Hello everyone,

I am writing to share that after nearly 14 years of amazing accomplishments and collaboration, Lisa Clements, Chief, Communications & Brand, has decided to leave the AGO.  

Those of you who know Lisa well will not be surprised that this decision did not come easily, given her extraordinary commitment to the AGO and fierce work ethic. Her large portfolio has been particularly demanding over these past few years and now that she has a full team in place (finally!), Lisa has decided to take some time for herself to consider the next phase of her impressive career. Big kudos to Lisa for building a truly stellar team, all of whom serve the critical functions of telling our story and advancing our Audience and Brand strategies. People have always been at the heart of Lisa’s approach to her work, and having the best people in place for these roles is the key reason why Lisa has decided to step away and focus on life outside of the AGO.

Some of the highlights that stand out during Lisa’s tenure include:

• Maintaining excellent government relations, resulting in ongoing stable funding from the AGO’s biggest funder, the provincial government
• Working with neighbourhood leaders to help revitalize Grange Park
• Leading the crowd-funding initiative for the acquisition of Kusama’s Let’s Survive Forever
• Launching the Insider, the AGO’s weekly newsletter that reaches approximately 235,000 people (close to the circulation of The Globe & Mail newspaper)
• Launching the Annual Pass, an initiative that has helped make the AGO more accessible and shift our audience to better reflect the people who live in our city
• With Leadership Team, helping to guide the AGO through the pandemic and keep our staff and visitors safe
• Re-building our business efforts post-COVID
• Announcing the exciting news of the Dani Reiss Modern & Contemporary Gallery

On a personal note, I have benefited immensely from Lisa’s advice since arriving at the AGO 7 years ago. Lisa is truly a person of integrity, and I have deep respect for her honesty and directness. She leads with her own personal values and high expectations for herself – a very high bar, indeed. I’m enormously grateful for everything that Lisa has contributed to the AGO and wish her well in every respect.

Lisa will be here for the next 3 weeks on a full-time basis and then on a consulting bases for a couple of months to help out during this transition period. You will hear more from me soon about interim leadership in Lisa’s absence so stay tuned.

Thank you, Lisa!

Stephan

Hello everyone,

A very big THANK YOU to all of you for contributing to a successful March Break last week – especially Education & Programming, Visitor Experience and Facility Services. Overall attendance was quite positive – close to 27,500 visitors in total, averaging 3,053 per day. This was considerably higher than last year and I am grateful for everyone’s efforts to make it a wonderful experience for our public, especially children and families.

Thank you also to those involved with installing the upcoming Wolfgang Tillmans show, To look without fear, a major retrospective organized by MoMA. It performed extraordinarily well at MoMA and I expect it to give us a lift here, too. Sophie Hackett is the AGO curator. Tillmans is a global art star, recognized broadly and also particularly within the queer community. We are having a very big public opening on Friday, April 12 and you are all invited. Here are the details:

https://ago.ca/events/wolfgang-tillmans-look-without-fear

Spread the word!

Take care,

Stephan

A quick note to remind volunteers we are in the final weeks of Leonard Cohen: Everybody Knows. This exhibition closes April 10. We have a lot of Cohen notebooks left! So if you’re a gallery guide out on the floor, please feel free to share these widely, and a note to all volunteers: feel free to take some home for family and friends. They’re lovely little keepsakes.

And while you’re roaming the Galleries, make sure to see: Modern and Contemporary Prints from the Collection of Grant L. Reuber – on until April 2 in the first floor gallery, #140 (to help orient you – this is outside of Prints and Drawings). This is my favourite show at the moment – a colourful, impactful little gem!

Hello everyone,

March Break is ready to kick into gear this weekend at the AGO. The focus will be on artmaking and family friendly activities, with our Art Carts out in full force. For more information, check out https://ago.ca/events/march-break.

I hope that those who are taking vacation days over the next couple of weeks have a great break. March to me is that “in between” season – when the snow starts to recede (eventually!) and we have more hours of daylight, signaling the arrival of spring later this month.

I will be off for two weeks with my family visiting Hawaii, where we used to live. See you all soon!

