Hello everybody!

Those were a glorious string of November days that we experienced last week – I hope you were able to get outside and enjoy them! Perhaps they were a gift to help us store some warmth and sun for the winter days ahead! I made the most of it by sitting on a bed of golden leaves while reading in the park – I have  included a picture of my expedition below.

Last weekend we experienced an uptick in visitor excitement with the closing of Diane Arbus: 1956-1971, Photographs and Illusions: The Art of Magic! Now our exhibitions team is working diligently at closing the space in preparation for our next special exhibition, Studio 54: Night Magic. We  have many smaller exhibitions that have recently opened throughout the gallery to keep it interesting for our visitors!

Read on!

Stress Relief Through Art!

With the number of Covid-19 cases continuing to rise, there is a palpable sense of stress in the world. The gallery currently remains open, but the bustle has slowed down which may also coincide with the closing of our special exhibitions. Yesterday, after recognizing my heightened level of stress, I decided to stroll through the European Collection in hopes that this would soothe my nerves. Rather than my usual rushed steps to get to destination or to complete a task, I consciously chose to slow down and focus my attention on the work in front of me. My stress levels noticeably lowered – another reminder of the incredible healing effects of art! While visiting the gallery may not be an option for some of you, I’m going to share videos from our collection that will hopefully transport you into a more relaxed state!

First up: enjoy an interesting talk facilitated by AGO Art Educator Lauren Spring (video linked here) who explores Agnes Martin’s The Rose, from a mental health awareness perspective.

Join our Art Educators and engage with artworks from Agnes Martin, Emily Carr and Alex Colville center around close observation and open-ended questions. You can join our next Mental Health Moments talk on Friday, November 20th at 11am by clicking here.

Studio 54: Night Magic (opening December 19, 2020 – April 5 2021)

How does a nightclub, open for less than three years, become the global epicentre of music, fashion and design? Studio 54: Night Magic transports visitors back to 1977 when revolutionary creativity, expressive freedom and sexual liberation transformed a New York City nightclub into a phenomenon. Here are some notes on the exhibition:

• Curated and designed by The Brooklyn Museum
• This is the first time in AGO history that we are hosting an exhibit that we haven’t had an opportunity to see in person!
• This will take up the entire Zacks Pavillion and will be compromised of 12 “rooms”
• This immersive exhibit featuring hundreds of objects, including photographs, films, sketches and designer fashions, the exhibition traces the nightclub’s trailblazing aesthetics while situating it within the broader social and historical context of the period
• The club was a place of celebrity and self-constructed celebrity
• There will be lighting effects throughout the exhibit which will be designed by our Logistics team member, Paul Mathesion, (who himself used to work at Studio 54!)
• Check out this New York times article on the exhibit here and our recent AGO Insider article here.

Michael Belmore

Anishinaabe artist Michael Belmore returns to the AGO with two new works in his self-titled exhibition which is on until March 21, 2021!  He employs a variety of materials including wood, stone, and metals and draws inspiration from his surroundings, exploring the dramatic effects of human activity on the landscape.

The two works on display in gallery 238, exemplify the key themes in Belmore’s practice: Anishinaabe identity, and impact of North American settlers on the earth and its non-human inhabitants. You can find out more about both pieces directly from the artist by watching the short videos linked here and here.

Be well and stay healthy,

Christine, Trish and Nicole

Hello Everyone,

I am very confident in the safety of our building and the protocols in place to keep our employees and public healthy. Key to our success so far is compliance with measures such as social distancing, hand washing and wearing masks. Please WEAR YOUR MASKS. It’s critical always – and especially now as case numbers continue to rise.

Like many of you, I have been thinking about the loss of Adam Lawrence. I understand that he loved illustrated books and every so often attended events in the Library. A few staff have suggested that the AGO acquire an illustrated book in his memory and are making donations to our Library & Archives. If you are interested in contributing, please visit www.ago.ca/donate and select the ‘in memory’ option, or call Valerie Morelli at 416 979 6660 x 6816. A letter will be sent to Adam’s mother, Marcie Lawrence, advising of her of these tribute gifts and the plans for this special acquisition in memory. I will definitely be contributing.

Our virtual school program continues to exceed expectations. So far, 65,000+ students have participated. We have never seen this type of engagement for school programs. A big thank you to the Art Educators who have been delivering sessions three times a day for the past four weeks: Carol Matson, Louise Spiritcougar Lefebvre,  Lauren Spring, Laboni Islam, Quentin VerCetty, Rebecca Baird, Mahlikah Awe:ri, Joey Suriano, Amanda Rataj and Maureen Da Silva.

For our Indigenous learnings this week, please see Michael Belmore’s YouTube video on the work Edifice – he is Anishinaabe and the work is on currently view. Michael speaks of connections to land.

Thank you,

Stephan

The AGO’s new Arts of Global Africa and the Diaspora Department launches with a bold acquisition.

