AGO – Art Gallery of Ontario

The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) is an art museum in Toronto’s downtown Grange Park. This art gallery has a collection that includes more than 80,000 works spanning the 1st century to the present day. The gallery has 45,000 square metres of physical space, making it one of the largest galleries in North America. Significant collections include the largest collection of Canadian art, an expansive body of works from the renaissance and the Baroque eras, European art, African and Oceanic art, and a modern and contemporary collection.

The photography collection is a large part of the collection, as well as an extensive drawing and prints collection. The museum contains many significant sculptures, such as the Henry Moore sculpture centre, and represents other forms of art like historic objects, miniatures, frames, books and medieval illuminations, film and video art, graphic art, installations, architecture, and ship models. During the AGO’s history, it has hosted and organized some of the world’s most renowned and significant exhibitions, an continues to do so, to this day.

ROM

The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is a museum of natural history and world culture based in Toronto. It is one of the largest museums in North America, attracting over one million visitors every year. The museum is located in the University of Toronto area just North of Queens Park. With more than six million items and forty galleries, the museum’s diverse collections of world culture and natural history are part of the reasons for its international reputation. The museum contains ntoable collections of dinosaurs, minerals and meteorites, Near Eastern and African art, Art of East Asia, European history, and Canadian History.

10 must-see exhibits at the world’s largest photography festival

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Contact Photography Festival turns Toronto into a de facto art installation. For the next month, subway stations, billboards, retail stores, cafes, and even airport terminals become galleries. In addition larger institutions like the MOCCA and ROM are showcasing more than 1500 artists across 175 venues. Spread across the city, even the savviest art gallery-goer will be overwhelmed. The list of exhibits is so long that TorontoLife.com has narrowed down the list to 10 must-see showpieces to give an insider edge on where to see the most awe-inspiring images. From iconic photographer Michael Snow’s mind-bending new work to the hauntingly poignant photography of up-and-coming artist Jonathan Hobin there is something to see for everyone.

The Viewing of Six New Works
Michael Snow
The city’s most notorious, and arguably most beloved (the AGO houses 82 of his works), art star is showcasing “Viewing of Six New Works,” a recent piece in which a state-of-the-art projector displays six channels of light onto a wall in order to toy with the viewer’s sense of perception. Snow calls it “the art of looking at art.” We call it must-see art from a Toronto legend.

Scotiabank Photography Award Exhibit
Arnaud Maggs
Ryerson Image Centre, 33 Gould St.
The first major public display of Maggs’ work since his death late last year reveals how his subjects got progressively weirder over the years—from shaggy German students and art world luminaries in their dotage to 19th century French carpentry diagrams and the artist himself dressed up as sad sack clown Pierrot.

In The Playroom
Jonathan Hobin
Gladstone Hotel (2nd Floor), 1214 Queen St W.
The controversial exhibit depicts reenactments of serious, often tragic events—9/11, Original Sin and nuclear testing in North Korea—with children as the principal actors. Jarring in theme and captivating in detail, Hobin’s big, bright photos pop with colour. His commentary on modern media is impossible to ignore.

24hrs in Photography
Erik Kessels
Contact Gallery, 80 Spadina Ave 310
Kessels printed all the photos uploaded to Flickr over a 24-period—all one million of them—and collected a subset of 350,000 in a single room. Visitors can wade through the heaping piles, which sprawl like so much detritus in a landfill, experiencing the powerful commentary on the modern obsession with self-documentation.

Forever 27
Jill Furmanovsky, Lucia Graca, Neal Preston, Ken Regan, Ed Sirrs, Philip Townsend and Barrie Wentzell
Analogue Gallery, 673 Queen St W.
A stunning and sobering mix of portraits, candid shots and concert photos of musicians Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse—the “Forever 27 Club.”

44° N 79° W
Natasha Milijasevic, Mario Voltolina, and Patty Zuver
Communication Art Gallery, 209 Harbord Street
From landscapes to documentary photos to abstract images, the trio’s art reflects a profound attention to detail stemming more from loving curiosity than an impulse to record or document. Their work has beenaptly characterized as “visual love poems to Toronto.”

