It is bittersweet to announce that after 10 years, Caitlin Coull is leaving the AGO for an exciting opportunity at ROM Governors as Associate Vice President, Communications and Marketing. While I will miss Caitlin (a lot), I’m thrilled for her as she moves on to this next step in her career.
Over the years, she has contributed to and led several successful initiatives and communications campaigns, including innumerable exhibitions and programs, the launch of the Annual Pass and the development and implementation of the AGOinsider.
Here are just a couple of her favourite moments:
Working with CBC to get a reporter into Ai Weiwei’s compound where he was under house arrest, and unveiling his Zodiac Heads in the reflecting pool at Nathan Phillips Square to an enormous press gathering with the entire marketing and communications team in rubber boots
Mopping the cafeAGO floor with Patti Smith, who just felt like doing it
Working with Lisa and the board leadership to announce Stephan’s appointment with no media leaks. And then celebrating with the CN Tower’s Edgewalk!
Caitlin’s last day at the Gallery is Friday, September 24. Please join me in congratulating her as she embarks on this new adventure!
In 2020, for the first time ever, all volunteers of the AGO had an opportunity to vote on a gallery project to support with funds from the Volunteer Endowment Trust (VET). You chose to support research into the Montgomery Collection of Caribbean Photographs, and it’s resulting exhibition. This September, the first exhibit organized by the AGO’s new Department of Arts of Global Africa and the Diaspora presents: Fragments of Epic Memory and we invite you as exhibition sponsors to join us for an online virtual toast on Thursday September 2nd. Please see the invite below and we hope to see you (virtually) then!
All the best, Maya Kotlarenko (she/her) Volunteer President, AGO
Please join us for a virtual toast – including music, remarks and art – as we celebrate the opening of Fragments of Epic Memory along with fellow exhibition supporters!
Fragments of Epic Memory will invite visitors to experience the multiple ways of encountering the Caribbean and its diaspora, from the period following emancipation through today.
The first exhibition organized by the AGO’s new Department of
Arts of Global Africa and the Diaspora, it will blend historical and
contemporary narratives, presenting more than 200 photographs from the AGO’s
Montgomery Collection of Caribbean Photographs alongside paintings, sculpture, and
video works by modern and contemporary Caribbean artists that show how the
region’s histories are constantly revisited and reimagined through artistic
production over time.
Fragments of Epic Memory is curated by Julie Crooks, Curator of Arts of Global Africa and the Diaspora and will feature a new commission by Sandra Brewster and art works by Ebony Patterson, Frank Bowling, and Manuel Mathieu to name just a few.
Back in March, I announced the appointment of Xiaoyu Weng as the AGO’s Carol and Morton Rapp Curator, Modern & Contemporary Art. After navigating the twists and turns of the pandemic as well as US/Canada border restrictions, I am delighted to say that Xiaoyu has finally arrived in Toronto. She starts in her new role today.
Image courtesy of Xiaoyu Weng
Xiaoyu was born and raised in Shanghai,
and holds an MA from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco and a
BA from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. Her curatorial practice
has focused on the impact of identity, globalization and decolonialization, as
well as the intersection of art and technology. She comes to the AGO from the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, where she was an integral part of the
curatorial team for more than five years.
During her time at the Guggenheim, Xiaoyu spearheaded The Robert
H. N. Ho Family Foundation Chinese Art Initiative. In 2018-19, she served as
the Curator of the 5th Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art held in
Yekaterinburg, Russia, transforming a former military factory and an abandoned
theater into dynamic contemporary art spaces. She also recently curated the
shows Miriam Cahn and Claudia Martínez Garay: Ten Thousand Things at
Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing, China; Neither Black / Red / Yellow Nor Woman
at Times Art Center Berlin, Germany; Soft Crash at Galleria d’Arte
Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo, Italy.
Before joining the Guggenheim, Xiaoyu was
Director of Asia Programs at the Kadist Art Foundation, San Francisco and
Paris, where she organized a number of exhibitions and programs. In addition to
her curatorial work, she is an active writer, editor and educator, writing
extensively on contemporary art for various magazines and periodicals.
