exhibition label text:Thomasos continued to develop her artistic vocabulary in the mid-2000s. This work reveals the new ways in which she experimented with line, structure, and colour. The recognizable grids from her earlier work are gone, but the dense matrix of brushstrokes creates the effect of a packed, urban space. References to the language of graffiti are present, and the canvas appears to vibrate with the infrastructure and energy of a city. Biblical references also recur in Thomasos’s work, and this work’s title may be a direct reference to the troubled and immoral Mesopotamian city that reappears throughout the Christian Bible.End of Exhibition label text.
Faith and Fortune - 09 Gaspar de Guzmán, Count Duke of Olivares by Art Gallery of Ontario
The audio guide accompanies the exhibition Faith and Fortune: Art Across the Global Spanish Empire on at the Art Gallery of Ontario starting June 2022
The audio guide accompanies the exhibition Faith and Fortune: Art Across the Global Spanish Empire on at the Art Gallery of Ontario starting June 2022
The audio guide accompanies the exhibition Faith and Fortune: Art Across the Global Spanish Empire on at the Art Gallery of Ontario starting June 2022
The audio guide accompanies the exhibition Faith and Fortune: Art Across the Global Spanish Empire on at the Art Gallery of Ontario starting June 2022
The audio guide accompanies the exhibition Faith and Fortune: Art Across the Global Spanish Empire on at the Art Gallery of Ontario starting June 2022
The audio guide accompanies the exhibition Faith and Fortune: Art Across the Global Spanish Empire on at the Art Gallery of Ontario starting June 2022
The audio guide accompanies the exhibition Faith and Fortune: Art Across the Global Spanish Empire on at the Art Gallery of Ontario starting June 2022
The audio guide accompanies the exhibition Faith and Fortune: Art Across the Global Spanish Empire on at the Art Gallery of Ontario starting June 2022
The audio guide accompanies the exhibition Faith and Fortune: Art Across the Global Spanish Empire on at the Art Gallery of Ontario starting June 2022
The audio guide accompanies the exhibition Faith and Fortune: Art Across the Global Spanish Empire on at the Art Gallery of Ontario starting June 2022
The audio guide accompanies the exhibition Faith and Fortune: Art Across the Global Spanish Empire on at the Art Gallery of Ontario starting June 2022
The audio guide accompanies the exhibition Faith and Fortune: Art Across the Global Spanish Empire on at the Art Gallery of Ontario starting June 2022
The audio guide accompanies the exhibition Faith and Fortune: Art Across the Global Spanish Empire on at the Art Gallery of Ontario starting June 2022
The audio guide accompanies the exhibition Faith and Fortune: Art Across the Global Spanish Empire on at the Art Gallery of Ontario starting June 2022
The audio guide accompanies the exhibition Faith and Fortune: Art Across the Global Spanish Empire on at the Art Gallery of Ontario starting June 2022
The audio guide accompanies the exhibition Faith and Fortune: Art Across the Global Spanish Empire on at the Art Gallery of Ontario starting June 2022
Patti Smith, Robert’s Slippers (B), 2003, Gelatin silver print, 20.32 x 25.4 cm (unframed); 53.34 x 40.64 x 2.54 cm (framed), from the collection of James Lahey. This is a photograph of a pair of slippers taken by Patti Smith. The title is Robert’s Slippers, and it was photographed in 2003. This photograph is a gelatin silver print, measuring 20.32 by 25.4 cm when unframed, and 53.34 by 40.64 by 2.54 cm when framed. This artwork comes to the AGO from the collection of James Lahey. Photographed from above, this black-and-white image depicts an empty pair of closed-heel black slippers on the floor. The picture is out of focus, creating a soft, blurred effect. The pair of slippers are oriented with the toes facing towards the bottom of the composition, with the heel portion of the slippers at the top. The slippers are off-centre in the shot, appearing slightly to the right of the centre of the photo. The slippers are slim-shaped, black, with white lining inside, and photographed on what appears to be a white floor. The slippers occupy about 75% of the shot, while the remainder of the frame features the white floor, with shadows cast upon it from unknown sources. Faint writing can be seen in the inner heel area of each slipper as well. The picture is out of focus, making the emblem and writing indiscernible. Other photographs of these slippers have revealed that the slippers are custom-made, likely from high-quality materials. There is also a logo or emblem design of the initials “RM” embroidered on the top face of each slipper. These slippers belonged to Patti Smith’s longtime friend Robert Mapplethorpe, an iconic New York photographer famous for his subversive black-and-white photographs of the gay community in New York from the 1960s to 1980s. Robert Mapplethorpe died from AIDS-related complications in 1989. This ghostly photograph of an empty but intimate domestic garment reminds us of the pain and loss of losing someone you love dearly. Found in the My Favourite Things section, the slippers represent how the objects we collect reveal volumes about our personal psychology.
Pieter Brueghel the Younger, Country Wedding, 16th–17th century, oil on wood, Art Gallery of Ontario; Gift of Mr. and Mrs. W. Redelmeier, 1940, 2557. This is an oil on wood painting, titled Country Wedding by artist Pieter Brueghel the Younger. It is from the 1500s or 1600s, and was a gift to the Art Gallery of Ontario by Mr. and Mrs. W. Redelmeier in 1940. The scene is set in Europe during the 1500s or 1600s and features a country wedding within a wooded glade. About fifty people are shown celebrating in the rustic setting. The people are dancing, eating, drinking, playing musical instruments, and embracing each other. Most of the people are wearing clothes associated with working-class labourers of the time period, in earth-coloured tones, such as browns, greens, and grays. Some figures wear garments that stand out in the rustic, forest setting: contrasting fabrics of sharp, bright reds, whites, and piercing yellows. Trees, bushes, and hut-like structures are shown in the background. In the bottom-left foreground of the painting, a male figure dances alone. Wearing a red hat, red pants, and a white coat, his face and body are visible to us. This male figure is looking to his left, over at a group of other people dancing adjacent to him in the bottom right of the painting. Within that group, another male figure appears prominently, dancing in front of a woman. The man is in a strutting posture, wearing bright yellow and white clothes. The woman is depicted with her back to the viewer, her face out of view. She stands with her hands on her hips and faces the strutting man. In the centre of the painting, groups of figures behind the dancers are partaking in other activities, like sitting, talking, drinking, and eating. All around the painting, the atmosphere is celebratory, with various scenes of revelry and merriment that boast a melodious quality. Located in the Dance to the Music section, the painting captures the seemingly timeless and universal impulse to move our bodies.
Mary Pratt. Cod Fillets on Cardboard Cartons, 1975. oil on panel, Overall (sight): 49.5 × 73 cm. Gift of Norcen Energy Resources Limited, 1986. © Estate of Mary Pratt, 1975. 86/55 This work, entitled Cod Fillets in Cardboard Cartons, by artist Mary Pratt is a photorealistic oil painting. It was created in 1975 and measures 49.5 by 73 cm. Two frozen cod fillets are thawing in their packaging, while light streams across them, casting shadows. Set upon a bare, beige surface, two light brown cartons of fish fillets sit side by side. The carton on the left is positioned slightly higher than the other. Both cardboard cartons are open, lying flat like plates, and contain paper packaging. The carton on the right is torn on the right edge. Barely contained by their makeshift plates, the fish fillets and their packaging occupy the whole area of the cartons. The fillets are thawing to be prepared for a home-cooked meal. The large opaque white flakes of the fillets are lit with a warm yellow light created by the afternoon sun cascading over them. Pratt’s attention to precise realism is represented in the stark contrast of light and shadow on the surface of this painting. The light source in this work is set above the subject at the upper border, beyond the bounds of the frame. This creates a hard shadow on the surface, along the lower edge of the cartons. This work is in the Food, Glorious Food section of the exhibition and celebrates our universal impulse to document our food that evokes a sense of nostalgia and warmth.
David Hockney, Santa Monica Boulevard, 1978–1980, Acrylic on canvas, 218.44 x 609.6 cm, The David Hockney Foundation. This is an acrylic on canvas painting by artist David Hockney. It was created between 1978 to 1980. Its dimensions are 218.44 by 609.6 cm. Hockney captures the sundrenched vista of an iconic Los Angeles street from the perspective of someone looking out the window of a car driving down the boulevard. He seeks to represent the city in the point of view from which it is most often experienced. The rectangular-shaped canvas depicts a boulevard. Looking at the painting from left to right, there are five people and several buildings represented on the length of the street. Farthest to the left is a person with a trolley facing left, almost out of frame. They are standing in front of a car dealership lot, with a soft pink wall behind. A palm tree is depicted in front of the dealership, but elements of the palm tree appear missing or incomplete. The palm's trunk is complete but no leaves sprout from it. There are palm tree leaves peaking out from behind the pink wall, with shadows reflected upon it. Below, the shadow of the palm tree shows leaves, while the painted tree itself does not. Red, white, and blue pennants hang in lines above the dealership lot. A red muscle car sits in the lot, with the number 2499 painted in yellow on the front window. To the right of the dealership lot, occupying the centre of the painting, is a single-story bright yellow building with teal-coloured shutters pulled all the way down, obscuring the three large windows. There are also colourful triangular pennants strung across the top left side of the trio of windows. On the right side of the building is an open entrance without a door, leading into a dark, shadowed interior with speckled red and black flooring. There are three different people standing in front of the yellow building. One person, furthest to the left, leans against a light pole and faces to the right. The figure has long hair that goes down past their shoulders, and they are wearing a white visor and a blue short-sleeved shirt with red and white stripes. They are also wearing mid-thigh blue shorts with red trim, and bright white over the calf high-top socks with two red stripes near the top. The outfit is completed with simple gray shoes with white laces. Directly to the right of this person is another figure, with thick black hair in a shiny bowl haircut, walking down the street in the direction of the dealership lot. They are mid-stride, wearing a flared purple suit and thick-framed white glasses, and carrying a blue handbag in their left hand. The last person is standing near the entrance of the yellow building, facing to the right. They are wearing a white ball cap with red trim, a white tee-shirt, and blue jeans. They have short black and gray hair. Their left arm is gestured up with their thumb pointing backwards to the left. Further along the boulevard, on the right of the painting, is a soft pink building with two low façades: one brick and the other stonework. Like the others, the front of this building is strung with colourful triangular pennants. Looking closely, several of the pennants are traced but not coloured in, giving an unfinished or incomplete impression. These low façades are separated by an open doorway, with the brick façade to the left of the entrance, and the stone façade to the right. In the middle of the pink building, a person leans on the left side of the door frame. This person has black and gray hair, and is wearing a white tank top and blue jeans as well as white sneakers with three blue stripes. Further to the right of the pink building, we see the front of a 1970s camper style van parked on the road. The van is facing to the left. The bottom half of the van is gray and the top half is white, with long yellow, white, and blue stripes between the two halves. There are three palm tree shadows cast across the full length of road.
Jack Chambers. Diego Reading, 1976–1977. oil and synthetic paint in natural resin varnish on plywood, Overall: 93.5 × 93 × 5.7 cm. Purchase with the assistance of the Judith Rachel Harris Foundation and Ethel Harris, 2007. © Estate of Jack Chambers. 2007/92 The title of the work is Diego Reading (Sunday Morning No.5), created in 1976 to 1977 by the artist Jack Chambers. Painted in a hyper-realistic style, this oil on wood painting is square-shaped, measuring 91.4 cm squared. A child sits reading a book in a living room decorated for Christmas. As viewers, we are in the middle of the room, facing a window that looks out onto a snowy suburban street. The photorealistic painting has the muted warm glow of a faded photograph. The young white brunette boy sits with his back to the window, facing us. He sits with his left leg crossed over his right on an armchair with plush sea green upholstery as he reads a comic book. He is dressed in a red turtleneck sweater, brown slacks, and matching red socks.