Rivers Forgotten
Jeremy Kai
Tequila Bookworm, 512 Queen St W.
Kai’s eerily beautiful tour of the buried network of rivers, streams and creeks feels like a voyeuristic journey through local urban architectural lore.

Marriage Bureau
Victor Helfand
Aroma Espresso Bar, 500 Bloor St W
Helfand captures couples waiting for the justice of the peace at the Manhattan Marriage Bureau—until security escorted him out. People watching at its best.

Looking forward, looking back
Lynne Cohen
Olga Korper Gallery, 17 Morrow Ave.
Lynne Cohen’s work is creepy, creating the unmistakable feeling that something is watching you. The spooky, powerful images are nerve-rackingly thrilling.

Early Sunday Morning
David Kaufman
Twist Gallery, 1100 Queen St W
A must for architecture buffs (and anyone nostalgic for a time when “brick-and-mortar” was more than just an expression), Kaufman’s exhibit displays the century-old masonry of the brick walk-ups along Queen Street in loving, large-scale detail. The aesthetic is inspired by the Edward Hopper painting of the same name.

TXTilecity

TXTilecity is an interactive project that brings the city to life in stories and memories that show the significant role textiles have played in shaping Toronto’s urban landscape.

Textiles have played a key role in shaping Toronto’s urban landscape, offering a unique lens into the rich history and cultural diversity of this dynamic, multi-faceted city.

Navigate Toronto with TXTilecity – an interactive map that builds community knowledge by drawing together experiences and stories to show the significance of textiles in shaping the city’s social, cultural, economic and architectural terrain. Through this website as well as TXTilecity mobile app, encounter key locations and discover the role of textiles in defining the urban landscape from early garment manufacturing and the performing arts, to the rise of the fashion industry and contemporary design.

Explore some of Toronto’s defining stories, meet some of the city’s greatest characters and experience its diverse history in sites brought to life in audio and video documentary accounts.

June Theatre Guide: What’s on

The Last Confession – Roger Crane’s thriller comes to Toronto following sold out runs at the Chichester Festival Theatre and the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London. The Last Confession delves into the most highly guarded institution in the world to explore the mystery shrouding the sudden death of pope john Paul I in 1978.

Disney’s The Lion King – Until June 15, 2014 at Princess of wales Theatre. Toronto’s most eagerly awaited return leaps onto the Princess of Wales stage this April! Disney’s stage production that brings you a breathtaking spectacle of animals brought to life by award-winning director Julie Taymor. Includes Elton John and Tim Rice’s Oscar-winning song “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” and also “Circle of Life”.

Sixteen Scandals – Until June 30, 2014 at The Second City. The Second City presents their Spring 2014 Mainstage Revue, Sixteen Scandals – strip off the layers of inflated indignation, and unmask the true motivations behind our unhealthy fascination with political train wrecks, media fiascoes, and red-carpet meltdowns.

John Street Cultural Corridor

There are big plans for John Street, as the City and the Toronto Entertainment BIA work to see the street become a “Cultural Corridor” What that means in more concrete terms is that an increase in pedestrian space is on the agenda for the street in an effort to make it something of a destination rather than merely a thoroughfare. In keeping with the approved Environmental Assessment of the street, the first signs of what the transformation might look like are currently on display leading into the summer. The City has recently installed a series of planters along the east side of John between Adelaide and Queen as part of a pilot project to test out how a more pedestrian-friendly design might work.

Somewhat similar to the parklets installed on church street last summer, the infrastructure is currently temporary. The planters will be in place until October 12, and could continue to return on a seasonal basis until full blown construction commences on the Street. This is only a glimpse of the major redesign in store for the street, but it looks promising. The planters are a hell of a lot nicer than bollards and the added space certainly comes in handy during peak times like rush hour and weekend nights when the area swells with foot traffic.