In
her new position at the AGO, Xiaoyu will lead the Modern &
Contemporary team in creating exceptional art experiences to welcome and grow
diverse local and global audiences and envision new ways to develop the AGO’s
holdings of Modern & Contemporary Art.
Xiaoyu reports to me and will receive
administrative and planning support from Debbie Johnsen, Curatorial
Coordinator, Modern & Contemporary Art.
I am back from a Saskatoon-to-Vancouver family road
trip with stops in Calgary, Banff and Jasper. Western Canada is stunning and
vast – I think I said “wow” about a million times. Each place was so
strikingly different – I feel like I have a better sense of the complexity of
Canada. I highly recommend you visit the Remai and Wanuskewin in Saskatoon if
the opportunity strikes.
Back at the AGO, I couldn’t be prouder of how the team
is doing. Our attendance and revenue numbers are strong and our content is resonating
with our public. Our communications and marketing strategy is working. In
addition to Warhol, the exquisite exhibition Matthew Wong: Blue View
opened last week and in two weeks we welcome Fragments of Epic Memory,
which will be amazing. I have been impressed by both the art and design of the
exhibition. Congratulations to everyone for your incredible work and commitment
to high quality in everything we do.
With fall upon us and a high percentage of the public being vaccinated, Leadership Team is working on a thoughtful plan to start phasing staff back into the building. Again, our top priority will be everyone’s health and safety and we will follow restrictions very carefully to ensure a safe work environment. We might need to pivot if the Delta strain continues to impact case numbers, and we will flex accordingly, but it is time to start planning for a new work environment that has more staff back onsite. This will mean changes to how we work, where we work, and what our work spaces look like. This will happen over a period of time, not overnight, so I appreciate everyone’s patience as we work through a solid and highly considered plan.
We will share all details with you on a regular basis
so nothing will come as a surprise. More to come on this.
Take care and stay safe,
Stephan
Volunteers, please note: the volunteer program remains on hiatus; volunteer re-entry will commence following staff re-entry, as part of the phased plan that is organized by the AGO’s reopening team, following provincial guidelines
Artists-in-Presidents: Transmissions to Power is a series of 21 audio addresses by artists assuming positions of leadership. AGOinsider spoke to Constance Hockaday, the project’s creator, about imagining futures that speak to all.
Presidential portrait of Ravyn Wngz, 2021. Part of Artists-in-Presidents: Transmissions to Power, a project by Constance Hockaday commissioned by The Blackwood. Photo: Jackie Brown.
Artists-in-Presidents: Transmissions to Poweris an ambitious art project presented by the Blackwood, University of Toronto Mississauga, that asks how we can imagine collective futures. Who should be granted the opportunity to lead the masses, especially in times of crisis? How can artists intervene in the outdated models of elite leadership that we have historically inherited and embodied? How can we acknowledge and respond to the complexities of local and global struggles?
Follow the link to read more about the project, and subscribe to the weekly podcast.
Born in 1961 in Kinngait, Nunavut (formerly known as Cape Dorset), Ashoona has been making art for more than 25 years. Like other self-taught Inuit artists living in Kinngait, she learned through observation and mentorship from more experienced artists and Elders at the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative. She follows in the footsteps of both her parents, Kuiga (Kiugak) and Sorosilutu, as well as her grandmother Pitseolak, one of the most world-renowned and celebrated Inuk illustrators. Ashoona began drawing in 1996 and uses pen and ink, coloured pencils and oil sticks, conjuring meticulously detailed and mythical imagery set in her beloved home community.
Now on view on Level 4 of the Gallery, Shuvinai Ashoona: Beyond the Visible features 25 primarily new drawings by the third-generation Inuk artist. Curated by Wanda Nanibush, AGO Curator, Indigenous Art, the exhibition is driven by Ashoona’s confident sense of colour, sure hand and unique vision. Ashoona was awarded the Gershon Iskowitz Prize in 2018, which recognizes and supports artists in Canada. As part of that prize, the AGO invited her to show her work in a solo exhibition.
Ashoona joined Nanibush virtually from Kinngait Studios in Nunavut earlier this summer to discuss select works from the exhibition.
