On a beautiful spring weekend it is fun to walk the city from gallery to gallery. Some of the Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival shows just opened or opening on this weekend. Please look at our suggestions for a gallery walk starting downtown this weekend and ending at the Junction with a lots of opening receptions on Saturday night. Enjoy the shows and have a glass of wine at one of the many openings. Cheers. We would be interested how did you like the shows so please let us know.
98th Annual OCAD University Graduate Exhibition
May 3 – May 6, 2012
OCAD UNIVERSITY
100 McCaul St.
Stepping into OCAD’s main building on May 3rd, a sunny Friday afternoon, I was immediately surrounded by a happy buzzing of young people. They were all over the place, many of them graduating this year and proudly showing their work to friends and relatives. OCAD U’s annual “GradEx” transforms the university’s main building and the acclaimed Sharp Centre for Design into one of Toronto’s largest and most anticipated exhibitions of emerging talent.
Andrew Wright: Penumbra
April 30 – June 29, 2013
Opening Reception: May 3, 6 – 8:30 p.m.
University of Toronto Art Centre
15 King’s College Circle
Andrew Wright, Untitled Photography #4, 2013,Courtesy of the artist and Patrick Mikhail Gallery
Andrew Wright’s explorations of form, light and photographic phenomena come together in the exhibition Penumbra to reveal an unexpected perspective on land, sea, and sky alike. This mid-career survey of works from 2001–13 invites us to reconsider the ways we relate to and visualize the world around us. His rigorous practice intersecting conceptual and traditional forms of art making raises questions about the way we see.
Janieta Eyre: Constructing Mythologies
April 30 – June 29, 2013
Opening Reception: May 3, 6 – 8:30 p.m.
University of Toronto Art Centre Art Lounge
15 King’s College Circle
Janieta Eyre, Burning Cake, from the series Motherhood, 2002
While Eyre’s work is highly constructed, unlike images of women and femininity that we so often encounter in everyday life, she rejects implicit gender roles and offers alternative myths that extend beyond a simple critique. This exhibition features photographs from five different series created by Eyre that focus on constructions of beauty and sexuality in various stages of women’s lives, from girlhood to motherhood.
SCHATZBERG by Jerry Schatzberg
April 29 –June 2, 2013
Opening Reception: May 4, 12 – 6 p.m. Artist present 2 – 4 p.m.
Nikola Rukaj Gallery
384 Eglinton Ave W
Jerry Schatzberg, Andy Warhol
This exhibition highlights the photographic work of Jerry Schatzberg from the 1950s – 70s. Jerry Schatzberg reinvented the conventions of his time. Influenced by New Wave films from Europe, this body of work conveys a cinematic atmosphere with an emphasis on location, wide shots and odd angles to convey action, scale and mood. Through engagement with his notable subjects, he builds character and story through gesture and presence.
In the Playroom: Photographs by Jonathan Hobin
May 2 – 31, 2013
Gladstone Hotel
1214 Queen St W
Jonathan Hobin, Obama Nation 1
Just as children make a game of pretending to be adults as a way to prepare and ultimately take on these roles in later life, so too do they explore things that they hear or see, whether or not they completely understand the magnitude of the event or the implications of their play. Most of the images are very creepy but in an interesting, engaging way.
Collected Shadows / Archive of Modern Conflict
May 2 – June 2, 2013
Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art
952 Queen St W
This year, the museum is exhibiting works from the Archive of Modern Conflict entitled Collected Shadows. The walls are covered with historical photograps, many of them small in size, form as early as 1850’s through WWI and WWII, capturing moments of the Cold War and beyond as well. You will need to spent a lot of time in this show to fully understand and appreciate it. A separate room hostes the installation The Viewing of Six New Works by Michael Snow, a Canadian and internationally renowned artist. The flashing, colored lights inspired a mother and her young daugter to do yoga execises in this room at the opening reception.
Not a photgraphy lover? Go to next door to Edward Day Gallery
NADA SESAR-RAFFAY / FREE FORM
April 18 – May 20, 2013
Edward Day Gallery
952 Queen St West
The viewer is led to believe there is no rhyme or reason to the layered indentions of symbols swimming through, what is first perceived to be, pacifying ponds of refuge.
Please don’t forget to go to the Junction on May 4th, Saturday night between 6 and 9 p.m. since at least ten galleries has Opening Receptions like Telephone Booth Gallery, ArTiculations, Phillipa C. Photography, Eclectic Revival, Agora Cafe, Pandemonium among others. Parkdale would be also very busy with Opening Receptions on this weekend, so put your walking shoes on and go.