Special Projects 2011

Art Toronto is underpinned by a series of onsite projects contributing to the dialogue on contemporary art. This programming includes curated projects, film screenings, installations and commissioned exhibits.

The Art Game by Kent Monkman
Curated by Steven Loft, The Art Game is a life-size maze, constructed from booth walls identical to the Art Fair itself, takes the audience through an art world “funhouse.” The meandering corridors are made more confusing with the use of double-sided mirrors, trick windows, and fake doors, forcing the audience into a challenging experience of disorientation and multiple choice – not unlike the real art world. Dispersed throughout the maze are four “dioramas”, in the form of four small rooms, each one presenting the four key players in the Art Game: artist, curator/museum director, gallerist, and collector.

Art Toronto gratefully acknowledges the contribution of Pierre-Francois Ouellette art contemporain, Montréal and Caviar20 to The Art Game.

VIDÉOTHÈQUE
VIDÉOTHÈQUE is a dynamic space where visitors can engage with a curated, looped program of videos submitted by Art Toronto participating galleries. Films will be screened daily during public hours.

Open Space
Selected galleries will display large-scale sculpture and installation work in this newly inaugurated project in a dedicated space on-site at the fair.

Collage Party
Curated by Paul Butler, Collage Party is a performative collage-making event that has taken place in cities around the world for over ten years. Over the 4-day period of the fair, the Collage Party will produce objects and situations in a wide-range of media, from complex, mixed-media performance art events to the most sublime, intimate form of cut-and-paste collages using nothing more than mass media publications, scissors and adhesives.

Place
This curatorial initiative explores notions of navigation and mapping – as both a movement through space and a purely conceptual exercise. Curated by William Huffman, Place will introduce two unique artist interventions by Jon Sasaki and An Te Liu along with four self-serve walking tours of Art Toronto, created by Huffman. This presentation is in partnership with Toronto Arts Foundation, Art Dealers Association of Canada and Art Toronto.

Supported by David Angelo, Gillian Hewitt Smith, Kathleen Sharpe and Margaret Zeidler

Canadian Art Now
Storylines: Space, Colour, Geometry
Canadian Art Now returns with another series of exhibitions entitled “Storylines: Space, Colour, Geometry,” focusing on the latest developments in contemporary Canadian art. For the Gala event and Friday the Sobey-Prize-nominated, Winnipeg-based artist Sarah Anne Johnson presents photographs from her recent series “Arctic Wonderland.” On Saturday, a new video work by Montréal artist Adad Hannah, is paired with a selection of recent paintings by the London, Ontario-based painter Patrick Howlett. On Sunday and Monday, the Montréal-based sculptor David Armstrong-Six joins the veteran abstractionist Christian Eckart, who in the coming months opens two new commissioned installations in Toronto and Calgary. A discussion of the art with Canadian Art’s editor Richard Rhodes, takes place at 2:00pm on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Presented by Canadian Art and Richard Rhodes.

Power Talks
28–30 October
Room 204, Metro Toronto Convention Centre (entrance off Front Street West)

For the sixth year running, The Power Plant presents “Power Talks” where influential art-world figures discuss their projects and ideas in the context of Art Toronto 2011.

Trevor Smith
The Museum in the Present Tense
Friday, 28 October, 6 PM
Born in Regina, Trevor Smith is the inaugural Curator of Contemporary Art at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts – the oldest continuously operating museum in the U.S. Previously, Smith was Curator in Residence at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, where he co-curated Wrestle (2006), the inaugural exhibition at the Hessel Museum of Art, and Martin Creed: Feelings (2007), the first large-scale survey of the artist’s work. From 2003–2006 Smith was Curator at the New Museum in New York where he co-curated the acclaimed exhibition Andrea Zittel: Critical Space and presented a major Brian Jungen survey. Most recently, he was a curator of the 2011 Singapore Biennale: Open House. Smith’s talk will reflect on his recent work developing the contemporary program for the Peabody Essex, which seeks to connect historical expression to contemporary experience and to amplify dialogue across cultures.

Ralph Rugoff
Learning from Exhibitions
Saturday, 29 October, 4 PM
Ralph Rugoff is Director of the Hayward Gallery in London. As a curator he has organized numerous exhibitions including The Painting of Modern Life (2007), Psycho Buildings: Artists Take on Architecture (2008) and Ed Ruscha: Fifty Years of Painting (2009). While Director of CCA Wattis in San Francisco from 2000–2006, Rugoff curated such exhibitions as A Brief History of Invisible Art (2005) and Amateurs (2008) and was founding chair of the California College of the Arts' Curatorial Practice Program. He has edited and/or contributed essays to books on artists such as Luc Tuymans, Mike Kelley, David Hammons, Roni Horn, Paul McCarthy, and Raymond Pettibon. In 2006, he was awarded the Ordway Prize for achievement in curating and criticism. Rugoff’s talk will consider his recent curatorial projects and a larger Hayward Gallery program dealing with aspects of the everyday.

Kitty Scott
On Curatorial Intelligence
Sunday, 30 October, 4 PM
Kitty Scott is Director, Visual Arts at The Banff Centre, a post she has held since 2007. Previously she was Chief Curator at the Serpentine Gallery, London, and Curator, Contemporary Art at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Scott has curated exhibitions of artists such as Francis Alÿs, Janet Cardiff, Paul Chan, Peter Doig, Ragnar Kjartansson, Silke Otto-Knapp, Ken Lum, and Ron Terada, and is an agent for dOCUMENTA (13) (2012) in Kassel. In 2010 Scott organized the curatorial symposium Are Curators Unprofessional? at The Banff Centre. She has written extensively on contemporary art for catalogues and journals, as well as the publication Creamier: Contemporary Art in Culture (Phaidon, London, New York, 2010). Scott’s talk will define a notion of curatorial intelligence as well as discuss her involvement with dOCUMENTA (13) and various projects at The Banff Centre and elsewhere.

*Free admission to Power Talks is included with daily Art Toronto admission. Power Talks tickets can also be purchased in advance from the Harbourfront Centre Box Office (416.973.4000) or at the door: $8 Members of The Power Plant, $10 Non-Members, per event. Doors open 15 minutes before the start of each lecture and seating is limited. Art Toronto ticket holders will receive free access to The Power Plant during the fair.