Dynamic and contemporary, the works were given by 37 of the society's members. They include watercolours, oil and acrylic paintings, photographs and drawings representing a wide variety of subject matter and styles.

Above: A Harmony in Grey and Yellow, 1897 by Mary Augusta Hiester Reid, OSA. Oil on canvas, 34.3 x 90.2 centimetres. Government of Ontario Art Collection, Archives of Ontario 619739.

The OSA has a long and impressive history of encouraging, supporting and promoting the province’s visual arts community. Founded in Toronto in 1872 by seven artists, the society’s goal was to provide better public access to art and art education. Its first exhibition was held in 1873 and featured 252 works by 22 artists. More than 5,000 people attended the inaugural exhibition.

A strong link between the society and the provincial government was formed at the 1873 exhibition when the government made some of its first art purchases there. Well over 200 years later, works from the OSA are finding homes in the Government of Ontario Art Collection.

Gifted is curated by the Archives of Ontario’s Outreach Officer Stewart Boden, and runs until Oct. 12 in the Helen McClung Exhibit Area at the Archives of Ontario building on 91��ɫ's Keele campus.

Members of the 91��ɫ community are invited to view the exhibit. The Archives is open Monday to Friday, 8:30am to 5pm, Tuesday and Thursday to 8pm, and Saturday, from 10am to 4pm.

For more information, visit the website.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post Gifted: Work by 37 Ontario artists on exhibit at Archives of Ontario appeared first on Research & Innovation.

The exhibition Will Munro: History, Glamour, Magic is about the history that Toronto artist based his work on and the history he was – his glam subjects and the glamorous one he was – and the magic dimension of his last work. Munro, who was a DJ, music promoter, activist, queer community catalyst, and visual artist, died in 2010 of cancer. He was just 35 years old.

To celebrate his legacy, the AGYU opens a major retrospective exhibition this evening from 6 to 9pm with a celebration in the gallery space. All are welcome. The exhibition continues until March 11.

Above: Will Munro: History, Magic, Glamour, installation view, AGYU. Photograph by Cheryl O'Brien, courtesy Art Gallery of 91��ɫ

Will Munro: History, Glamour, Magic  concentrates on the multi-media work Munro produced after graduating from the Ontario College of Art & Design University (OCADU) in 2000, from his first exhibition Boys Do First Aid (2000) to his last, Inside the Solar Temple of the Cosmic Leather Daddy (2010).

It also captures his various signature underwear work (his handcrafted underwear made from heavy metal concert T-shirts); the banners of legendary queer performers such as Klaus Nomi and Leigh Bowery; his stitching collaborations with West Side Stitches Couture Club, Jeremy Laing, and others (which includes the restaging of The Pavilion of Virginia Puff-Paint, his collaboration with Laing made for the AGYU in 2004); his experimental films; the multitude of hand-made silkscreen posters that accompanied his DJ’ing and music promotions at his nightclub venues Vazaleen, Peroxide, No T.O., and Moustache. The dynamic exhibition will be punctuated by a collection of never before seen ephemera and archival material that stitches together the many vibrant activities of this non-stop artist. The exhibition is generously sponsored by Salah Bachir and Jacob Yerex.

Above: Will Munro: History, Glamour, Magic, installation view, AGYU. Photograph by Michael Maranda, courtesy Art Gallery of 91��ɫ

In conjunction with Will Munro: History, Glamour, Magic, AGYU continues to celebrate the legacy of Toronto’s feminist and queer communities with a series of collaborations, specifically commissioned projects and new alliances.

Get on the AGYU Performance Bus

Artist and DJ Syrus Marcus Ware turns the AGYU's Performance Bus into his memory of a circa 2001-2002 Friday night Vazaleen party that was hosted by Munro and artists Miss Barbrafisch and Rawbrt at the Elmocambo. Tonight, gallery guests can ride to the AGYU for the opening reception on a free performance bus departing OCADU at 6pm.

AGYU and the Feminist Art Gallery

An initiative between AGYU, Feminist Art Gallery (FAG) and The Power Plant, CInenova: All Hands on the Archive develops a dialogue between the work in the London-based feminist CInenova film and video collection and Toronto’s long-rooted feminist and queer histories as a means to access, activate and animate.Visit website for more information on the month-long project including: opening night screening on Feb. 3 at The Department, 1389 Dundas Street West at 7pm that has been curated by CInenova Working Group member Emma Hedditch; An Audience of Enablers Cannot Fail sessions at FAG 25 Seaforth Avenue, side gate, on Feb. 4, 11, 18, and 25; and the closing party featuring a commissioned performance by Sharlene Bamboat, and special screening curated by artists GB Jones, Alex McClelland, Leila Pourtavaf, and Lex Vaughn on March 4 in the Gladstone Hotel Ballroom (1214 Queen Street West) starting at 8pm.