Behind the boy, on the beige wall, two framed images hang on either side of sea green drapes, which are pushed aside to reveal a large, glass-paned window. Neighbouring snow-covered houses, lawns, and the street make up the scene outside. Towering conifers and a large leafless tree reach out of the snow. Inside, a small television set rests on the floor to the left of the boy. A remote controller and a small glass of water are placed on top of it. Beside the television, to the far left side of the painting is a full, pear-shaped Christmas tree adorned with a number of red, blue, yellow, and silver ornaments. A three-tiered red and gold fringed tree topper hangs from the ceiling, resembling a floating birthday hat above the Christmas tree. A table, covered with a red tablecloth the same shade as the boy's sweater, sits in the foreground of the Christmas tree. Only one corner of the table is shown as the rest is cropped by the left edge of the painting. Nativity scene figurines sit on the table, and directly under the table is a potted bouquet of bulbous marigold-like flowers. To the right of the boy, there is a large red poinsettia plant on the floor, next to another armchair with light yellow and green vertical-striped upholstery. A white and red floral upholstered piece of furniture is cut off in the right foreground.
An ornate red, yellow, blue and white rug is placed in the middle of the room and foreground. It acts as a bridge leading the viewer into the scene. This painting is part of the Our House section of the exhibition, evoking memories of childhood, holiday rituals, and familiar domestic spaces.
Sandra Brewster. Hiking Black Creek, 2018. gel medium transfer, charcoal, acrylic on wood, Overall (three panels): 335.3 × 406.4 cm. © Sandra Brewster 2020/17 The title of the work is Hiking Black Creek, created in 2017 by Sandra Brewster. A gel medium image transfer, charcoal, and acrylic on wood measures 335.3 by 406.4 cm.
This large photographic artwork of a Black couple outside in nature is made up of three large panels, like a triptych.
The two figures fill the left side of the foreground; a woman on the left and a man on the right. Standing in front of a forest scene, the couple is cropped just below the hip.
While the work is mostly black and white, the artist has painted the couple's shirts in colour. The woman’s long-sleeved shirt is yellow and the man’s long-sleeved shirt is orange. Both figures are looking towards the camera and the viewer.
The woman has short, dark hair and wears a brimmed, polka-dotted hat. Her eyes and most of her face are obscured in shadow. She has a neutral expression, caught in a moment. Both of her arms are down at her side.
The man is slightly taller than the woman. His hairstyle is a short, trimmed afro. He wears thick-rimmed, rectangular glasses and is smiling widely. The man has a white handkerchief tied around his neck, and dons a collared top, buttoned all the way up. His sleeves are rolled up to the forearm.
Behind the figures, large rocks and a scattering of branches and small twigs make up the mid-ground. Farther behind, the background comprises a forest made up of mostly thin tree trunks, branches, and leaves.
Found in the We Are Family section of the exhibition, Hiking Black Creek shows the artist’s parents hiking during their first year in Canada together. The two are monumentalized as giant figures holding space in the natural landscape.
Robert Houle. Kanata, 1992. Acrylic and conte crayon on canvas, 228.7 x 732 cm. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Purchased 1994. © Robert Houle
A long rectangular canvas is divided into three areas, resembling The French national flag - blue, white, and red. Framed by the bright blue and bright red of the French Flag, a bleached copy of a central historical painting by American painter, Benjamin West,The Death of General Wolfe, depicts the Battle of Quebec in 1759. Men, including enlisted soldiers holding up a British flag, settlers, and an Indigenous man, gather around the British General Wolfe who lies dying. The indigenous man is represented thinking, holding his chin and resting his elbow on his knee like the famous Rodin sculpture, “The Thinker”. The Indigenous man stands out from the washed out sepia crowd, painted with a bright blue and red blanket tied around his waist, a brown bandolier bag, and red feathers in his hair. Houle draws attention to the misrepresentation of Indigenous Peoples as merely passive observers, pointing instead to their direct stake in the history of Canada and the United States.
Robert Houle. In Memoriam, 1987. Oil, feathers, leather, ribbon on plywood, Overall (framed): 137.2 x 151.9 x 9 cm. Gift of Vanessa, Britney and Nelson Niedzielski, 2000. © Robert Houle 2000/1196
Two differently sized panels of painted plywood are assembled together in this artwork that includes indigenous community names, leather, ribbons and eagle feathers. On the left panel a thin horizontal decorative moulding architecturally crowns the top. Below the moulding, a piece of plywood is cut away in a curve that arcs from the upper right corner down past the left corner of the panel, creating the illusion of an arch. Painted black, the vertical brush strokes are visible on the entire panel. Multicoloured ribbons tied around eagle feathers flow down the centre, dividing the left and right panels of the artwork. Longer than the left panel, the right panel is a rich deep purple maroon. The following community names are stenciled onto the panel from top to bottom: Beothuk, Mohican, Natchez, Neutral, Timucua, Tobacco, Yamasee. The names are obscured by the brush strokes, making it hard to read them and alluding to the loss of these communities and a discourse around representation and naming outside of colonial narratives.
Robert Houle. Sandy Bay, 1998-99. Oil on canvas, black and white photograph + colour photograph on canvas, Masonite, 300 x 548. 4 cm. Collection of the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Acquired with funds from the President's Appeal 2000 and with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts Acquisition Assistance program © Robert Houle.
Reading this work from left to right, Houle assembles a black and white photograph, a colour photograph, and three vertical rectangle canvases. In the top left colour photograph, an older white priest stands in a garden in front of an ivy covered niche with a virgin mary icon, surrounded by a bright blue summer sky. This is Father Chion who was widely liked in Sandy Bay First Nation, where the artist is from, because he spoke Saulteaux and was kind. Below this is a black and white photograph of two priests and a group of young indigenous children standing in rows on the steps of a brick building. This is an image of a First Communion at which Robert’s sister Marilyn is present. We move from the two photographs to the first oil painting of a building and finally to two abstract colour field paintings. In the first oil painting, the Sandy Bay Residential School appears in a cool blue fog with words from a saulteaux hymn Houle’s mother sang to him: “ON SAM KI KISEWATIS ANA MANITOWIYAN” (“Oh you are so kind and so treasured although you are god-like”) (Ks are pronounced as Gs). The second oil painting is a thin vertical dark blue night scene of a curved shoreline with evergreen trees on Lake Manitoba at Sandy Bay. Finally on the far right is a swirling red canvas with black shadows and streaks that suggest the lower half of a figure in a dress-like garment with long bell sleeves. Abstract wavy yellow brush strokes create a horizontal line across the canvas and an orange vertical line with a pink u on the top is in the middle of the canvas. The painting is meant to represent Sister Clotilde who was one of the most abusive nuns at the school. Houle revisits memories of attending the Sandy Bay Residential School in order to let them go.
Robert Houle. Red is Beautiful, 1970. Acrylic on canvas, 45.5 x 61 cm. Canadian Museum of History, V-F-174 © Robert Houle
Trapezoids, flat shapes that look like upside down triangles that have their tops sliced off parallel to their bottoms with sloping sides, fill the rectangular canvas in tones of pink and red. Sitting with the longest side on top of the canvas, four trapezoids increasing in size are layered one on top of the other. The shapes transition from a small deep red trapezoid in the centre and radiate out to bright red, warm pink, and light pink as the shapes get bigger pointing towards the centre of the canvas. Houle mirrors the stacked trapezoids on the top and the bottom of the canvas. The other four layered trapezoids have their longest side on the bottom of the canvas and radiate out in the same colours pointing to the centre of the painting. The mirrored images sit on a deep red background, the same tone as the small central trapezoids. R. Houle, the artist’s signature, and the date, 1970, are painted in the lower right corner of the canvas. Robert Houle was very inspired by abstract geometric forms.
Robert Houle. The Pines, 2002-2004. Oil on canvas, Panel (centre): 91.4 × 121.9 cm. Panel (side, each of two): 91.4 × 91.4 cm. Gift of Susan Whitney, 2017. © Robert Houle 2017/243
Three green and blue paintings hang in a horizontal row; two monochrome square canvases frame a pine forest on a rectangular canvas in the centre. On the left, a square canvas is painted with horizontal brush strokes in a monochromatic deep green. In the central rectangular canvas, a line of blueish green tree trunks leads diagonally from the right corner in the foreground into the left background. Past a clearing in the left foreground of the canvas, the tree trunks cast shadows on the ground leading deeper into the forest, where a bright yellow sky peeks through the green foliage. To the right of this canvas, a square canvas is painted with horizontal brush strokes in a monochromatic deep blue. This triptych commemorates the 78 days in the summer of 1990, when Kanien’keha:ka (Mohawk) land defenders set up a blockade to prevent the town of Oka from building a golf course on the pine forest, a sacred burial ground.
- Still Life with Flowers, 1906, gouache on cardboard, and the size is 72.1 by 55.9 cm. A floral bouquet and dishes are set against a warm orange background. This still life centres around a white ceramic vase with a flared neck that narrows to meet a rounded body, curving into a pedestal that sits on the table. Elaborate handles flare out from the neck, curling into the body of the vase. An assorted bouquet of flowers overflows to fill the top half of the painting. There is a mixture of soft pink, blue, and white wildflowers to the left of the bouquet, while classic pink and red roses are on the right. A branch with green leaves and yellow flowers bursts out of the top of the flower arrangement. To the left of the vase, on the table, there is a white plate with a shiny green earthenware bowl. To the right of the vase is an elegant, white ceramic chocolate pot with a curved spout, lid, and faceted body. This is an autobiographical artwork; the bowl, handmade in Spain, refers to Picasso. The chocolate pot, factory-made in France, symbolizes his lover, the artist Fernande Olivier. The local wildflowers represent Picasso, as well, while the cultivated roses symbolize the sophisticated Fernande.
Picasso: Painting the Blue Period - Described audio transcript
- The Coiffure, 1899–1900, pastel and watercolour on paper, and the size is 46.7 by 29.5 cm. This loosely drawn scene shows a woman standing at a vanity, styling her hair in her bedroom. Behind her a picture hangs in the upper right corner of the painting on a deep blue wall; its subject matter is indistinct. In front of the wall, there is a bed with brown sheets and a white cushion. A chamber pot sits under the bed. Filling the foreground, the woman is dressed in a white petticoat that reaches to her ankles. She wears a tight brown corset over the petticoat, creating her hourglass figure. She reaches to fix her dark hair up into a bun on top of her head. Her elbows point out sharply as she gazes into a vanity mirror. Various containers sit on top of the vanity table. The reflective surface of the mirror faces the woman, not the viewer. Picasso does not finish the bottom of the scene; he leaves the paper exposed through loose brushstrokes and light pastel marks, adding to the overall sketchy feeling of the artwork. This is an intimate domestic scene capturing a woman attending to her appearance.
- Family at Supper, 1903, pen and ink with watercolour on paper, and the size is 32.1 by 44.5 cm. In this delicate watercolour and ink image, a Spanish family sits down to supper at a table in the centre of a modest room. In the foreground, a father, on the left, and a young child, on the right, sit on a plain wooden bench at the table with their backs to us. The father, with a plate and spoon in front of him, holds a bottle of wine and looks down towards the child. The child looks back at the father with a neutral expression and their arms on top of their plate. The mother, to the right of the child, bends to set a covered blue bowl of food on the table. She appears in profile, wearing a white headscarf tied to hold her hair back. The father and child sit facing a red framed window in the centre of the background. Blue wooden panels line the lower half of the walls. A green and blue painting hangs to the left of the window and a wooden chair with vertical slats on the back sits below it. To the right of the window, behind the mother, there is a cast iron cauldron hanging over a hearth, with two terracotta pots sitting under it.
- Woman with Bangs, 1902, oil on canvas, and the size is 61.4 by 51.8 cm. In this portrait, Picasso portrays an image of a sad woman in shades of blue. He has subtly painted the background in varying tones of blue, drawing our attention to the subject, who is positioned to the right of the painting. This neutral background places her in three-dimensional space that contains no anecdotal information. The woman’s upper torso, cut off under her chest, fills the foreground, casting a shadow over her left shoulder. Wearing a large, shapeless jacket modelled with blue and brown tones, the woman slumps forwards towards the viewer. She stares out of the canvas with an unfocused gaze and solemn facial expression. Her short, dark hair with bangs frames her face. Picasso emphasizes her sombre mood by painting her pouting reddish-brown lips, leaving us to ponder her thoughts. In the Blue Period paintings of poor women, Picasso employs the poses and clothing of Christian religious images of the Madonna to evoke the empathy of viewers.
Description: Having identified the artist, location, and time period of the portrait, we turn our attention to Amsterdam’s archives to better understand the different lives people of colour lived in the Netherlands in the late 1700s. Adam Levine interviews Mark Ponte, a historian and archivist who specializes in Amsterdam’s historic Black communities, to learn more about who the painting might depict, and what her life might have been like.