Watch their conversation in full, here via AGOinsider.
Join esteemed art critic Blake Gopnik for a conversation with author and journalist Kate Taylor about his definitive biography of Andy Warhol. In Warhol, Gopnik takes on Andy Warhol in all his depth and dimensions, from his working-class Pittsburgh upbringing as the child of immigrants to his early career in commercial art to his total immersion in the “performance” of being an artist, accompanied by global fame and stardom—and his attempted assassination. In this biography, unprecedented in its scope and detail as well as in its access to Warhol’s archives, Gopnik brings to life a figure who continues to fascinate because of his contradictions.
Blake Gopnik, one of North America’s leading arts writers, has served as art and design critic at Newsweek, and as chief art critic at the Washington Post and Canada’s Globe and Mail.
Kate Taylor was born in France and raised in Ottawa. Her debut novel, Mme Proust and the Kosher Kitchen, won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for best first book (Canada/Caribbean region) and the Toronto Book Award. A recipient of the National Newspaper Award and the Atkinson Fellowship in public policy journalism, she is a long-time contributor to the arts pages of The Globe and Mail, where she currently serves as lead film critic and writes a weekly column about culture. She lives in Toronto.
Andy Warhol: Ladies and Gentlemen
Thursday August 19 at 7pm, with Curator Kenneth Brummel (register, here)
Join curator Kenneth Brummel, art historian Kirstin Ringelberg and artist and activist Ravyn Wngz for a conversation about Warhol’s Ladies and Gentlemen 1975 portrait series of New York’s Latin and African-American drag queens and trans women.
Kenneth Brummel is associate curator, Modern Art at the AGO. Prior to joining the AGO in 2014, Kenneth Brummel held curatorial positions in several major art museums in the United States, including the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City.
Kirstin Ringelberg (they/them) is Professor of Art History in the Department of History and Geography at Elon University. Most recently, Ringelberg co-edited, with Cyle Metzger, the special themed issue New Work in Transgender Art and Visual Culture Studies for the Journal of Visual Culture (August, 2020) and co-authored the introduction, “Prismatic views: a look at the growing field of transgender art and visual culture studies”
Ravyn Wngz “The Black Widow of Burlesque” is a Tanzanian, Bermudian, Mohawk, 2Spirit, Queer and Transcendent empowerment storyteller. She is a co-founder of Black Lives Matter Canada, and on the steering team of Black Lives Matter Toronto Chapter, a group who are committed to eradicating all forms of anti-Black racism, supporting Black healing and liberating Black communities.
Matthew Wong: Blue View opens at the AGO August 13. Ahead of the exhibition, AGOinsider shares the trajectory of this Toronto-born artist’s career and his deeply personal meditations on the mood and colour blue.
What is the colour of solitude? For self-taught painter Matthew Wong, blue seems to be the answer. Matthew Wong:Blue View is the first museum exhibition of the Toronto-born, Chinese-Canadian artist’s work; it goes on view beginning Friday, August 13 for AGO Members and Tuesday, August 17 for Annual Passholders and the public. The show contains 40 works in total: 31 paintings and nine works on paper, all made within the last few years of his life. Organized with the support and guidance of the artist’s family, the exhibition is curated by Julian Cox, AGO Deputy Director & Chief Curator.
Wong was born in 1984 in Toronto. An only child, his childhood and adolescence were split between periods in Hong Kong and Toronto. He attended The York School and went on to graduate from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor with a BA in Cultural Anthropology in 2007. He eventually found his way to photography, prompting him to enroll at the City University of Hong Kong’s School of Creative Media. Although his interest in academia and photography waned during his studies, he graduated with an MFA degree in 2013. His interest shifted towards poetry, drawing and then painting in the years after school; the last two becoming ingrained in his daily routine. Wong taught himself how to paint through research, experimentation and discussions with fellow artists and art world figures.
Like many artists of our digital era, Wong shared his art on social media. He commented on Facebook, posted on Instagram and blogged on Tumblr, quickly attracting the attention of the art world. By 2016, his work was featured in group exhibitions in Hong Kong, China and New York. Further acclaim followed soon after with his self-titled solo debut exhibition at Karma Gallery in 2018. Art critic Jerry Saltz described it as “one of the most impressive solo New York debuts” he had ever seen. In his brief career, Wong spent roughly five years working as an artist, the last three in relative solitude in his Edmonton, Alberta studio.