Mahalo (which means “thank you” in Hawaiian),

Stephan

A painting by Anna Boberg, one of Sweden’s most famous artists and polar explorers, is on view now

Born into a wealthy and creative family in Stockholm in 1864, Boberg was largely self-taught. A contemporary of abstract painter Hilma af Klint (1862–1944), Boberg’s career was defined by her paintings of the arctic landscapes of the Lofoten Islands, an archipelago off the northern coast of Norway, 150 kilometres above the Arctic Circle.  She and her husband first visited the region in 1901. Enamoured by the landscape, she remained there to paint even after her husband returned home and would return numerous times over the next 30 years, summer and winter, to paint in different light conditions. “Translating the rich sensorial experience of the Arctic sea,” describes Caroline Shields, AGO Associate Curator and Head of European Art, “became Boberg’s enduring passion for the final three decades of her life.” 

Sunlight and Showers (1901-12) stands apart in Boberg’s oeuvre and dates to her earliest years in Lofoten. While much of her later work focuses on fishing vessels and human activity, Sunlight and Showers is, according to Shields, “an expressionist tour-de-force that captures the atmospheric effects of an Arctic snow shower.” 

Not just a painter, Boberg’s artistic practice included textile design, ceramics and glass as well as writing − she wrote the libretto for an opera, an autobiography and various travelogues. 

Our own Dr. Caroline Shields examines the painting, and shares more about Boberg’s oeuvre and legacy, in this week’s AGOinsider collection spotlight (read, here).

2021 Sobey Art Award-winner Laakkuluk speaks about her exhibition on view at the AGO, Naak silavit qeqqa?

On July 16, 2022, acclaimed Kalaaleq (Greenlandic Inuk) artist – and winner of the 2021 Sobey Award – ᓛᒃᑯᓗᒃ Laakkuluk unveiled her brand new multimedia installation, Naak silavit qeqqa?, which incorporates video, soundscape and sculpture. The installation seeks to describe sila, the all-powerful Inuktitut word that captures the universe, the environment and the intellect. At the heart of the installation is Silaup Putunga (2018) – a large-scale double-sided video, created by Laakkuluk and her long-time collaborator Jamie Griffiths. Additionally, the installation includes a selection of Inuit soapstone sculptures from the AGO’s Williamson Collection, donated by Laakkuluk’s parents – Dr. Robert G. Williamson, O.C. and his wife, Dr. Karla Jessen Williamson.

We recently connected with Laakkuluk to learn more about the concept of sila, the Williamson Collection, and her collaborative work with Griffiths. 

AGOinsider: Could you share with us what the concept of sila means, and how it directly relates to the installation?

Laakkuluk: The name of the exhibition is Naak silavit qeqqa? It’s a riddle that children are asked. My mom was always very enthralled by that. She’s passed it down the generations. It asks, ‘Where’s the middle of your sila’? And sila has this multifaceted meaning. It means your intellect, it means the environment, it means the universe, it means outside. As a child when we’re asked where’s the middle of your sila is, it’s very confusing. And of course, there’s no right answer – but you have to think about it like, ‘Where do I point’? My reaction as a kid was to point between my eyes. But when we asked my kids – when they were little – they’d either do the same thing, or they point out the window.

AGOinsider: And does the installation seek to answer that question? (Where is the middle of your sila?)

Laakkuluk: No, it seeks to ask you as a visitor. There’s the piece in the middle, the film installation is Silaup Putunga, the hole in Sila. It’s an exploration of the layers of reality that you touch upon – or that I touch upon – as a uaajeerneq performer or a mask dancer. All the layers of mask to get to my face, and what’s on my face, and also what it means to be expressing my identity as a human being on the land. And just being able to pierce through realities like that.

Read the full article, in this week’s AGOinsider.

Hello everyone
This has been an exciting week with yesterday’s announcement of the Dani Reiss Modern and Contemporary Gallery. The word is out and response has been overwhelmingly positive. We’ll post a collection of media clippings next week.

We have exceptional exhibitions to look forward to opening in April and May including Wolfgang Tillmans (April 7), Cassatt – McNicoll (May 31) and Arnold Newman (also May 31). Our Fall exhibitions of KAWS and Keith Haring are already generating excitement as well. I truly believe our exhibition lineup is very strong.
A week like this reminds me that we are at our best when we work together. I am grateful for all of your hard work.
Take care,Stephan

P.S. There are so many people to thank, but I want to extend special thanks to Laura Quinn, Andrea-Jo Wilson and Wendy So for their excellent work at generating tremendous media coverage for the project.