Adam Levine and Monique Johnson reflect on one year of studying the painting and share new, major discoveries: they have identified the painting’s maker, the likely location of the painting, and other works by the same artist. They’ve also uncovered new details about the painting’s provenance and the life it lived before it came to Toronto.
The lady in the portrait holds a flowering sprig in her right hand. We ask Deborah Metsger, Assistant Curator of Botany at the Royal Ontario Museum to help us identify the plant as an orange blossom. We learn about where and how orange trees grew in the eighteenth century and the potential symbolism behind this botanical element in the portrait.
Portrait of a Lady Holding an Orange Blossom was painted at the height of Trans-Atlantic Slavery. We speak with Charmaine A. Nelson, PhD, Canada Research Chair in Transatlantic Black Diasporic Art and Community Engagement at NSCAD University, about issues of race and representation in eighteenth-century portraiture.
One critical object is the sitter’s blue dress. We speak with two local experts on the history of dress, author Ingrid Mida, PhD, and Alexandra Palmer, PhD, Nora E. Vaughan Senior Curator, Global Fashion & Textiles, at the Royal Ontario Museum to help us understand when the painting was made and even offer insight into the life of the painting’s sitter.
2020 marks the 20th anniversary of the official founding of the Photography Department at the Art Gallery of Ontario. To celebrate, the AGO recorded a conversation between Sophie Hackett, the AGO’s Curator of Photography and Maia Sutnik, the first Curator of Photography at the AGO, discussing the gifts, purchases and exhibitions that led to the department as it exists today.
Curator Adam Levine speaks with Maria Sullivan, the AGO Head of Conservation, to discuss the Portrait of a Lady Holding an Orange Blossom as a physical object and the different materials the artist used to create it. Maria tells us about how conservation science can help us understand how the painting was made and the life the painting has lived since its creation. The two discuss the artist’s signature and future plans to study the painting in the lab.
Curators Adam Levine and Monique Johnson discuss their process and the different questions they hope to answer as they peel back the layers Even though they're at home, the curators of the European Department are still hard at work learning more about their latest acquisition, Portrait of a Lady Holding an Orange Blossom. Listen to Adam Levine and Monique Johnson discuss their process, and they different questions they're asking about the mysterious portrait. An audio transcript is available in the YouTube link.
Recording of Futures: Desmond Cole, held at the Art Gallery of Ontario on Wednesday February 5, 7 pm. Activist Desmond Cole discusses his new book The Skin We're In. The evening’s conversation with Beverly Bain, Terese Mason Pierre and Philip Dwight Morgan explored the injustices faced by Black Canadians and will challenge the assumptions of Canada as a post-racial nation. As museums strive to become more inclusive and welcoming to all audiences, no conversation feels more timely.
British or French Three-decker 100 Gun Warship with Admiral’s Barge alongside, 1795-1815 by Art Gallery of Ontario
Japanese Liner, “Chichibu Maru” (renamed “Titibu Maru” in 1938, “Kamkura Maru” in 1939), around 1930 by Art Gallery of Ontario
Double Watch Stand with British or French Two-decker 74 Gun Warship, 1795-1815 by Art Gallery of Ontario
Russian Icebreaker, design for two vessels: “Kosmá Mínin” and “Kniáz Pojársky”, 1916 by Art Gallery of Ontario
British or French Three-decker 100 Gun Warship with Admiral’s Barge alongside, 1795-1815 by Art Gallery of Ontario
13 The Capture of Samson, 1609-10, AIC
NARRATOR: In the center of this tumultuous scene, the Old Testament hero Samson is captured. To the left is his lover, Delilah, who has betrayed him to his enemies by allowing them to cut his hair and deprive him of his strength. In this dynamic oil sketch, Rubens is working out how to tell Samson’s story.
NICO VAN HOUT: He chooses the moment where he's captured and before he's blinded and that enables Rubens to oppose the drama of the violence, with a very quiet and rather diva-like appearance of Delilah.
Her sensuality is opposing that sort of violence that breaks loose and it always comes in mind to me that a scene like this shows Rubens as a filmmaker. We see the same tricks used in film as in in oils. You see the drama of the action with the oblique, and the foreshortening of the figure of Samson, and we see the light falling mainly upon the female actress here, Delilah.
NARRATOR: Elsewhere in this gallery, you’ll find another oil sketch – this time, showing an earlier point in the story where Delilah watches while the sleeping Samson’s hair is cut – a charged moment that will set off the catastrophic consequences we see playing out here.
17 Daniel in the Lions’ Den, 1614/1616, NGA
NARRATOR: Looking upward, the Old Testament hero Daniel beseeches God to save him. Angry that Daniel refused to worship the Babylonian gods, the Babylonian king had thrown him to the lions, expecting them to tear him apart.
KIRK NICKEL: So Rubens has selected a moment from that story where Daniel is alone in the pit, looking up to the heavens, praying for his safety. One of the most intriguing parts of this painting is the collection of emotional expressions that are shown through these lions.
NARRATOR: Rubens could have studied real lions in the royal menagerie in Brussels. He has done an astonishing job of conveying emotion, both through the lions’ expressions, and through Daniel’s face and his tense, knotted posture.
KIRK NICKEL: - You feel this taught sense of agitation, expectation, hopefulness, fear, all at once.
He has an interest in finding the precise moment in the narrative when human experience is stretched to some ultimate limit and this allows him to demonstrate his skill at expressing these extreme human emotions.
3 Portrait of Rogier Clarisse, Portrait of Sara Breyel, c. 1611, FAMSF
NARRATOR: Rubens painted these portraits of a husband and wife soon after returning to Antwerp after eight triumphant years in Italy. Now just into his thirties, he quickly established himself back home as an extremely sought-after artist.
This couple, the wealthy silk merchant Rogier Clarisse and his wife Sarah Breyel, were the parents-in-law of Ruben’s close friend Jan Woverius. You’ll find a portrait of him nearby.
KIRK NICKEL: When Rubens painted these portraits, the Clarisse family was on the rise in Antwerp. Rubens shows the pair as well dressed but conservative in taste. Sara Breyel’s dress is decorated with a very fine, but narrow, band of gold buttons.
NARRATOR: In her hand, she holds a white handkerchief made from silk – a subtle reminder of the source of the family’s prosperity.
KIRK NICKEL: The portrait of Rogier Clarisse is only slightly less restrained than that of his wife. And it's really in this fur lining to Rogier’s cloak where we see Rubens let loose with his brushwork. The rich dense, luminous, fur is created from just a welter of thin brush marks, and it's this passage where Rubens’ artistry matches Rogier’s display of wealth.
1 Introduction
GILLIAN MCINTYRE:
Peter Paul Rubens was one of the most innovative and successful artists in Europe in the 1600s. A brilliant draughtsman and painter, his imagery is full of drama, color, movement and emotion. He was also a member of scholarly and humanist circles, and worked for royal courts around Europe, both as an artist, and as a diplomat. This exhibition explores a pivotal period in his early career. After eight years in Italy, where he immersed himself in modern Italian and ancient art, he returned to Antwerp, in the country we now call Belgium. There, established himself as one of the foremost artists of northern Europe, in demand as a painter of moving religious images, spectacular mythological scenes, and portraits with a vivid sense of life and character.
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14 The Annunciation, c. 1610, Kunsthistorisches Museum
NARRATOR: In a dark, nighttime setting that heightens this painting’s intensity, the Angel Gabriel arrives with momentous news for Mary.
KIRK NICKEL: Mary has just been facing away from the viewer reading the holy scripture when this tumult of heavenly light and angelic beings cascades into her bedroom. She turns to face Gabriel, her body expressing some surprise, but her face entirely placid, showing no anxiety about this moment of revelation where she is told that she will conceive a child through the Holy Spirit.
NARRATOR: The painting is full of lessons Rubens learned in Italy, including the way the figures look rounded and fully three dimensional. And the intensity of Ruben’s colors, the sense of movement in the bodies, and the billowing draperies all add visual excitement to this key moment in Christ’s story.
By these means, the painting was intended to move and enthrall those who saw it. It was commissioned by the Jesuit seminary in Antwerp. They received generous funding from the Catholic rulers of the Spanish Netherlands to assist in strengthening the Catholic faith there, in the face of growing Protestantism in northern Europe.
15 Head of Medusa, Moravian Gallery in Brno
NICO VAN HOUT: The painting we've got in front of us is called the Medusa.
NARRATOR: According to some versions of Medusa’s story, she was once a beautiful young woman, who was raped by the sea god Poseidon in the temple of Athena. Unfairly blaming Medusa for having desecrated the sacred space of her temple, Athena became enraged with her.
NICO VAN HOUT: She was punished by the goddess, who transformed her long hair into horrible snakes and all sorts of small creatures you see creeping out.
NARRATOR: Anyone who looked at Medusa was turned instantly to stone. But eventually the hero Perseus managed to cut off her head by looking only at her reflection in his polished shield.
Rubens portrays Medusa’s severed head. Disturbingly, the snakes are still full of life, while her ashen face is frozen in an expression of pure horror. Around her lurk a scorpion, a lizard, spiders and a worm.
NICO VAN HOUT: Reubens really took care to look at books and to look for small images of strange creatures he could use in in this work.
NARRATOR: In his splendid Antwerp mansion, Rubens had collections of art, antiquities and curiosities, as well as an extensive library of books he could consult to help inspire details like these.
8 Lamentation of Christ, c. 1602-06, Galleria Borghese
NARRATOR: Exhibition co-curator Kirk Nickel:
KIRK NICKEL: Not long after entering Antwerp’s Painters Guild and thereby becoming a master painter in his own right, Rubens traveled to Italy. This was a relatively common sort of trip that talented and ambitious European artists would take.
NARRATOR: Rubens went to Italy in 1600, then in his early twenties. During his eight years there he made this painting, probably for a wealthy cardinal. It shows Christ’s dead body, just taken down from the cross. Behind him is his mother, Mary. Here’s exhibition co-curator, Sasha Suda:
SASHA SUDA: The Virgin is in incredible anguish. // She looks up to the sky, presumably to God for strength. God's own presence is indicated through the stream of light. The physicality of Christ is notable.
NARRATOR: The poignancy of seeing Christ’s helpless, dead body like this, right after he died to save mankind, is intended to strengthen a viewer’s Christian faith. Rubens’ ability to portray the human body with such expressiveness and realism grew during his time in Italy, as he studied Italian Renaissance and contemporary painting. And so did his knowledge of classical sculpture, which he would draw on for the rest of his career. Notice that the tomb Christ rests on is actually a beautifully-rendered Roman sarcophagus.
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2 Hero and Leander, c. 1604, Yale University Art Gallery
NARRATOR: Surrounded by sea-nymphs, a young man’s body floats on the dark waves. It’s Leander, who, in Greek mythology, fell in love with Hero, a young priestess. Every night, she lit a lamp in her tower across a narrow stretch of sea, and Leander would swim to her. But one evening, after stormy winds blew out the lamp, Leander lost his way and drowned. To the right, Hero, dressed in red, plunges to her death after seeing her lover die.
The painting reveals Rubens’s intense study of classical literature – begun during his education at Latin school in Antwerp, and deepened during his time in Italy.
KIRK NICKEL: The story of Hero and Leander is developed first by Ovid and then is elaborated on by other ancient authors, and Rubens draws from those versions to create a single scene that combines both deaths.
Whoever the painting was made for, very likely would have displayed it among other mythological scenes where they could discuss with friends the story being shown, and how clever Rubens has been in bringing the two deaths together in this one tragic moment.
12 Lot and his Daughters, c. 1613-14, Private Collection
KIRK NICKEL: Reubens’ scene of Lot and his daughters comes from a Biblical narrative fraught with transgression.
NARRATOR: Lot and his daughters have fled the town of Sodom which God vowed to destroy, and shelter in a cave.
KIRK NICKEL: The two daughters, afraid that their father’s lineage may have come to an end, devise to get him drunk and become pregnant by him.
The scene certainly lends itself to the display of flesh, and that would have been a significant aspect in its appeal for the patron who ultimately acquired the work. Rubens also layered the scene with a surprising amount of moral ambiguity. Rubens presents Lot as the more complicated character - his leering gaze at his naked daughter presents him as perhaps the predator.
