Closes May 15!

Hello Everyone,

This week’s news about the architect team for AGO Global Contemporary has been well received. Thank you to the Comms Team for rolling the news out. The process for selecting the team was incredibly demanding and rigorous but worth the effort. I am confident that we selected the most talented team for our project. Annabelle Selldorf is an extraordinary architect who has worked on numerous international museum projects. Brian Porter of Two Row will bring a vital Indigenous perspective and aesthetic, and Don Schmitt of Diamond Schmitt, based in Toronto, is the executive architect who brought this team together.

Now that we have the team in place, things will start to move very quickly in terms of planning. All of you will be involved in this process in some fashion, and it will be a huge and deeply motivating undertaking. Don’t forget why we are doing this – we want to lead global conversations from Toronto through extraordinary collections, exhibitions and programs, and by reflecting the people who live here.

I am pleased and grateful for everyone’s engagement with the organizational assessment led by Cultural Pluralism in the Arts Movement Ontario (CPAMO). More than 200 of you participated in 16 focus groups and 70% of you completed the internal survey. Thank you! I have been thrilled to see so many staff at all levels take part, which is a testament to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility being a core value of the AGO.

CPAMO is currently sharing the assessment results with the Leadership Team and will work with us to understand the data and recommendations. The final report will be provided at the end of May, and CPAMO will present at an upcoming Town Hall in June. I look forward to us all moving into the next phase of action.

It is wonderful to see so many of our volunteers back in the Gallery, particularly this week, being National Volunteer Week. To all our Volunteers – we appreciate you!

Thanks and take care,

Stephan

This week is National Volunteer Week, an important moment to share our heartfelt thanks for the contributions of our AGO Volunteers.

To mark the occasion, AGOinsider caught up with Maya Kotlarenko, who has volunteered at the AGO for the past 14 years. Maya currently serves as Volunteer President—a surprising position for someone who “hated being in museums” when she was young. She has developed a true love of art over her lifetime, citing Kent Monkman’s The Academy (2008) as one of her favourites in the AGO Collection. 

Maya shared her thoughts with us on life as an AGO Volunteer, supporting Virtual School Programs and the importance of making art accessible. The full article is linked here.

Happy National Volunteer Week everyone! It has been a rough 2 years apart, but we’re so pleased to be slowly welcoming you back! This week (especially this week) we pause to thank you for your commitment and dedication, enthusiasm and support through this challenging time!

Whether you are greeting or guiding, helping patrons find prints or programs, each year you collectively dedicate thousands of hours to bringing art and people together, and we simply couldn’t do it without you.

Last week, I snapped this candid pic of Rochelle and Mary; together, they have 50 years of volunteering at the Gallery between them! It was amazing to catch up with them in person after all this time- (in their happy place, in matching masks no less!)- connecting visitors with art, once again.

One portrait among many, we are grateful to all of you – our 400+ volunteers – for dedicating your time and talents to supporting the Gallery! #NationalVolunteerWeek

Volunteers, have you seen I AM HERE yet? The catalogue is dense and so beautifully designed – full of images! So visual! (thank you to Natalie, who sourced a copy for the volunteer lounge).

Everyone is really loving the show!

There are a number of “pop-up” art-making studio workshops, offered online over Zoom, for free! (Each Wednesday at 5:30pm, registration required). Check out the full series, here.

Stephan joins us in celebration of National Volunteer Week! (formally April 24 – 30)

It’s hard to believe we’ve been two years apart, but we’re encouraged by the recent staggered re-entry of volunteers back to the Gallery. We are on our way! Stephan joins us to update us on Gallery news, and AGO Vision 2028 – the path ahead!

We hope you can join us! As with all Stephan’s candid talks with volunteers, this talk will not be recorded. Please plan to attend.

A reminder: you can’t register in advance for this talk, simply click on the link below on Wednesday May 4, at 6pm (or just before), to join:

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87412155886?pwd=RW5VVXc0R3Q2U3NqUG9POGpwVEt6Zz09

Meeting ID: 874 1215 5886

Passcode: 956179

Hello Everyone,

I Am Here is finally here! And it looks spectacular. A show this big includes a lot of people so thank you to EVERYONE involved. It is a wonderful exhibit for our public at this particular moment in time, and it was kicked off with a celebratory dinner on Tuesday evening with many artists in attendance. Do take a moment to walk through the show – you will be struck by the number and quality of works ranging from home movies to photography to works on paper and paintings.

Next week, a few of you are travelling to Italy for the Venice Biennale. aabaakwad, an Indigenous led initiative founded by Wanda Nanibush, will be part of the programming in partnership with the exhibition The Sami Pavillion, in the Nordic Pavillion. It is an extraordinary undertaking, and several members of the Indigenous and Canadian Curatorial Committee will be there to experience aabaakwad and the rest of the fair. Thank you to the staff from numerous departments who are taking part in this significant trip – special shout-out to the Indigenous and Canadian Department.