People, Power, Magic

In this AGYU “in-reach” project, Toronto artist John Caffery engages queer and trans youth through a direct dialogue with Munro’s ideas and artwork. Caffery was close to the source as a friend and collaborator in the West Side Stitches Couture Club and, like Munro, his practice moves across multiple communities and media, locating his aesthetics and politics in textiles, film, and music (his band is Kids on TV).

This collective, multi-disciplinary program features Caffery working with many members of Munro’s army of lovers – frequent collaborators and friends – including artists Scott Miller Berry, Lorraine Hewitt (aka Coco La Crème), Luis Jacob, Jeremy Laing, and Zavisha, as well as the Toronto Kiki Ballroom Alliance, the recipients of the first annual Spirit of Will Munro Award. People, Power, Magic is dedicated to creating real opportunities for self-expression in order to provide a space for outcasts and freaks to thrive without fear. Program presented in collaboration with Supporting Our Youth (SOY).

The Art Gallery of 91��ɫ is a university-affiliated public non-profit contemporary art gallery supported by 91��ɫ, The Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the City of Toronto through the Toronto Arts Council, and its membership.

The AGYU is located in the Accolade East Building, 4700 Keele Street Toronto. Gallery hours are: Monday to Friday, 10am to 4pm; Wednesday, 10am to 8pm; Sunday from noon–5pm; and closed Saturday. AGYU promotes LGBT positive spaces and experiences and all events are free and open to everyone.

For more information, visit the website.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post Art Gallery of 91��ɫ celebrates the legacy of Toronto artist Will Munro appeared first on Research & Innovation.

The AGYU invites you to "surge out there" as it joins with Raqs Media Collective: technological poets for an India in transition, to present their newest exhibit  Surjection.

Of the current generation of Indian artists, the from New Delhi (Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula, Shuddhabrata Sengupta) are among the best known and most widely exposed in the west – and certainly the most media conscious. Having started as documentary filmmakers, over the past 20 years they have evolved a sophisticated, and sometimes performative, practice that combines film, media, audio and text, all of which draw upon philosophy and political theory, in installations of an unresolved poetics.

Right: Members of the Raqs Media Collective, from left, Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Jeebesh Bagchi and Monica Narula

The Raqs Media Collective exhibition, Surjection, opens with a free public reception tonight, from 6 to 9pm at the Art Gallery of 91��ɫ. The artists will be at the reception.

The collective describes their AGYU exhibition this way: “Raqs Media Collective delights in transposing the plenitude of the incalculable onto the fabric of the ordinary. By counting to infinity, sensing animation in stillness and speaking in the language of silence, Raqs will breathe numbers, figures, proverbs and stories into the galleries of the Art Gallery of 91��ɫ.”

In this exhibition of entirely new work, the artists start with traces that are minimal but that contain great amplitude within them, such as the palm print of Raj Konai – the ancestral trace (from 1859) of the entire history of forensic identification – that hovers over the exhibition. Now animated, this image of a counting hand initiates a series of moves that the viewer animates through the exhibition. At the same time, the viewer witnesses other evolutions in video projection where stillness itself slowly is animated. Surjection begins outside, in AGYU Vitrines and occupies both galleries.

The elements of the exhibition are in a surjective relationship to each other. “Surjection” is a mathematical concept devised by the Bourbaki Group, whereby the elements of one set are applied, transposed, or mapped onto those of another set. Surjection continues until Sunday, Dec. 4.  

Surject yourself onto the Performance Bus

It’s an entirely different experience of numbers and letters on the Bingo Dilemma Bus. The game starts tonight at 6pm sharp when the Performance Bus departs the Ontario College of Art & Design University campus at 100 McCaul St.. Riders gather the clues to the game on the way to the Raqs Media Collective exhibition opening at the AGYU. Artist and game host Oliver Husain will be on the bus calling out the game clues. Performance Bus returns downtown at 9pm.

Math too tough for you? Go back to school with AGYU @ Art Toronto

The AGYU tricks or treats fair patrons with one of its specially commissioned installations featuring Toronto novelist Derek McCormack and Toronto artist Ian Phillips. The haunted schoolhouse is the outcome of an  four-year project supported by the AGYU of H.A.M.S. (Holiday Arts Mail-Order School), which is a correspondence course (for the 1936-1937 school year) devoted to the holiday arts. Hallowe’enologists will be on hand to take your questions and offer demonstrations. Alumni are welcome.  

Virtually AGYU

The surjective relations continue online with the  as independent Toronto curator Su-Ying Lee visits the studio of New 91��ɫ-based artist Alexandre Singh, whom she met in Paris this past summer while travelling in Europe. on her travels through Europe.  

Writing from the ash-filled Grimsvötn sky, Toronto artist counts down the rest of her days in Iceland as she writes about contemporary art and generous helpings of never-ending splendour, mind-blowing sunsets, migratory birds, half-shorn sheep, geothermal pools and more. 

For more information, visit the AGYU website.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post AGYU launches its new season with the Raqs Media Collective appeared first on Research & Innovation.