NARRATOR: And in fact, Rubens modeled Lot’s head and torso on an ancient sculpture of a Satyr – a notoriously lecherous creature. But the old man’s reclining pose draws on a famous Michelangelo painting of a young woman, who is seduced by Zeus, king of the Gods.
KIRK NICKEL: So in the single figure of Lot, Rubens is pitting references to seducer and seduced in equal parts. For those viewers who were aware of the references Rubens was making, the scene becomes all the more ambiguous and harder to read for its moral lesson -
NARRATOR: - as well as flattering to their knowledge of classical and Renaissance art.
4 Portrait of Isabella Brant, c. 1620-25, Cleveland Museum of Art
NARRATOR: This is Rubens’ first wife, Isabella Brant. The daughter of an Antwerp city official, she married the artist soon after he arrived back from Italy. Together, they had a daughter and two sons.
KIRK NICKEL: And this portrait is a very loving representation of her not as his new bride, but as his beloved wife and mother of his children.
What I love about this portrait is the way Rubens captures this finely regulated emotion that's expressed on her face. She has a real glint in her eye and seems entirely amused by this act of her husband painting her, but a real joy at the same time.
NARRATOR: It’s a quickly-painted, intimate portrayal of the person closest to Rubens, Isabella’s expression conveying a vivid sense of her character and the connection between them. But the year after he made this painting, Isabella died at age thirty-five.
By now, the family lived in the splendid mansion you’ll see in the engraving nearby. There, Rubens worked on commissions for aristocratic and royal patrons, and kept his library and extensive collections of antiquities. In short, he lived like a nobleman – which was extremely rare among artists at this time.
16 Boar Hunt, c. 1615-17, Musées de Marseille
NARRATOR: Dynamic action. Incredible realism. A complex weaving-together of figures and animals. And a story that grabs and holds our attention, as we see this mighty boar surrounded, a spear plunged into his throat. This scene gives us a wonderful summary of Rubens’ extraordinary talent as an artist, which we’ve seen unfold in the exhibition.
The painting, made for a royal Duke, combines two of his main interests. Hunting was, of course, a noted royal and aristocratic sport. The scene echoes classical images of boar hunts – including Hercules killing the Erymanthean boar. This alludes to the Duke’s love of ancient art and culture – which Rubens shared. The Boar Hunt is also a great example of how he uses color to heighten drama, and to draw our attention to key details. Here, touches of brilliant red make our eye move quickly to different parts of the scene, including the eye of the boar, full of anger, fear, and defiance, at the moment before death.
10 Vorsterman, Battle of the Amazons, after Rubens, 1623, Rijksmuseum
NARRATOR: The fierce female warriors known as the Amazons battle the Greeks in this violent scene.
NICO VAN HOUT: Now Rubens, what he tries to do here is to capture this sort of world of aggression of like a wild tornado.
NARRATOR: Rubens painted the original composition – but this print was made by an expert engraver, Lucas Vorsterman.
NICO VAN HOUT: Rubens was very interested in printmaking - it enabled him to reach a larger public than he would have reached by simply selling a one picture at a time. The print business was quite lucrative too.
NARRATOR: This is an unusually large engraving – you can probably see it’s made from six pieces, joined together.
NICO VAN HOUT: Monumental prints like this were definitely made for a larger public, for a public of rich citizens, but also for royalty.
7 Christ on the Straw, 1618, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen
NARRATOR: The two outer panels of this altarpiece were designed to be closed, like doors, over the precious central image – and opened, to spectacular effect. Here’s Nico van Hout, a curator at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp.
NICO VAN HOUT: We are standing in front of a masterpiece of color. This is truly spectacular. You see Christ on the Straw, which is of course one of the most emotional religious paintings Rubens ever did.
NARRATOR: In the center, Christ’s dead body, taken down from the cross, is laid gently on a bed of straw by his mother, Mary, and his followers. To the left, the infant Christ seems to gaze across at his future self and his fate in a way which is almost unbearably poignant. And to the right is John the Evangelist, who will spread the word of Christ in his gospel.
The lifelike expressions and poses of the figures in Rubens’ paintings are due to extensive preparatory studies.
NICO VAN HOUT: In order to have a good amount of variety amongst them, he had to make head studies before, that could be introduced a little bit in every composition. So he used to depict one model seen from different sides - in profile, from underneath, from above, so that he could use those heads here and there where needed.
11 The Dreaming Silenus, c. 1610-12
SASHA SUDA: In The Dreaming Silenus, we encounter this god who reports to Bacchus - himself the chief partier - drunken after a long night of revelry.
Behind Silenus himself, we see two satyrs, both of whom are still indulging, and in the center right of the painting, we have a quite incredible still life. That includes contemporary glassware, tableware and other objects that would have been collected extensively in 17th century Antwerp.
NARRATOR: The beautiful panther beside Silenus was probably painted in by Rubens’s friend Frans Snyders, who specialized in animals. He and Rubens could have seen real exotic animals in the royal collection in Brussels, as well as in prints and books.
SASHA SUDA: One can't help but think that he could pounce at any moment, and all of these very fragile objects on the table could be destroyed. It's a painting that reminds us that happiness, indulgence, calm, can be momentary. But it also celebrates the everyday life and indulgences of those people who would commission such a painting.
18 The Massacre of the Innocents, c. 1610, AGO
NARRATOR: Babies wrenched from their mothers’ arms, and dying beneath their feet. A child raised up high, to be brutally dashed to the ground. And a grandmother, about to be mercilessly killed. This violent and shocking scene pictures an event early in the life of Christ. Herod, King of Judea, heard that a child who was “King of the Jews” had been born in Bethlehem. Infuriated, he ordered his men to murder all the baby boys there. Luckily, Christ’s family had fled, following a warning from an angel, before the terrible massacre began.
SASHA SUDA: Nothing can redeem the tangle of figures at the center of the composition. Children to the bottom right of the painting are already blue and lifeless. The intensity of this image I believe is meant to convey the toxicity of one leader’s desire for power above all else.
NARRATOR: As well as displaying extreme drama and emotion, the painting shows off Rubens’ knowledge of classical art and architecture.
SASHA SUDA: The bodies of the figures are absolute quotations of antique sculptures that Rubens saw in Rome. And this ruin behind the three figures furthest to the right suggests the Roman ruins that Rubens might have encountered.
6 Holy Family with St Elizabeth, St John and a Dove, 1608-09, MMA
NARRATOR: At first glance, this portrayal of the Holy Family is endearingly intimate and playful. Leaning back in his mother Mary’s lap, the infant Christ pulls a dove away from his older cousin John. John’s mother Elizabeth appears to the right, and to the left is Joseph the carpenter, Christ’s earthly father.
But despite the sense of informality, the painting is full of symbols that point to God’s miraculous powers, and Christ’s serious future. The dove itself represents the Holy Spirit. It’s often shown hovering above Christ’s head as John baptizes him later on, when they are adults. Also, Christ’s chubby little foot points toward his wooden cradle. It subtly echoes the shape of a tomb, and in this way, foreshadows his death to save mankind.
Rubens would have painted this intimate scene for a patron’s home, rather than for a church setting – which required a more formal depiction of the Holy Family. Nearby, you’ll see another, larger version of this painting. For a successful artist with many commissions to fulfil, copying paintings, often with studio assistants helping out, was common.
9 Breviarium Romanum, 1614
NARRATOR: A breviary contained everything you needed for Catholic worship – prayers and hymns for daily use, and the wording for church services too.
SASHA SUDA: This is the kind of book that would have been either owned by or available to all Catholics living in Antwerp and elsewhere in the Catholic realm, and would have helped to guide people through their own devotional practice.
NARRATOR: This particular breviary was published in Antwerp, by the Plantin Moretus press, which commissioned its illustrations from Rubens. You’ll find his delicate and lively original drawings for some of the images on the wall nearby.
SASHA SUDA: Rubens' engagement with printed images increases towards the end of his life. It's really the Plantin Moretus press that begins his journey on this path and which helps him to become one of the most prolific printmakers of his time.
5 Tribute Money, c. 1612, FAMSF
NARRATOR: This dramatic conversation is centered around the figure of Christ.
KIRK NICKEL: Rubens is well known and well-loved for his tense, dramatic action.
The moment is recounted in the gospels when the Pharisees send their followers to confront Jesus about whether the Jewish people should pay taxes to the Roman government, or if their tithes were due to God alone. This lays a verbal trap for Christ to fall into with the hope that by denouncing the Roman government, the Romans might put Christ to death.
Rubens takes this moment and turns it into a lesson about human sight. The scene seems very confrontational, everyone leaning in, craning their necks to see how Christ will answer this impossible question.
NARRATOR: In response, Christ simply takes a coin with Caesar’s head on it, saying “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God, the things that are God’s”. In this way, he astonishes his audience with his intellectual dexterity, and grasp of fundamental truth.
The Early Rubens audio guide was produced by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Legion of Honour and includes interviews with the following people:
Sasha Suda, curator of Early Rubens, formerly Curator of European Art, AGO and now Director and CEO, The National Gallery of Canada.
Kirk Nickel, curator of Early Rubens, formerly Assistant Curator of European Painting, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Nico van Hout, Head of Collection Research – Curator of Seventeenth-Century Paintings, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp.
The Early Rubens audio guide was produced by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Legion of Honour and includes interviews with the following people:
Sasha Suda, curator of Early Rubens, formerly Curator of European Art, AGO and now Director and CEO, The National Gallery of Canada.
Kirk Nickel, curator of Early Rubens, formerly Assistant Curator of European Painting, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Nico van Hout, Head of Collection Research – Curator of Seventeenth-Century Paintings, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp.
The Early Rubens audio guide was produced by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Legion of Honour and includes interviews with the following people:
Sasha Suda, curator of Early Rubens, formerly Curator of European Art, AGO and now Director and CEO, The National Gallery of Canada.
Kirk Nickel, curator of Early Rubens, formerly Assistant Curator of European Painting, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Nico van Hout, Head of Collection Research – Curator of Seventeenth-Century Paintings, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp.
The Early Rubens audio guide was produced by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Legion of Honour and includes interviews with the following people:
Sasha Suda, curator of Early Rubens, formerly Curator of European Art, AGO and now Director and CEO, The National Gallery of Canada.
Kirk Nickel, curator of Early Rubens, formerly Assistant Curator of European Painting, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Nico van Hout, Head of Collection Research – Curator of Seventeenth-Century Paintings, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp.
The Early Rubens audio guide was produced by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Legion of Honour and includes interviews with the following people:
Sasha Suda, curator of Early Rubens, formerly Curator of European Art, AGO and now Director and CEO, The National Gallery of Canada.
Kirk Nickel, curator of Early Rubens, formerly Assistant Curator of European Painting, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Nico van Hout, Head of Collection Research – Curator of Seventeenth-Century Paintings, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp.
The Early Rubens audio guide was produced by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Legion of Honour and includes interviews with the following people:
Sasha Suda, curator of Early Rubens, formerly Curator of European Art, AGO and now Director and CEO, The National Gallery of Canada.
Kirk Nickel, curator of Early Rubens, formerly Assistant Curator of European Painting, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Nico van Hout, Head of Collection Research – Curator of Seventeenth-Century Paintings, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp.
The Early Rubens audio guide was produced by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Legion of Honour and includes interviews with the following people:
Sasha Suda, curator of Early Rubens, formerly Curator of European Art, AGO and now Director and CEO, The National Gallery of Canada.
Kirk Nickel, curator of Early Rubens, formerly Assistant Curator of European Painting, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Nico van Hout, Head of Collection Research – Curator of Seventeenth-Century Paintings, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp.
The Early Rubens audio guide was produced by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Legion of Honour and includes interviews with the following people:
Sasha Suda, curator of Early Rubens, formerly Curator of European Art, AGO and now Director and CEO, The National Gallery of Canada.
Kirk Nickel, curator of Early Rubens, formerly Assistant Curator of European Painting, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Nico van Hout, Head of Collection Research – Curator of Seventeenth-Century Paintings, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp.
The Early Rubens audio guide was produced by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Legion of Honour and includes interviews with the following people:
Sasha Suda, curator of Early Rubens, formerly Curator of European Art, AGO and now Director and CEO, The National Gallery of Canada.