It’s in this studio, between 2017 and 2019, where he created the works featured in Blue View. The colour blue, shown in its many saturated tonalities, permeates Wong’s compositions of nocturnal landscapes, still lifes and interiors. Building on the painting techniques of an array of his artistic predecessors – Georges Seurat’s Pointillist stipples, Vincent van Gogh’s Post-Impressionist dashes, literati painting’s washes of colour – Wong created a point of view distinctly his own.
“I do believe that there is an inherent loneliness or melancholy to much of contemporary life,” Wong once said when asked about his work, “I feel my work speaks to this quality, in addition to being a reflection of my thoughts, fascinations, and impulses.” Whether the artworks in the Blue series depict real or imagined scenes, they suggest an artist grappling with a deeply melancholic inner life.
Wong died by suicide at age 35 in October 2019. He was diagnosed with clinical depression and Tourette’s syndrome in his childhood and identified as being on the autism spectrum in his adult years, just before his passing. At the unveiling of his posthumous solo exhibition at Karma Gallery in New York, art critic Roberta Smith referred to Wong as “one of the most talented painters of his generation”.
This blog post has been excerpted from the full article on AGOinsider, which you can read here.
Thank you all for your patience while we re-opened the Gallery and Andy Warhol for Members’ and Annual Passholders!
We are excited to provide volunteers with visiting access, a first step in our re-opening plan. In order to continue to having safe operations on site, all tickets, (including those for staff and volunteers) must be booked in advance.
Starting today, volunteers are invited to book any of the following:
2 Special exhibition tickets for Andy Warhol. (There is a maximum of 2 exhibition tickets per volunteer) – one of these tickets will be for you, another for your guest. Warhol tickets include general gallery admission – so feel free to wander and see what’s new in the permanent collection galleries.
Not planning to see Warhol? You can book up to 4 General Admission tickets (I.e. to visit the permanent collection galleries) in one visit. One of these tickets will be for you; and 3 for your guests.
For either option – you do not need to provide the name or contact details of your guests. The booking will be made under your name.
For both options, please:
Call the Contact Centre on 416-979-6608 or email [email protected] and make sure to:
Specify if you are booking ticket(s) for Andy Warhol (which includes General Gallery Admission), or General Admission only
Please include the Date and time you would like to attend
Provide the name and email address for where to email the tickets. (This can be a name other than yours). The tickets will be sent out as PDFs that can be shown on a smartphone or printed in advance of your visit.
Please provide 3 business days’ notice in advance of your visit so we can email you your tickets.
Some to things keep in mind:
You can bring your volunteer badge for discounts in shopAGO or AGO Bistro, but it is not needed for entry into the Gallery. You will not be asked to show your badge along with your ticket, and badges can’t be used to gain entry into the building.You will need to use the main entrance to visit, not Jackman Hall, which is closed. The volunteer lounge also remains closed.
When visiting, please remain in the public areas of the Gallery. The Volunteer Lounge and other back of house areas are restricted at this time for the safety of those who are required to work on-site.
For any Volunteers who have a membership or Annual Pass, we encourage you to continue to use your membership to book your tickets, online, in advance of visiting.
The Contact Centre is busy! We are grateful for your assistance in booking in advance.
We know it’s been a long time; we are looking forward to seeing you!
We are closing in on our second week of re-opening. It
is incredibly gratifying to walk through the galleries and see employees in
person, some whom I have not seen in many months. And it is simply wonderful to
have our public back in the building. Things are going very well and ticket
sales are strong, given the COVID-19 restrictions on how many people can be
onsite. We are carefully following all health protocols.
Also, I am loving grabbing lunch from the Bistro! I am
eating my way through the new menu and enjoying every bite.
Starting tomorrow, I will be taking a two week
vacation with my family. We are going on a road trip – all the way from
Saskatoon to Vancouver! I’ll see you when I’m back at the AGO on August 16th.