During this time of year, many of you acknowledge the holy seasons of Ramadan, Easter and Passover. I hope this month of observance brings reflection, peace and joy.

Stay safe and take care,

Stephan

Dear Volunteer Community,

Thank you to everyone who took the time to submit their vote for the Volunteer Endowment Trust (VET) funding proposal. This year, we received 107 votes which is the highest level of participation we have seen since launching the democratic process in 2020. We are thrilled to announce that the project that the volunteers have chosen to financially support is Virtual School Programs. Virtual School Programs have made art and learning more accessible than ever before, removing financial and geographic barriers to participating and learning and helping the AGO connect with new audiences. 

On behalf of the Volunteer Council and the AGO Development team, we thank you for your support!

– Maya Kotlarenko, Volunteer President 

Meet a new generation of diverse Canadian artists with Inner Space, an original AGO web series where artists give personal tours of their studios.

Get up close and personal with 12 emerging Canadian artists by tuning in to the AGO’s new original web series, Inner Space. Available at the end of every month, each episode follows a young artist who gives an intimate tour of their studio and a behind-the-scenes look at their creative process. Covering a diverse range of art forms and styles, each artist was co-curated by the Inner Space Youth Advisory with AGO Staff. 

Made for youth and by youth, the current iteration of the Youth Advisory is project-based and is made up of members ages 16-25 from across Canada. Advisory members chose artists from their local communities to give a spotlight on their art.

These videos are personal and inspiring! Watch the series, linked here.

Blurred Boundaries: Queer Visions in Canadian Art (opens April 9)

A new installation of 13 works from the AGO Collection explores queer connections to liberation, resistance and creativity:

Blurred Boundaries: Queer Visions in Canadian Art features a select 13 works, all pulled from the AGO Collection, by the likes of General Idea, Will Munro and Frances Norma Loring, alongside some recent acquisitions of Cassils, David Buchan and Robert Flack. Curated by Renata Azevedo Moreira, AGO Assistant Curator, Canadian Art, Blurred Boundaries is not intended to be an exhaustive survey of queer art in Canada, but rather, an entry point into broader conversations on the topic. Visitors are asked to consider how queerness is understood and visualized within the landscape of Canadian art. “This exhibition,” explains Moreira, “suggests queer readings in contemporary and historical works, offering connections that are not exclusively bound by gender or sexuality, but rather focus on how the works question the status quo of their time. What does it mean to explore, from a queer lens, our understanding of artistic practices today and 100 years ago? That’s the challenge.”

I AM HERE: Home Movies and Everyday Masterpieces (April 13- August 14, 2022)

From the earliest cave paintings to TikTok, humans have found creative ways to document their day-to-day lives. I AM HERE: Home Movies and Everyday Masterpieces, a major new AGO exhibition opening in April of 2022, is a revealing look at our universal need to capture, share and cherish the everyday. Featuring lost-and-found home movies from the Prelinger Archives, alongside celebrated artworks by the likes of David Hockney, Patti Smith, Claes Oldenburg, Annie Pootoogook, Arthur Jafa and Mary Pratt, as well as snapshots, photo albums, letters, television, grocery lists, and social media, I AM HERE brings together a broad range of personal records from different time periods and locales to explore the shared human impulse to document life as it happens.

Co-curated by Jim Shedden, the AGO’s Manager of Publishing, and Alexa Greist, AGO Associate Curator and R. Fraser Elliott Chair, Prints & Drawings, in collaboration with archivist, scholar and writer Rick Prelinger, the exhibition is a celebration of daily life and human creativity, replete with music and creative prompts. Among the artworks on display will be a digital collage of the more than 3000 submissions received from around the world as part of the AGO’s 2021 Portraits of Resilience exhibition.

Faith and Fortune: Art Across the Global Spanish Empire (June 8 – October 10, 2022)

Faith and Fortune: Art Across the Global Spanish Empire brings together more than 200 sumptuous and inspiring works of art from Latin America, the Philippines and Spain made between 1492 and 1898.  This exhibition, from the collection of the Hispanic Society Museum & Library, allows us to study critically the mechanics of colonization by examining the visual culture of the Spanish Empire. As artists, books and patrons moved throughout the Empire, the art created was beautiful, highly international and cosmopolitan. Visitors will see Latin American, Filipino and Spanish paintings, sculpture, printed books and textiles alongside each other, revealing the material and artistic connections.

Through the lens of great art, visitors will encounter the global, cross-cultural movement of people, ideas and artforms happening across both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Beginning with the earliest episode of colonization — Columbus’s arrival in the Americas — the exhibition offers visitors important insights into the histories of resource extraction, the spread of Christianity, the development of racial categories and Indigenous resistance to conquest. These four centuries of art provide a unique perspective on the lasting legacies of colonization. 

Organized by the AGO, from the collection of the Hispanic Society Museum & Library