Kirk Nickel, curator of Early Rubens, formerly Assistant Curator of European Painting, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Nico van Hout, Head of Collection Research – Curator of Seventeenth-Century Paintings, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp.
The Early Rubens audio guide was produced by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Legion of Honour and includes interviews with the following people:
Sasha Suda, curator of Early Rubens, formerly Curator of European Art, AGO and now Director and CEO, The National Gallery of Canada.
Kirk Nickel, curator of Early Rubens, formerly Assistant Curator of European Painting, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Nico van Hout, Head of Collection Research – Curator of Seventeenth-Century Paintings, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp.
The Early Rubens audio guide was produced by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Legion of Honour and includes interviews with the following people:
Sasha Suda, curator of Early Rubens, formerly Curator of European Art, AGO and now Director and CEO, The National Gallery of Canada.
Kirk Nickel, curator of Early Rubens, formerly Assistant Curator of European Painting, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Nico van Hout, Head of Collection Research – Curator of Seventeenth-Century Paintings, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp.
The Early Rubens audio guide was produced by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Legion of Honour and includes interviews with the following people:
Sasha Suda, curator of Early Rubens, formerly Curator of European Art, AGO and now Director and CEO, The National Gallery of Canada.
Kirk Nickel, curator of Early Rubens, formerly Assistant Curator of European Painting, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Nico van Hout, Head of Collection Research – Curator of Seventeenth-Century Paintings, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp.
The Early Rubens audio guide was produced by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Legion of Honour and includes interviews with the following people:
Sasha Suda, curator of Early Rubens, formerly Curator of European Art, AGO and now Director and CEO, The National Gallery of Canada.
Kirk Nickel, curator of Early Rubens, formerly Assistant Curator of European Painting, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Nico van Hout, Head of Collection Research – Curator of Seventeenth-Century Paintings, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp.
The Early Rubens audio guide was produced by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Legion of Honour and includes interviews with the following people:
Sasha Suda, curator of Early Rubens, formerly Curator of European Art, AGO and now Director and CEO, The National Gallery of Canada.
Kirk Nickel, curator of Early Rubens, formerly Assistant Curator of European Painting, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Nico van Hout, Head of Collection Research – Curator of Seventeenth-Century Paintings, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp.
The Early Rubens audio guide was produced by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Legion of Honour and includes interviews with the following people:
Sasha Suda, curator of Early Rubens, formerly Curator of European Art, AGO and now Director and CEO, The National Gallery of Canada.
Kirk Nickel, curator of Early Rubens, formerly Assistant Curator of European Painting, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Nico van Hout, Head of Collection Research – Curator of Seventeenth-Century Paintings, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp.
The Early Rubens audio guide was produced by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Legion of Honour and includes interviews with the following people:
Sasha Suda, curator of Early Rubens, formerly Curator of European Art, AGO and now Director and CEO, The National Gallery of Canada.
Kirk Nickel, curator of Early Rubens, formerly Assistant Curator of European Painting, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Nico van Hout, Head of Collection Research – Curator of Seventeenth-Century Paintings, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp.
Vija Celmins: You're looking at a painting called The Heater, a painting I did in 1964. I was in graduate school, UCLA, about 24 years old. I was floundering around in my painting. Doing mostly abstract expressionist painting, and I fell into this period where I was throwing away a lot of ideas. So I started painting these simple paintings of objects in my studio. Like the heater you see here, and my lamps. I painted my refrigerator, all the food. And the idea was that I wanted to kind of quiet down and just look and paint. Like eye to brain.
Tony Berlant: The irony to me always with Vija is the understated small quietness is so dramatic and engulfing. Especially during a period when people were making big, gestural, abstract, muscular paintings. She always felt that the rules did not apply to her.
Nancy Lim: During the mid and late 60s, she was especially interested in what she called ‘impossible images’. So for example: flames, explosions, clouds. Things that are impossible to fix and pin down.
Vija Celmins: I actually had a friend who was doing houses in a very different kind of way.
Tony Berlant: I remember when Vija made these little houses, which was sort of my trademark at the time. But Vija’s had this specific quality. The drama of her very personal intense imagery.
Vija Celmins: They're World War Two images from clippings that I had started collecting. Looking for images that were maybe a little more connected with myself.
Tony Berlant: I very much remember Vija telling me the experience of running through the streets with buildings on fire all around her during a bombing raid.
Vija Celmins: Kind of a going back over my childhood, and I think this, especially the houses, look a little bit like toys, which is kind of nice.
Nancy Lim: One opens up and the other does not. The fur, it's real fox fur. And so you might look at it and immediately think this is so soft. How nice would it feel if I put my arm in there, but who knows what's at the bottom…
Vija Celmins: I used to walk my dog on Venice Beach. And I was hunting for images, you know, like I hunt for the image, and then I put it in another context. That's pretty much what I do.
Tony Berlant: I remember the first time I saw a whole bunch of photographs sitting just inside her front window and saying you know, what, what are these? And she said, oh, those are just some photographs I took from the end of the pier.
Vija Celmins: I wanted to kind of get down to a more specific spatial thing. So I picked up the pencil. I started drawing and I thought of it like a documentation of one surface onto another one.
Gary Garrels: She did not allow herself to erase at any point. This is all just building up the image through a series of different strokes and letting parts of the paper become more apparent. So the lighter sections are where there's more of the paper showing through. And if she made mistakes, then the drawing was destroyed.
In looking at them, they're rather like small miracles that anyone could have this amount of focus and attention and the kind of magic of transforming a very ordinary photograph into this extraordinary object.
Tony Berlant: For decades, I lived with one of these pictures and it feels like the dream not quite remembered. It's almost like these pieces have a scent or a taste to them. Not just what you see visually but a kind of feeling state that's subtle—they're very much outside of category. And what's left is Vija.
Vija Celmins: I always liked planes. And I wanted to be a pilot for a while.
Gary Garrels: Suspended Plane catches one’s eye immediately because of this huge object suspended in the sky. It's floating, and then I think fairly quickly one understands that the propellers aren't moving. So it's, again, a kind of preposterous situation.
Vija Celmins: I consider the painting, one of the great parts of it, that it's still and flat and, and that it has a picture plane that stays where it is all the time, and that I had this moving thing in there, and then I had somehow subdued it.
Gary Garrels: Celmins made a number of very deliberate decisions in making her early paintings. She wanted to get rid of color. She didn't want to invent compositions. So all of the subjects are taken from something observed in life or from clippings.
Vija Celmins: I was looking for images everywhere. Or they were looking for me, I don't know. Anyway, I found these pictures from World War 2, it was like my whole life from when I was five and six opened up and I thought – and then I also like the grayness, I fell for the greyness of the reproductions. I document the image from the photo. I'm not really mimicking it, I'm putting it in a totally different world.
Vija Celmins: I painted everything in my studio and I was starting to look for other images to use. This is a letter from 1968. And it's a letter from my mother. I used to have the letters drop in on the floor of the studio through the mail slot. I was starting to do some drawings. Giving painting a little break, and this is one of the early drawings, getting kind of used to using a pencil.
Gary Garrels: She added what look like stamps, but are very tiny drawings of war scenes, and disasters, and bombings, which recall her memories of having grown up in Europe. Her family fled her native country, Latvia, in 1944, just as the Soviet troops were invading. They spent the next four years moving between refugee camps in Germany until they were resettled to Indianapolis, where Vija then grew up. She moved there at the age of 10, not speaking any English, and drawing was something that was incredibly important for her. So this drawing of the letter, I think is a reference back to the idea of being displaced. In moving to Los Angeles, she really didn't know anybody. She was alone. And I think, obviously, this letter from her mother had some special place in her life at the time.
Nancy Lim: Celmins began making permutations of the Night Sky in 2000, reversing the color schema of her Night Skies. So instead of white stars on a black background, she did the opposite: black stars painted onto a white field.
Vija Celmins: So it has such a different, different space. I don't think it's a very object-like painting anymore. The space is much more ambiguous. You can maybe go into it a little bit. It's a little dreamier.
Gary Garrels: The Reverse Night Skies also allow a wonderful little bit of color to come into the work. And they have a kind of sense of hovering presence, of something that is more ethereal, more indeterminate, more open.
Vija Celmins: It's like a new set of things for me to try to solve. So I emphasized the edges to emphasize a little bit that I know about the restrictions of this space. That it's not quite an object, but sort of made into –like let's not go and dream out to the walls. Let's stop here.
My whole career, I have gone between object, image of object, and work as object, and work now moving away with larger paintings as not object. I don’t know how to describe it. Those things come from inside.
You can leave that in. That might be nice.
So … can I go now?
Nancy Lim: In 1973, Celmins rented a house in a small New Mexico town and was looking every night at the night sky. So it was a combination of that experience with finding satellite pictures of the Coma Berenices and Cassiopeia constellations that resulted in this series.
Vija Celmins: These are kind of places that really don't exist except in your mind because we have only seen them in photographs. You can see that there is a central event that I sometimes veer toward, but most of them are fields. For a while I thought I would try to put an event in like a little comet, but I was not so satisfied with that.
I was building up a lot of graphite on the paper and moving into loving the graphite more than the image. I think you see, looking at the graphite that I get denser and denser and denser with it.
What I did here is, these drawings are all additions, and the white is all the paper. I don't really think of them as stars. I mean, they’re stars, but not stars. I think of them like undetonated kind of little bombs in this area that I have to go around and articulate so that they sit correctly on the page. This is too much talking isn’t it?
Nancy Lim: What you're looking at here is To Fix the Image in Memory. You can see that there are 22 stones. 11 of them are found, and 11 of them are bronze casts that she painted.
Vija Celmins: Usually, when people look at this piece, they have no idea what they're looking at. Some people thought that I had found two stones that look exactly the same. And they ask me where I found those. So there's an element, I think, of inviting you to look. And a sort of an element of surprise and maybe a chuckle.
Tony Berlant: Well, I think that the rocks she makes feel more inhabited than the rocks that are a natural object. And even if I couldn't quickly tell you which one is which, it calls to mind that this is a creation.
Vija Celmins: For me, as the artist, the making is the meaning. It was a meditation on really how much I could see. And sort of a meditation of looking at nature. This piece took about four to five years. Of course, I didn't work on it all the time. I never work all the time. I work, I stop, I work, I stop. But this was the focus for me for a long time. And I painted it chip by chip myself, having the experience of looking very intensely. And I mean it was like trying to fix it in my memory, so that it really stayed.
Introduction
Vija Celmins: Maybe what I would like is the viewer to have an experience that is a sort of a waking up experience like drawing in a breath and saying, “Oh!”
Nancy Lim: Welcome to the audio guide for Vija Celmins: To Fix the Image in Memory. I'm Nancy Lim, assistant curator of painting and sculpture here at SFMOMA.
Gary Garrels: I'm Gary Garrels, the Elise S. Haas Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture at SFMOMA. This is an exhibition I've been thinking about and planning and working on for almost 10 years and I hope you will find it as engaging as I have.
Nancy Lim: We'll also be hearing from Celmins' longtime friend and fellow artist Tony Berlant.
Tony Berlant: I think I first met Vija around 1962. She was just so technically accomplished.
Vija Celmins: Most of my work and the images I work with come from my own ordinary life activities. I’m not a symbolic painter or political painter, I don’t have any real big message in that way. It’s a looking experience.
Vija Celmins: Hubble is a little drawing I did for NASA. They wanted to think that artists were interested in space, which I think a lot of artists are. But I'm not interested in illustrating space or anything. I'm interested in just an image that I, myself, can very subtly manipulate and fit in this new reality, which is right in front of me.
I got to go see NASA in Florida and where they send off the rockets, which was a really fine thing to see. I made it, I gave it to Hubble, then I made it again, which I often like to do.
What was interesting was trying to make a work that was black. Very interesting, very hard. Paintings tend to be very closed off, they're all on the surface. The drawings let you in a little bit more, and I have put the charcoal on with my hands. Normal—I like very thin charcoal, real pieces of charcoal. And then, the the image has been made by erasure. Because the charcoal is just dust, you know. So it's very easy to erase.
Gary Garrels: I have to say, I became obsessed by this painting and continue to think about it over and over again. For me, it's one of her most beautiful paintings. One begins to understand the sense of time that's embedded in it.