The global footprint of Africa is vast. Through centuries of migration, people of African descent have populated every inch of the globe, building a wealth of diverse cultures. This mosaic is made up of distinct regional identities that coalesce, illustrating a collective narrative—the brilliance of which can be uniquely expressed through its art. 

Recently the AGO announced the establishment of a brand new department—named Arts of Global Africa and the Diaspora. Led by Dr. Julie Crooks, formerly the AGO Associate Curator, Photography, the department will focus on acquiring, exhibiting and building programming around art from Africa and the African diaspora. Encompassing historic, modern and contemporary work, this collection will expand the AGO’s scope of art representing Black Atlantic histories while adding further complexity and context to the AGO Collection as a whole. 

Under her new title, Curator, Arts of Global Africa and the Diaspora, Crooks has hit the ground running, recently acquiring the department’s first work. Moridja Kitenge Banza’s Christ Pantocrator No 13 (2020) is a stunning painting that showcases an aesthetic hybrid of classical African art and Christian iconography. “Moridja’s work is fitting as the department’s first acquisition in the ways in which it exemplifies the complexities of contemporary African art practices in the diaspora,” says Crooks, who jumped at the opportunity to acquire the piece at this year’s Art Toronto.     

Christ Pantocator No 13 depicts Jesus, in the style of European religious portraiture, donning a traditional mask from the Dan people of Liberia—a juxtaposition that complicates both our ideas of sacredness and our understanding of the relationship between African artifacts and museums. It is part of a series of works from the artist exploring this discourse. 

The artist, Moridja Kitenge Banza said, “In most African societies, the mask is made for use in sacred rites or ceremonies celebrating birth, death, or harvest. Moving them into a museum context as a fixed element in a display case, they find themselves cut off from their original context … Thus each of these paintings evolves towards a very current discourse on the relevance of museum collections, the status of the cultural and religious objects that are found there and the way each one of us looks at these different cultures to which the museum gives us access.”  

We will continue to update you as about acquisitions and programming as the Department of Arts of Global Africa and the Diaspora continues to expand. 

The First World War was the first global conflict documented by both professional and amateur photographers in real time. With the invention of the first compact camera in 1912, almost anyone could take a picture anywhere, in any conditions, including the trenches. Between 1914 and 1918, over 90,000 British volunteers supported the war effort at home and abroad, and many, despite British Army orders, brought their cameras along – including Emily Maxwell-Stuart, a Red Cross Nurse. 

In 2005, the AGO received an anonymous gift of some 500 photo albums, all from the period of the First World War (1914–18). Each precious and unique, they provide an incredible record of that time as seen through the lens of one person or family. The AGO displayed hundreds of these works back in November 2018, with a two-part exhibition entitled First World War, 1914–1918 (I) and (II). 

At 61 pages, the Maxwell-Stuart album is a scrapbook, photo album and family Bible all in one. It variously features her own work as part of St. Millicent’s Ambulance crew in Northern France, as well as family occasions (her sister’s wedding announcement from the London Times, her brothers’ obituaries) and candid portraits of her colleagues – those who tended to the wounded and administered medical care in the dark. Maxwell-Stuart’s eye for detail is considerable and often witty. Her portrait of the King and Queen, as they visit a field hospital, is notable for the evident discomfort of its subjects. 

One of eleven children, her father was the youngest son of a Scottish Laird. She was 28 years old when she enlisted in May 1917. According to her overseas record, she served in France, attached to the No. 9 Red Cross Hospital, variously located in Calais – Saint-Omer, Hazelbrouck and then Roubaix. Her character was listed as “satisfactory” and under honours received, she was said to have been “mentioned in dispatches”. 

Click here to explore the pages within this album

Hello Everyone,

This week was another busy one at the AGO. A new video installation featuring the mesmerizing work of Ragnar Kjartansson opens today. The work is comprised of 7 large video screens in a circle and features two couples singing in unison, repeatedly, a sad song of beauty and love. It was acquired with the generous support of one of our trustees, Shabin Mohamed, and her husband Nadir. I am deeply grateful for their support and other donors who have helped enrich and grow our collection.

If you have been working (volunteering) from home for many months, I encourage you to book a ticket and come and see this exhibit and others. It is hard to be away from one another and the art we are so used to viewing together every day. Visit any time and be comforted by the fact that the AGO is open and our work goes on.

We are nearing Remembrance Day next Wednesday, November 11th. Let us never forget.

Stay safe and well, Stephan

It is with great sadness that we share that Adam Lawrence, a member of the Food & Beverage team, passed away over the weekend.

Adam was with the AGO for over 15 years, working most recently as an F&B Outlet Server within our Food & Beverage Department. Understandably, this news has come as a tremendous shock to the Food & Beverage team and the People Division will be arranging specialized grief counselling services for our colleagues in the department.

https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/toronto-on/adam-lawrence-9892952

Witness of change The work of famed West African photographer Malick Sidibé is featured in Documents, 1960s –1970s, a new AGO exhibition exploring documentary photography in a time of change.