Hello Everyone,

The AGO has received a monumental $35-million lead gift from Dani Reiss that will launch our museum’s expansion project – the Dani Reiss Modern and Contemporary Gallery. Today we are publicly announcing this exciting news.

If you’d like to see more detail about the project and view the design renderings, they are up on our website https://ago.ca/dani-reiss-modern-and-contemporary-gallery

Dani is the Chairman and CEO of Canada Goose and an art collector. This generous donation is among the largest gifts in the AGO’s history and the size and timing of this gift will help the AGO move forward this expansion with confidence.

In the past decade we’ve welcomed more than 20,000 artworks into the collection and now thanks to both Dani Reiss and the vision of our architect partners Diamond Schmitt, Selldorf Architects and Two Row Architect, we’re set to display them in a thoughtful, dynamic, and truly beautiful space. 40,000 new square feet of gallery space across five floors and more than 13 new galleries will increase the AGO’s total space available to display art by 30%. The design will be dynamic enough to display the works of today’s great modern and contemporary artists, and adaptable to the needs of future generations of artists working across all media.

This moment marks a major milestone for the project with the announcement of our lead donor. We are also submitting initial designs to the City of Toronto. Fundraising is continuing and the city consultation process will begin shortly.

I want to take this moment to thank everyone who has gotten us to moment, but particularly thank Rupert Duchesne, Board President and Co-Chair of the Board, and Jay Smith, Co-Chair and Campaign Chair. Board leadership is critical to the success of this project. I also have to thank Mike Mahoney and Jessica Bright, who are leading the project with the project team, and Kate Halpenny and Andrea Orr, who are leading our fundraising efforts. This expansion project will truly be a team effort and there will be much more to share in the coming weeks and months.

Sincerely,

Stephan

Kent Monkman’s solo exhibition closes at the ROM next month. Read our October 2022 story before it does.

On October 8, the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) unveiled a brand-new major exhibition conceived by acclaimed Cree artist Kent Monkman. Being Legendary places 35 new paintings by Monkman alongside fossils, meteorites and other select pieces from the ROM’s collection in a grand re-telling of history – from an Indigenous perspective.     

“With Being Legendary, I am exploring how Indigenous presence and knowledge is embedded in this land much longer and deeper than how it’s been presented in the colonial version of history here on Turtle Island,” says Kent Monkman. “Using storytelling, this exhibition refers to the interruption of knowledge caused by the colonial attempts to erase us, but it also talks about life before Europeans arrived and how leaders in our communities shine a path for us to move forward into the future.”

As in several Monkman’s earlier works, Being Legendary casts his alter ego – Miss Chief Eagle Testickle – as the story’s narrator and central character. In the exhibition’s first section, visitors enter the cosmos via two large-scale works depicting Miss Chief floating through the stars at the moment of her inception. On accompanying panel text, she explains that the subsequent journey through Being Legendary will tell the acimowin (story that carries history and knowledge) of her people. Monkman’s works from this section are presented along with the St. Robert meteorite from the ROM collection.    

Being Legendary is on view until March 2023 at the ROM. Did you know? As an AGO volunteer, you can visit the ROM for free as part of the Reciprocal admissions agreement. Just show your volunteer badge at the front desk (you cannot reserve free tickets online).

Hello everyone,

Last weekend’s Family Day programming was phenomenal. The galleries were bustling with over 14,000 visitors — for context, 67% of our attendance last week came in on Friday, Saturday and Sunday! Thank you to all staff who not only worked over the weekend, but came together as a team to welcome our audiences for a full weekend of programming.

Many staff came out to enjoy events with their friends and family, not only for Family Day weekend, but throughout Black History Month. We have our last event with RISE Edutainment today (February 24), and a marketplace tomorrow (February 25) with 25 vendors set up on the concourse level in partnership with Black Owned Toronto.  Special thanks to the Black Employee Resource Group for coming up with the marketplace idea.

Just a note that if you’ve been hearing some construction noise outside of your work spaces, it is likely from the Beverley Street Stair & Railing Rehabilitation Project. This is a major emergency exit, so having it in good repair is important. The project also includes work further along Beverley, across the front of the building on Dundas, and near the Jackman Hall pit at McCaul. Project completion is scheduled for May 18, 2023. For project-related questions or concerns, please contact Michael Peroff, Director, Plant & Building Infrastructure.

Take care,

Stephan