Vija Celmins: It's a painting and it's also like an object, like the book itself is sort of pushing on the edges of the painting. And it's about the same size and it gave me a chance to indulge in using blues. I found these Japanese books when I had a show in Tokyo, and I found them in a used kind of pile on the floor in a flea market.
Nancy Lim: Every crack and fold and worn away edge is re-described. So you see a sliver of shadow along the right hand side of the book, a little bit along the bottom, as well as the left edge. And so you recognize that's a very thin book sitting on top of the canvas.
Gary Garrels: There's a sense that it's been in someone's possession where the surface has been rubbed and stressed and deteriorated. So it becomes a record of a lived life. And a book itself is a record of memory, of imagination. And so, the work of art itself becomes, I think, a kind of metaphor for what a book is.
Gary Garrels: In some cases, Celmins spends years working on a single work. It goes through a long process of looking, changing, looking again. Thinking about it, remembering. A relationship develops, I think, between Celmins and the work so that it becomes a very living experience.
Vija Celmins: I had done this little tiny painting in 1986. The woman who owned the painting died and I got the painting back, which hardly ever happens, which is so great.
Nancy Lim: She hadn't made paintings of the ocean in a really long time.
Vija Celmins: So sometimes you see a work you've done a long time ago and you forgot that maybe it was, kind of had some terrific qualities to it. Uh, but I had it in my studio and I thought, “Oh my gosh! What a great image, a complicated image.” I was like almost 30 years older. And I wanted to see if I could do it again. So I did it again.
So this work is the same image done with a totally different kind of beginning every time. Different colors, different time, different age. It took me another four and a half, almost five years to do the other five paintings. But it's an homage to the first painting that I can still manage this very knotted surface that I found about 50 years ago in a National Geographic Magazine.
Nancy Lim: In the 2000s, Celmins returned to making objects, including this set of blackboards. There are three found tablets, and seven made tablets.
Gary Garrels: I find them entrancing because you really slow down and try to determine which one is the original, the found object, and which one is the one that's been created. And I must say, I still find it extremely difficult to figure out which one is which.
Vija Celmins: I had moved my studio out in the country and I was beginning to see some old stuff in used junk stores, and kind of waking up to it. Many of the blackboards seemed to be about a hundred years old. And they had all these scratches and all this kind of, what I would say romantic atmosphere to it, which I would not allow myself to do in my own work, but which I could mimic now in doing the blackboards. So I went on a little blackboard craze. I must have done about twenty.
Gary Garrels: Blackboards are a way that we bring something into our memory—that, you know, by writing something on a blackboard it embeds it in our brain in a way that doesn't happen until we write it down. And then it's erased. And it only remains then as a memory. So I think these works are very resonant because of that, the relationship between image, mark-making, and memory.
Vija Celmins: This piece is very much like the stone piece. Like a very careful looking. And a chance to paint. A chance for me to paint.
Vija Celmins: I think I just came upon this photograph of a web and I was thinking, “My God, this guy, the spider, was, you know, doing my drawings, reflecting a beautiful two-dimensional plane.”
Nancy Lim: She found this image in the early 1990s. One of the things that she liked about it was that it felt a little bit lonely and she's always liked that quality in her source images.
Tony Berlant: They're very seductive in making you want to look at them. It's understated, but it is that Vija thing of drawing you in.
Vija Celmins: I found myself sort of remembering about lines. I'm not a line person. You know, I'm a mass person. I kind of organize masses.
Nancy Lim: She realized there was something too exciting about the spider web. You know, its connotations of despair and of breaking down and of age. There was something that seemed so sensational, she wanted to leave all of that behind.
Vija Celmins: I wanted the images to stay more bland so you would focus more on really how they were made or how were they were not made. So I stopped. Because I'm always stopping and starting and thinking about what painting might be.
Gary Garrels: In the 1990s, the night sky was the primary subject in Celmins work and she made several paintings over several years of different variants of the night sky. Some are incredibly deep, dense, dark, and others become very luminous.
Vija Celmins: I like that I was making this thing that wanted to be a deep space and that you desire to go into this painting. You have a desire for the depth because you know in your head that this outer space and I have put a stop to the space by making something kind of flat, you know? They've been painted over and over and over. I was trying to get a feeling of some kind of mass in the work and some kind of a feeling of weight, and they are kind of heavy feeling paintings. They're also paintings that change as you go up to them. Because from far away, they're only proportion, you know, you see black proportion. And when you get close to them, you begin to see the image, and hopefully you have a kind of a surprise.
So I like the idea that actually the space in front of you is impenetrable, but it refers to a space that…that is endless.
Vija Celmins: I found this little piece of wood out on the dunes in the middle of Death Valley in California, which had little cracks on it and it was so dry. And I put it in my pocket. Later, when I came back to New York, I took it out and it had this very wonderful quality of fineness—the cracks were so tiny. And I thought that I might try to make a painting that had that surface on it. You know, sometimes you have like moments when everything comes together. This is one of those moments. It's like a little inspirational moment. And then, what you have to do is you have to prolong that moment all of that time that it takes to make the painting.
It’s a painting you really have to relate to walking toward it. Getting very, very close, you see how very handmade it is. Then stepping back a little bit it, it just crystallizes together. And then, the part that's the desert is just like a ghost that hovers behind it. But the real experience is right there in the gallery between the viewer and the painting.
Harley Rustad in conversation with Sarain Fox to launch his new book, Big Lonely Doug: the story of one of Canada's last great trees. Big Lonely Doug, is the nickname given to a 226 foot tall Douglas Fir tree located in a clearcut in B.C.'s Gordon River Valley. Around 39 feet in circumference, Big Lonely Doug is estimated to be about 1,000 years old.
World-renowned photographer Edward Burtynsky and filmmakers Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier converse with AGO Director of Public Programs Devyani Saltzman about Anthropocene, their powerful series of new photographs, large-scale murals augmented by film extensions, film installations and augmented reality (AR) installations, that take us to places we are deeply connected to – but normally never see. Informed by scientific research, powered by aesthetic vision, inspired by a desire to bear witness, they reveal the scale and gravity of our impact on the planet.
Join scholar Meseret Oldjira for a talk exploring the artistic achievements that characterize the ancient and medieval heritage of Ethiopian art while highlighting the Ethiopian artworks on view at the AGO.
In 2015 Dr. Brian McCrindle donated 170 prints, drawings and sculptures by German artist, Käthe Kollwitz to the Art Gallery of Ontario. What motivated Dr. McCrindle to build and now gift this extraordinary collection? He is joined by Brenda Rix, curator of the exhibition, Käthe Kollwitz: Art and Life, for a discussion of the importance of Kollwitz’s art and the relevance of her compelling images in today’s world.
To wrap up our series, we ask our guests from throughout the series: If we’re living in the Anthropocene, is there anything we can do about it? Sarain and Ashley Wallis from Environmental Defence explore our options. What does working towards a sustainable future look like? Living on Mars isn’t exactly an option.
For more information: Environmental Defence: www.environmentaldefence.ca
Learn more about your carbon footprint: Visit http://www.footprintcalculator.org/ to calculate your carbon load and learn about other ways to reduce your impact. Thanks so much for listening to our series!
This episode was produced by Nadia Abraham, Shiralee Hudson Hill and Matthew Scott at the Art Gallery of Ontario. For more information on the podcast and the Anthropocene exhibition, visit our website: www.ago.ca
When humans cut down forests, what disappears along with them?
The ancient rainforests of Canada’s Pacific coast feature incredible biodiversity and some of the tallest and oldest trees in Canada, perhaps the world. In this episode author Harley Rustad tells the story of a tree that’s probably over 1000 years old (and miraculously still standing). We speak with Ken Wu of the Ancient Forest Alliance, a BC organization working to protect these forests. And we’re also joined by Tla-o-qui-at carver and activist Joe Martin who shares what these trees mean to him and his peoples. Together, these guests transport us into these majestic woodlands—hiking boots optional.
For more information: Ancient Forest Alliance: www.ancientforestalliance.org Harley Rustad and his new book Big Lonely Doug : www.harleyrustad.com Joe Martin: http://www.tofinotime.com/artists/R-JMfrm.htm
This episode was produced by Nadia Abraham, Shiralee Hudson Hill and Matthew Scott at the Art Gallery of Ontario. For more information on the podcast and the Anthropocene exhibition, visit our website: www.ago.ca
Human beings have altered life on this planet in ways no single species has before.
In today’s episode, we talk to Dr. Winnie Kiiru, elephant researcher and wildlife biologist, about the endangered African elephant and Kenya’s symbolic 2016 ivory tusk burn. Thousands of species are currently endangered and on the brink of extinction—what will we lose when they are gone? Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker staff writer and author of the Pulitzer prize–winning book The Sixth Extinction, reveals how species loss impacts the planet. Finally, we talk to poet Adam Dickinson, who embarked on a very personal journey into his own body for his latest book, Anatomic, about the unimaginable ways we’ve changed our own biological chemistry.
For more information: The Elephant Protection Initiative: https://www.elephantprotectioninitiative.org/ Stop Ivory: http://stopivory.org/ Elizabeth Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250062185 Adam Dickinson, Anatomic: https://chbooks.com/Books/A/Anatomic3
This episode was produced by Nadia Abraham, Shiralee Hudson Hill and Matthew Scott at the Art Gallery of Ontario. For more information on the podcast and the Anthropocene exhibition, visit our website: www.ago.ca
Over half of the world’s population lives in a city. How do these environments we’ve created for ourselves contribute to the rapidly changing climate? In this episode, we tackle the urban Anthropocene. Sarain speaks with Julia Langer, CEO of the Atmospheric Fund in Toronto, about the role of cities in the fight against climate change, and what “cityzens” can do to help. We also meet Susan Blight, a Toronto-based Anishinaabe artist and activist, who discusses urban indigeneity and reclaiming space in cities through art and language.
For more information: The Atmospheric Fund, Transform T.O. Project: http://taf.ca/projects/transformto/ Ogimaa Mikana Project: http://ogimaamikana.tumblr.com/
This episode was produced by Nadia Abraham, Shiralee Hudson Hill and Matthew Scott at the Art Gallery of Ontario. For more information on the podcast and the Anthropocene exhibition, visit our website: www.ago.ca
Humans now change the Earth’s systems more than all other natural forces combined…but are we all equally responsible?
In this episode, Sarain talks to scholars Zoe Todd and Heather Davis about decolonizing the Anthropocene. Then we break down the term “environmental racism” with Dr. Ingrid Waldron, sociologist and author of There’s Something in the Water, and discuss the effects of climate change in the Arctic with Sheila Watt-Cloutier, an Inuit rights advocate and the author of The Right to be Cold.
For more information: Heather Davis and Zoe Todd, On the Importance of a Date, or, Decolonizing the Anthropocene: https://www.acme-journal.org/index.php/acme/article/view/1539
Sheila Watt-Cloutier, The Right to Be Cold-One Woman’s Story of Protecting her Culture, the Arctic, and the Whole Planet: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/417373/the-right-to-be-cold-by-sheila-watt-cloutier/9780143187646
Ingrid R.G. Waldron, There’s Something in the Water-Environmental Racism in Indigenous and Black Communities: https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/there8217s-something-in-the-water
The ENRICH Project: https://www.enrichproject.org/
This episode was produced by Nadia Abraham, Shiralee Hudson Hill and Matthew Scott at the Art Gallery of Ontario. For more information on the podcast and the Anthropocene exhibition, visit our website: www.ago.ca
Dig deeper into the science of the Anthropocene. No PhD required, we promise.
What are the top ten things you need to know now about the science of our changing planet? We talk to Jan Zalasiewicz and Colin Waters, geologists from the Anthropocene Working Group, and Gaia Vince, author of the award-winning book Adventures in the Anthropocene. Warning: You may never look at your pen the same way again.
For more information: Anthropocene Working Group: http://quaternary.stratigraphy.org/working-groups/anthropocene/ Gaia Vince’s book, Adventures in the Anthropocene and her other projects: https://wanderinggaia.com/
This episode was produced by Nadia Abraham, Shiralee Hudson Hill and Matthew Scott at the Art Gallery of Ontario. For more information on the podcast and the Anthropocene exhibition, visit our website: www.ago.ca.
What inspired photographer Edward Burtynsky and filmmakers Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier to create an expansive art project exploring the Anthropocene?