The 1960s and 1970s were a time of profound change; as societies shifted, so did documentary photography. Opening October 31 on Level 1 in the Edmond G. Odette Family Gallery, the AGO exhibition Documents, 1960s – 1970s hones in on two pivotal decades by showcasing documentary photography from diverse regions. With colonized countries gaining independence, and power dynamics shifting between people and governments, documentary photographers in the ’60s and ’70s were capturing the energy of change in its many forms.

Presented in collaboration with Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival, Documents features captivating images of public life in West and South Africa, America and Europe during the era. It includes work by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Ernest Cole, Lutz Dille, Charles Gagnon, David Goldblatt, Bhupendra Karia, Paul Kodjo, Martha Rosler, Stephen Shore, Ming Smith, Ian Wallace and Garry Winogrand, as well as a selection of press photographs by Eve Arnold, Robert Cohen and others. Winning its liberation in 1960, the former French colony of Mali in West Africa was a hotbed of carefree youth culture and vibrant nightlife throughout the next two decades—and thanks to photographer Malick Sidibé (1936–2016), we know what it all looked like. Known as the “Eye of Bamako”, Mali’s capital city, Sidibé’s black-and-white 35mm photographs carry a candid intimacy that makes the joy and freedom of his subjects more palpable. They are often uniquely posed, dressed to the nines, showcasing the era’s stunning fashion trends.

Malick Sidibé got his start in the mid-1950s as an apprentice to French photographer Gérard Guillat-Guignard. By 1958, Sidibé opened his own studio, Studio Malick, in which he would develop the previous evening’s party photos, hanging them in the front window as an invitation for party-goers to purchase prints. In the late 1960s, he expanded his practice to include studio portraits, which became an equally iconic aspect of his work. He was known for distinctly positioning his subjects and photographing them against painted or striped backdrops. This became a signature element in his portraiture. Sidibé’s work rose to global notoriety in the 1990s after being featured in Bamako’s first Biennial of African Photography. Subsequently, Sidibé became one of history’s most celebrated African photographers, decorated with numerous major awards and achievements including the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography and The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. His work is widely exhibited and held in major collections around the world.

Don’t miss Documents, 1960s – 1970s , opening October 31 on Level 1 in the Edmond G. Odette Family Gallery. This exhibition will unveil a number of recent acquisitions, including works by Malick Sidibé, alongside select loans.

Thank you to volunteer recruiter, Chai Lam for his recommendation to explore Google Arts & Culture, a dedicated website featuring content from over 2000 leading museums and archives who have partnered with the Google Cultural Institute to bring the world’s treasures online! (yes, AGO content, too!)

Happy to put this talk on your radar! Perennial AGO favourite, Christi Belcourt, joins the McMichael’s Chief Curator Sarah Milroy in conversation with artists Christi Belcourt and Bonnie Devine as they discuss upcoming projects at the McMichael and contemporary Indigenous art practice and activism today.

Register via Zoom.

Hello everybody! Hope you are all enjoying the extra hour of sleep on this rainy November day! It feels like the perfect day to hibernate with a good book and warm drink! Hope you are all keeping cozy and safe! I know there are a lot of artists and creatives amongst the group and we would love for you to share pictures of your Halloween décor and pumpkins! Enjoy the below listed picture of our “spooky” AGO sign! Read on!

Curator’s Talk: Adelina Vlas on Haegue Yang!

Since the opening on October 1st, Haegue Yang: Emergence has been abuzz with our visitors (especially during our Saturday activations between 2-4pm. For those of you who missed it, I wanted to share the Curator’s Talk: Adelina Vlas on Haegue Yang which is linked here.

This is the first time a survey exhibition of Yang’s work has been mounted in North America. This isn’t the first time she has worked with AGO (we purchased Slow Dance – Twin Brother back in 2014 which is included in the exhibition). The talk is a great resource to provide insights prior to your visit, and gives a good overview to enjoy from the comforts of home.

Mark your calendars for the upcoming Artist’s Talk with Haegue Yang which is occurring live on Zoom Wednesday, December 2nd at 1pm. You can register for the talk here.

Closing week of Diane Arbus

With Diane Arbus: Photographs, 1956-1971 closing next weekend, I wanted to share an interesting discussion (linked here) between AGO Photography Curator Sophie Hackett and British Photographer Neil Selkirk, who is the only person ever authorized to print Diane Arbus’s work.

When Arbus died in 1971, Selkirk, was asked to create new prints of her work for the landmark retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art and the iconic monograph published by Aperture. This daunting task consisted of combing through 7,000 rolls of film, spending many months in Arbus’s darkroom meticulously trying to duplicate her gelatin silver prints. His intimate relationship with the work has afforded him special insight into Arbus’s technical process and artistic vision. 

Be well and stay healthy,

Trish, Christine and Nicole (VE Managers)