What does “Anthropocene” even mean? Why should we care? Hear these three world-renowned artists as you’ve never heard them before in this special in-depth interview with host Sarain Fox.
For more information:
The Anthropocene exhibition www.ago.ca www.gallery.ca The Anthropocene Project: www.theanthropocene.org
This episode was produced by Nadia Abraham, Shiralee Hudson Hill and Matthew Scott at the Art Gallery of Ontario. For more information on the podcast and the Anthropocene exhibition, visit our website: www.ago.ca.
Introducing Sarain Fox: Anishinaabe dancer, activist, storyteller. In this conversation with producer Shiralee Hudson Hill, Sarain talks about growing up in Barrie, Ontario, taking PM Justin Trudeau on a tour through Shoal Lake 40, drawing inspiration from the events at Oka, and leaving New York City to join Idle No More protests. (Psst…she also hosts a fantastic documentary series—but you’ll have to tune in to hear more.)
For more information:
Twitter & Instagram: @sarainfox
http://sarainfox.com/
https://www.viceland.com/en_us/host/sarain-carson-fox
Don’t miss Sarain’s new series Future History on APTN: https://futurehistorytv.ca/
This episode was produced by Nadia Abraham, Shiralee Hudson Hill and Matthew Scott at the Art Gallery of Ontario. For more information on the podcast and the Anthropocene exhibition, visit our website: https://www.ago.ca.
Rebecca Belmore’s Wave Sound sculptures encouraged people to pause and listen to the wind and waterways. Listen to soundscapes recorded at the three locations: Lake Minnewanka’s shoreline in Banff National Park (Alberta); Lake Superior’s ridge at Pukaskwa National Park (Ontario, near Ojibways of the Pic River First Nation); and Green Point’s seaside cliffs in Gros Morne National Park (Newfoundland).
Rebecca Belmore’s Wave Sound sculptures encouraged people to pause and listen to the wind and waterways. Listen to soundscapes recorded at the three locations: Lake Minnewanka’s shoreline in Banff National Park (Alberta); Lake Superior’s ridge at Pukaskwa National Park (Ontario, near Ojibways of the Pic River First Nation); and Green Point’s seaside cliffs in Gros Morne National Park (Newfoundland).
Rebecca Belmore’s Wave Sound sculptures encouraged people to pause and listen to the wind and waterways. Listen to soundscapes recorded at the three locations: Lake Minnewanka’s shoreline in Banff National Park (Alberta); Lake Superior’s ridge at Pukaskwa National Park (Ontario, near Ojibways of the Pic River First Nation); and Green Point’s seaside cliffs in Gros Morne National Park (Newfoundland).
A conversation with renowned photographer Edward Burtynsky and acclaimed filmmakers Jennifer Baichwal and Nick de Pencier as they discuss their latest collaborative project — Anthropocene — with AGO curator of photography, Sophie Hackett.
The AGO and the Toronto Biennial of Art are pleased to present Sally Tallant in conversation with Kitty Scott on exhibition making, biennials in general and the 2018 Liverpool Biennial, Beautiful world, where are you? in particular.
Dr. Heather Igloliorte, an Inuk curator and art historian from Nunatsiavut, the Inuit self-governing region of Labrador, discusses the integration of Inuit Quajimajatuqagit (Inuit values and knowledge) into contemporary exhibition practice through the development of her collaborative, community-led work in Nunatsiavut.
R.L. Stine has been scaring people all around the world for years. Highly prolific, Stine has written hundreds of books and his Goosebumps and Fear Street series have sold more than 400 million copies worldwide.
Diamanda Galás creates haunting gospels of despair and redemption, and is one of the most startling artists of our time. Join her in a conversation with Owen Pallet about her life and work.
Join the AGO’s Georgiana Uhlyarik, the co-curator of Florine Stettheimer: Painting Poetry and Fredrik S. Eaton Curator of Canadian Art, for a discussion about Florine Stettheimer’s life and work.
Sandra Meigs provides an overview of her work and speaks about her new installation, Room for Mystics (with Christopher Butterfield).
An evening of conversation with Maggie Nelson and Sheila Heti presented by Canadian Art, in partnership with the Art Gallery of Ontario.
A talk by scholar Janis Tomlinson exploring the life and work of Francisco Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828).
A recording of the outré electropop artist in a conversation with Sook-Yin Lee about the abject and transgressive in her work.
Recording of the public opening of the tenth annual AIMIA | AGO Photography Prize exhibition. Come celebrate with nominated artists Liz Johnson Artur, Raymond Boisjoly, Taisuke Koyama, and Hank Willis Thomas.
A talk with AGO Assistant Curator of Modern Art, Kenneth Brummel, about his recent reinstallation of the AGO’s Modern Collection galleries.
The AGO’s Georgiana Uhlyarik, Associate Curator, Canadian Art and the coordinating curator of Georgia O’Keeffe at the AGO, discusses O’Keeffe’s life, work and legacy.
Exploring ten of today’s most exciting contemporary artworks created by ten artists over a span of fifteen years, Israel reveals the fascinating stories behind each artwork and connects them to larger social and artistic contexts.
Sarah Greenough, Senior Curator of Photographs, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC explores Georgia O’Keeffe’s legendary personal and aesthetic partnership with Alfred Stieglitz.
Renowned philosopher and political theorist, Charles Taylor, considers how attitudes toward religion influence what we understand about modernity and culture.
Theaster Gates speaks on his exhibition, How to Build a House Museum, which uses music, dance, signage, video, artworks and archival documents – many related to the Black and queer experience – to explore how and what museums communicate.
King presents the dramatic history behind the creation of Claude Monet's legendary water lily paintings, and, in the process, presents a compelling and original portrait of one of our most beloved artists.
Jacob and Nanibush discuss Toronto art and artists through the lens of each of their own exhibitions.
Explore the power of landscape! Each speaker offers a unique perspective on the nature of landscapes, both on earth and in space.
Dallas collectors and philanthropists Howard and Cindy Rachofsky join AGO director Matthew Teitelbaum in conversation about the connections between collecting, philanthropy and civic change.
Amin Jaffer speaks about western luxury goods made for Indian princes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
Camille Paglia takes a chronological look at the paintings, sculptures, architectural styles, performance pieces, and digital art that have defined and transformed our visual world.
Renowned ceramic artist, Betty Woodman speaks about her life and art on the eve of the opening of an exhibition of her work at the Gardiner Museum.
Yale University Professor and preeminent Jewish culture critic, Benjamin Harshav discusses the life and times of Marc Chagall.
The AGO hosts Nuit Talk #4, an in-depth look at curating the past curators of Nuit Blanche.
inDANCE artistic director Hari Krishnan, presents South Indian courtly dance traditions based on decades of research in remote villages in South India.
Writer, activist and curator, Lucy Lippard discusses the monograph she wrote in 1976 about her good friend and artist, Eva Hesse.
Art Historian, Deepali Dewan examines the work of one remarkable photographer, Deen Dayal, who worked for many of the most powerful rulers at the end of the 19th century--including the Maharajas of Dhar and Gwalior and the Nizam of Hyderabad.
Shaw shares how ancient Egyptians produced their clothing, cosmetics and jewelry as they strived to establish their idea of “perfect personal beauty”.
Was Tutankhamun murdered? Was his tomb cursed? Gayle Gibson reviews the physical evidence revealed by medical science and recent scholarship to determine what did happen to the young man and what his bones reveal about his life.
Allan Peterkin explores the topic of contemporary plagues, arts and medicine in conversation with Kate Rossiter and Robert Houle.
The panelists discuss the creation of the exhibition, the work of Moore and Bacon and the distinctive visual language that each artist developed.
Professor and author Fred Ritchin discusses the digital revolution and how media influences the world and ourselves.
Artist Luis Jacob, writer Sholem Krishtalka and art historian Virginia Solomon gather to discuss diversity and increasing production through the lens of the Haute Culture: General Idea exhibition.
Author Annie Cohen-Solal speaks about her biography of renowned gallery owner Leo Castelli.
Director, curator and author, Philip Monk shares the connection between Marshall McLuhan and the General Idea exhibition.
Curator David Jaffé talks about the work of 17th Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens including the Massacre of the Innocents in the Thompson Collection.
Author, activist, journalist and blogger Cory Doctorow explores the level of creativity and freedom in the age of the Internet.
Dr. Douglas Peers discusses the Durbar of 1877 which was held to commemorate the coronation of Queen Victoria and to proclaim her as Empress of India.
Curator Norman Kleeblatt, reflects on Abstract Expressionism’s evolution through the opposing views of two major critics and tastemakers, Greenberg and Rosenberg.
Curator and Historian Dr. Gus Casely-Hayford discusses the shift in the art world led by Pablo Picasso and his work inspired by the art of Africa.
Artist Francoise Sullivan and writer/art critic Robert Enright explore the idea of inspiration.
Dr Stephen Inglis touches on the ways which Indian popular culture and tourism have drawn on the culture of the kingdoms.
Julian Schnabel in conversation with AGO Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art David Moos.
David Silverman, national curator and academic content creator for Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs, explores the connection between art and writing in ancient Egypt.
Curator Dietmar Elger shares his insight into the life and times of artist Gerhard Richter.
The creators of the film Modest Livelihood, Duane Linklater and Brian Jungen, discuss the film and its concerns with the use of self-determination of native land.
Join AGO artist-in-residence, Jim Munroe in conversation with artists Mark Connery, a Toronto-based comic and zine artist, and Jonathan Mak, a Toronto-based game developer, about their work, indie culture and how playfulness factors into their practice.
The panelists gather to discuss the extinction and endangerment of North American birds as well as art and society’s relationship with the natural environment.
This talk features former AGO artist-in-residence Sara Angelucci in conversation with artists Spring Hurlbut and Marla Hlady about their work.
Suzy Lake discusses her work and exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario, in conversation with exhibition curators Sophie Hackett and Georgiana Uhlyarik.
Francis Warner and Mary Moore discuss the creation of the exhibition, Francis Bacon and Henry Moore: Terror and Beauty, including the work and distinctive visual language from each artist.
A leading authority on modern art, John Elderfield offers us an in-depth and insightful look at Henri Matisse, and his ongoing relevance in contemporary art and culture.
AGO Interpretive Planner, David Wistow takes a personal look at the life of Marc Chagall and his art during a time of enormous social and political upheaval - World War 1 and the Russian Revolution of 1917.
Remix artists Franco Mondini Ruiz and Kent Monkman discuss their work with Remix: New Modernities in a Post-Indian World exhibition along with co-curator Gerald McMaster.
Exhibition curators Gerald McMaster and Joe Baker, Globe and Mail art critic Sarah Milroy, and professor of African Diaspora art history and visual culture Salah Hassan, discuss the exhibition Remix: New Modernities in a Post-Indian World and ask the question - "Are we past the age of an aboriginal art show?"
As curator of Surreal Things: Surrealism and Design, Ghislane Wood shares how Surrealism evolved from an art movement to commercial phenomenon.
Curator of Edward Steichen: In High Fashion, William A. Ewing, reveals how Steichen an American photographer of humble origins, created a vision of elegance and sophistication in Vogue and Vanity Fair magazines.
Known for her complex and delicate paintings, Silk Otto-Knapp speaks about her current work in the Thomson Collection of Ship Models.
Gerardo Mosquera reflects on his experience as a co-founder of the Havana Biennial and examines the art in the framework and contradictions of Cold War's Cuba and its Third World politics.
Curator Sarah Milroy lets you into her mind and thoughts around Emily Carr’s artwork of landscapes across Canada including her encounters with indigenous cultures.
Artists Dave Jordano, Owen Kydd, Annete Kelm, Hito Steyerl discuss their work as the AIMIA photography prize finalists.
The AGO brings together three extraordinary thinkers to discuss the history and legacy of the images from Casa Susanna: On Photography and the Play of Gender.
British artist Hurvin Anderson in conversation with Contemporary Art Museum St.Louis Deputy Director for Exhibitions and Programs Jeffrey Uslip.
Frazier considers the work, legacy and influence of artist and photojournalist Gordon Parks and his contemporaries.
Co-curator Valéria Piccoli shares her thoughts on Alexander von Humboldt's theories in the visual arts in the Picturing the Americas: Landscape Painting from Tierra Del Fuego to the Arctic exhibition.
Panelists Karen Miranda Augustine, Fab 5 Freddy, Dana Michel, and Christian Campbell explore the legacy of Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Thelma Golden discusses the art and social changes from the work of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Suzy Lake discusses her work and exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario, in conversation with exhibition curators Sophie Hackett and Georgiana Uhlyarik.
Inspired by the exhibition Michelangelo: Quest for Genius, artists, architects, writers and other creative thinkers consider the value of failure to the creative process.
This lecture explores the private and the public sphere of Michelangelo’s activities and how we can gain an understanding of his working methods and development through drawings from the Casa Buonarroti.
A reflection of Haudenosaunee worldview, mnemonic continuum, and the retention of knowledge. Following an introduction by Fredrik S. Eaton, speakers Andrew Hunter, Jolene Rickard, Rick W. Hill Sr. and Greg Staats discuss the power of reflection, Staats’ recent visual language, the multiplicity of relationships to trauma and renewal and life experiences.
Join artist, activist, writer, facilitator and educator Kim Crosby Milan for an in-gallery tour of Fan the Flames: Queer Positions in Photography.
Linda Milrod, Transformation AGO senior project manager and program & installation director, will talk about the extraordinary process of working with Gehry International to transform the AGO.
Join Gilles Mongeau and Sasha Suda as they bring to light the challenges faced by the artists that tried to capture a radical new vision of religious faith started by Dante's Divine Comedy.
Richard Meyer reclaims the contemporary from historical amnesia, exploring episodes in the study, exhibition, and reception of early twentieth-century art and visual culture.
This was a free screening of the 1983 Mexican film Frida, naturaleza viva (1983), directed by Paul Leduc with Ofelia Medina as Frida and painter Juan José Gurrola as Diego.
Vishakha Desai discusses the rise of contemporary art in Asia and its connection to global movements of economic and political power.
The artist spoke about creating the "Memory Loops" virtual monument, an audio artwork based on material from victims of National Socialism, and addressed important questions about her own work, including content, format and medium.
The photographic images we encounter on a daily basis circulate in the press, on billboards, posters, postcards and online. They teach us, for instance, about fashion, crime, what's beautiful and what isn't. How do contemporary photographers today make use of different contexts and modes of circulation to reinvent how we understand photographs?
Since the 1970s, many contemporary photography artists have worked with spaces of display – studio, gallery, cinema – and their conventions – both past and present – as they push two-dimensional images into the three-dimensional realm.
Robert Wilson and Philip Glass, creators of the 1976 influential opera "Einstein on the Beach, and Lucinda Childs, who has contributed to the choreography of every subsequent iteration of the opera, discuss the creation and evolution of the opera.
Molly Ott Ambler and Elizabeth Gorayeb, discuss the world of the art market for Pablo Picasso while he was alive, as well as his relationship with his dealers.
Follow Iain Baxter& on his journey from zoologist to conceptual artist to Br&. The &man will share his insights on the ecology of life and art &…...
Through examining the trajectory of the development of his work, Stephen Shore will explore a number of essential factors of the medium of photography.
Alain de Botton will bring to this talk his extensive knowledge of art history, aesthetics and the art world.
Join Christopher Dewdney for an evening of insights into the work of Jack Chambers along with personal, often humerous, anecdotes from Dewdney’s long familial acquaintance with the artist.
David Ciavatta draws from the philosophical insights of existentialist phenomenologists Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, to suggest that what Paul-Émile Borduas' abstract paintings show the expressive movement of existence itself
Lloyd DeWitt will discuss how Rembrandt based Jesus on a living, accurate-looking model, possibly for the first time in the history of Christian Art.
Dennis Reid, curator of Jack Chambers: Light, Spirit, Time, Place and Life, will tour the exhibition.
Join Yael Bartana and Sławomir Sierakowski, the protagonist of "And Europe will be Stunned" for a conversation about Bartana's work.
Todd Eberle presents the disparate images that make up international architecture, landscapes, and society.
9 to 5 was an exhibition that let visitors experience art in an unexpected way: by interacting with the artists while they make it! This talk features 9 to 5 artists Anitra Hamilton, Graeme Patterson, and Ed Pien and curators Katherine Dennis, Mary MacDonald and Zach Pearl reflecting on the project. Following this discussion, curator, artist and educator Rebecca Duclos expanded on the burgeoning topic of artists' research.
9 to 5 was an exhibition that let visitors experience art in an unexpected way: by interacting with the artists while they make it! This talk features 9 to 5 artists Anitra Hamilton, Graeme Patterson, and Ed Pien and curators Katherine Dennis, Mary MacDonald and Zach Pearl reflecting on the project. Following this discussion, curator, artist and educator Rebecca Duclos expanded on the burgeoning topic of artists' research.
The first half of the symposium featured 9-5 artists and curators reflecting on the project.
David Blackwood and Rex Murphy discuss Blackwood's art as visual narratives of the stories of Newfoundland.
David Morris will introduce phenomenology and its relationship with painting. No philosophy background needed, just wonder.
In conjunction with Merge, an annual exhibition showcasing emerging artists, Pamela Chang spoke with three Toronto-based arts professionals about what you need to know to stay on top of the rising stars in the art market.
Matthew Teitelbaum, curator of the exhibition "Paterson Ewen: Inspiration and Influence" will place Ewen in the context of his times and highlight his influences and enthusiasms.
Blackwood talks about key aspects of his prints – Newfoundland’s long tradition of ritual visiting, known as mummering
Blackwood talks about key aspects of his prints – his ancestors who were sea captains. The SS Imogene has close personal associations for Blackwood – it was captained by his grandfather.
Richard Tuttle in conversation with Michelle Jacques, Associate Curator, Contemporary Art, and Georgiana Uhlyarik, Assistant Curator, Canadian Art.
Sue MacLeod on two paintings by Alex Coleville: "Woman in Bathtub" and "Woman Climbing a Ramp".
Sue Chenette on No. 12, Diptych: The Three Marys at the Sepulchre, The last Judgement, The Nativity and The Crucifixion, mid 14th century France. Ivory
Join Liz Siegel for an exploration of the whimsical and sometimes surreal world of Victorian photocollage.
Jennifer Bhogal, AGO Art Rental and Sales Coordinator, speaks with the DK Photo Group about their adventures jumping fences across Europe and North America, photographing abandoned, decaying buildings, including old coal mines, once extravagant mansions, and abandoned factories.
Internationally renowned Canadian artist Brian Jungen is the recipient of the 2010 Gershon Iskowitz Prize at the AGO for his outstanding contribution to visual arts in Canada. The Gershon Iskowitz Foundation and the AGO celebrated the $25,000 prize at a public reception on May 6, and Jungen delivered a talk about his work.
Robert Enright and panelists Allyson Mitchell and Dionne Brand in a lively discussion about the art of Wangechi Mutu. Focused upon imagery of the human body, Mutu’s work offers a radical deconstruction of traditional figuration that bridges her Kenyan upbringing with contemporary American reality.
Stephanie Dickey explores the significance of the printed portrait for the art of Rembrandt and his time and the contribution of this expressive art form to our enduring fascination with the human face.
Roberta Shaw will discuss all the accoutrements that went into producing the idea of perfect personal beauty for the people who lived in ancient Egypt.
Meet artist Giuseppe Penone and enjoy a captivating talk on how his artwork unsettles the boundaries between art and nature, and signals the interdependence of all organic life forms.
The secrets and symbolism of Canada’s most famous art group come to light in a lecture by bestselling author Ross King.
John Ralston Saul argues that it is critical that we recognize the influence aboriginal ideas have had on Canada in order to rethink its future. His talk explores these ideas and develops them in the context of the Art Gallery of Ontario’s 2009 reinstallation of the Canadian Art collection.
El Anatsui has gained widespread international acclaim in recent years for his dazzling metallic tapestries made from liquor bottle tops. Listen to El Anatsui talk about his work.
Working from the concept of ekphrasis, one art form paying homage to another, Ontario poet Barry Dempster created and presents a new poem in response to a painting by Paterson Ewen from the AGO’s collection.
Mark Haworth-Booth discusses the issue of photography and truth, ranging from the mid nineteenth century era of Roger Fenton and Camille Silvy to 9/11 and the G20 demonstrations in London, in 2009.
Guest curator Angie Littlefield, Angelika Hoerle’s grand-niece, explores the tumultuous relationship between Angelika and her husband Heinrich Hoerle, who would become one of the Cologne Progressives.
Toronto musician and composer Ennio Paola takes us into the Dada arts scene of post World War I Germany, relating the musical compositions of Erwin Schulhoff to visual artist Angelika Hoerle.
Angie Littlefield talks about Angelika’s connections to the feminist issues of her time. Hear more about how the “New Woman,” as she was then called, was politically and intellectually engaged, sported a bold short haircut called the bob and was increasingly self-sufficient.
Dennis Reid presents new research that suggests that one of Canada’s most popular nineteenth century painters was, actually, gay.
Curator Angelika Litlefield talks about the works of her great aunt Angelika Hoerle whose short life blazed across the Cologne arts scene.
In his new book, "Opening Gambits", cultural critic and philosopher Mark Kingwell puts forth an argument for the similarity between art and philosophy as forms of play, working at the margins of meaning and sense.
MoMA curator Starr Figura will talk about Freud’s etching practice, emphasizing the cross-pollinating relationship between his work in etching and in painting.
Kara Walker talks about her work which challenges traditional concepts of race and narratives of enslavement and oppression.
Join Brenda Rix, assistant curator of Prints and Drawings at the AGO, for a talk highlighting some of Hunt’s marketing strategies to make his images and message accessible to the widest possible audience.
Gerald McMaster, AGO curator of Canadian Art, will discuss the new approach to the Canadian galleries in the transformed AGO.
This talk by Holman Hunt scholar Carol Jacobi presents the artist’s life and inspirations as well as the development of his approach to art.
The AGO invited University of Toronto Professor of Architecture Larry Richards to wander the perimeter of the AGO and muse on the final phases of its Frank Gehry-designed expansion.
Dr. Augustus (Gus) Casely-Hayford will discuss some of the issues connected to delivering culturally diverse art in 21st-century London.
Louie Palu, Globe and Mail photojournalist; Rannie Turingan, photo blogger; and John Reeves, renowned Canadian photographer, discussed the "Ansel Adams | Alfred Eisenstaedt" exhibition, the evolution of photojournalism, the transition of photojournalism into an artform and the potential impact of new technologies in the field.
With a focus on some of the highlights of the renowned Frum Collection of African art, Dr. Constantine Petridis discusses the close relationship between art and culture in sub-Saharan Africa.
David Cronenberg discusses insights he gained as guest curator of the exhibition Andy Warhol/Supernova. This podcast is a recording of the question and answer session from the public lecture at the Art Gallery of Ontario on July 7, 2006.
Hear Michael Awad, Lisa Rochon, Christian Giroux and Daniel Young debate and explore the phenomenon of architecture as spectacle and its impact on everything from individual users to urban issues
Peter Doig talks about his work with the AGO’s Director of Exhibitions, Bruce Ferguson.
An interview by the Toronto Star’s architecture columnist Christopher Hume with celebrated architect and Toronto native Frank Gehry, who designed the 2006 expansion of the Art Gallery of Ontario.
Luis Jacob's Habitat is a series of tableaux comprised of 1970s and 1980s furniture. Jacob discusses Habitat within the framework of the philosophical and cultural possibilities of social interaction and the evolution of his past artistic practice.
Richard S. Wortman will discuss the role of myth, symbol and ritual in the exercise of monarchical power in the age of Catherine the Great.
David Wistow introduces Catherine’s close circle of famous, and not so famous men and women, from son Grand Duke Paul and acquaintances Princess Dashkova and philosopher Voltaire, to long-time lover Grigory Orlov.
Anne Odom will explore the various political and cultural messages Catherine aimed to impart as she placed her most important commissions.
Over a billion dollars of new cultural architecture is rising up in Toronto. Radical designs, huge campaigns, great improvements and ceaseless opportunities. What will the arts, the city and the institutions themselves look like after the doors open to a new generation of arts-goers?
Dr Kenneth Bartlett traces Catherine’s interest in the ideas of the French Enlightenment philosophes.
David Wistow looks at Catherine’s love of architecture and her insatiable desire to build – from the grandiose Academy of Fine Arts to the most intimate of private apartments.