130 Commissioners Street

Demolishing the Cooper's Iron & Metal building – a study by Vid Ingelevics and Ryan Walker.

Exhibitions Now Open

10+ exhibitions originally scheduled for May 2020 are now open to the public!

2020 Festival

Reflections on challenges and resilience in a new reality—a message from CONTACT

2020 Online Programs and Exhibitions

New initiatives that adapt and activate this year's Festival including profiles, conversations, screenings and readings.

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Oct 20

Native Art Department International "Bureau of Aes

Native Art Department International
"Bureau of Aesthetics"
#CONTACT2020 Core Exhibition

Mercer Union, a centre for contemporary art
On view by appointment only through Oct 31

"Native Art Department International (NADI) is a long-term collaborative project created and administered by Toronto-based artists Jason Lujan and Maria Hupfield. While Hupfield and Lujan have respective artistic practices, their work together is authored under the designation of NADI, a collective that produces artworks, exhibitions, events, and screenings. Their collaboration employs administrative language in order to frame their area of expertise and responsibility. This strategy provides NADI with greater freedom to contextualize their work on their own terms. As a result, they short-circuit potential expectations and stereotypes built into the name of the collective itself, communicating in terms that are broader than and strengthened by the work of its members and allies.

Working across various platforms, NADI’s projects and exhibitions prioritize kinship, relationality, and non-competition in order to liberate artists, artworks, and aesthetics from classifications ingrained in systems of power and interpretation. Their multidisciplinary practice—comprising performance, sculpture, and video—engages in a collaborative approach to bypass essentialist readings of contemporary artworks and reject reductionist positions projected onto the work of Indigenous cultural producers. Bureau of Aesthetics is comprised of a selection of objects that highlight NADI’s varying methods."

📷 Installation views, Native Art Department International: Bureau of Aesthetics. Mercer Union, 2020. Courtesy the artists. Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid.

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Oct 16

Congratulations to Noah Friebel, Curtiss Randolph,

Congratulations to Noah Friebel, Curtiss Randolph, and Katherine Takpannie - the 2020 winners of the New Generation Photography Award!

1. Noah Friebel, "Before Dusk (detail)", 2019. Archival pigment prints, each panel 101.6 x 76.2 cm

2. Noah Friebel, one of three winners of the New Generation Photography Award. Photo credit: John Wragg

3. Curtiss Randolph, "Hair!," 2018, Chromogenic Print, 85.3 x 106.66 cm

4. Curtiss Randolph, one of three winners of the New Generation Photography Award. Photo credit: Brendan Gore

5. Katherine Takpannie, "I Solemnly Swear That I’m Up To No Good," 2017, Digital Print, 61cm X 91cm

6. Katherine Takpannie, one of three winners of the New Generation Photography Award. Photo credit: Fred Cattroll

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Oct 14

Aaron Jones
"Closed Fist, Open Palm"
#CONTACT2020 Featured Exhibition

Zalucky Contemporary

Final days Fri, Oct 16 and Sat, Oct 17, 1 – 6pm

“There is a particular kind of energy generated within the body; to speak up, to take up more space, to dance without being touched, to ask for more. For me, it builds from within my chest and spreads across my back and down into my hands. It makes my hands shake. This energy, the energy of reaction, is triggered externally by an expectation of a kind of existence I don’t belong to.
.
Aaron Jones’ body of work simmers with the heat of this kind of energy. Bodies and hands on the cusp of reaction radiate through his work; an athlete poised and slick with sweat surrounded by a cheering audience, energy restoration extending from a muscled arm and fists poised to fight. To react is to make a choice to perform an outwardly imposed, predetermined script; to be a loud woman, to be a thug or a thief. All for an audience's convenience, so that the onlookers may pick a favourite, a hero or a villain and treat you accordingly” - @lillianione

📷 Installation views by Toni Hafkenscheid, all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Zalucky Contemporary

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Oct 9

Guillaume Simoneau "MURDER" #CONTACT2020 Featured

Guillaume Simoneau
"MURDER"
#CONTACT2020 Featured Exhibition

Stephen Bulger Gallery
Open by appointment only
Tue–Sat 11am – 5pm

On view now through Oct 17

"'MURDER', by Montreal-based photographer Guillaume Simoneau, is a response to two existing bodies of work—photographs of crows taken by his mother, and the acclaimed photographic series 'Karasu (Ravens)' by Masahisa Fukase."

Installation view photos © Scott Poborsa

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Oct 8

Elisabeth Belliveau "Alone in the house (Still lif

Elisabeth Belliveau
"Alone in the house (Still life with Clarice Lispector)"
#CONTACT2020 Core Exhibition

Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography

On view now through Oct. 24
Wed-Sat 12-5pm

"It wasn’t until she tried reading Clarice Lispector for the second time that the author’s work really resonated with Edmonton-based artist Elisabeth Belliveau. Lispector was a Brazilian avant-garde short story writer and novelist, who began writing in the 1940s. In her narratives, which centre around the lives of women, time does not exist as a linear chronology, but as an almost tangible, flexible material that inconsistently folds into and out of itself. Like Lispector, Belliveau is interested in exploring the pliable nature of time. While Lispector builds her worlds with words, Belliveau creates hers through sculpture, stop-motion animation, and more recently, lenticular prints." - Heather Rigg

Installation view photos by Darren Rigo @raidendingo

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Oct 7

Natalie Wood "Performing Change" #CONTACT2020 Core

Natalie Wood
"Performing Change"
#CONTACT2020 Core Exhibition

John B. Aird Gallery / Charles Street Video

On view now through Oct 30

The exhibition is open by appointment to the public at the John B. Aird Gallery, Wed to Fri, 2-6pm. Please email director@airdgallery.org to make arrangements.

There is also a projection entitled 'Time will Come" that can be viewed outside the front entrance of The Toronto Media Arts Centre, 32 Lisgar St, from Oct 5-31,from 6-9pm. Look in the window, it's above the cafe!

"Performing Change is a survey of lens-based work, participatory performance, and installations made over the last decade by Trinidadian-born, Toronto-based artist Natalie Wood. Positioned across two venues, Wood’s work reflects on the fugitive and the imaginary as forms of resistance to colonialism and slavery’s afterlife. It counters heteronormativity by presenting rarely seen imagery showing intimacy and tenderness between Black women. Using a cinema verité approach, the artist celebrates Black women’s lives and loves."

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Oct 2

It's the final weekend to see selections from Chri

It's the final weekend to see selections from Christina Leslie's exhibition "Absence/Presence: Morant Bay" installed on the fence outside of BAND Gallery. Last chance to see these works is Sunday, October 4! #CONTACT2020

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Sep 25

The Ryerson Image Centre is open to the public! Tw

The Ryerson Image Centre is open to the public! Two #CONTACT2020 Exhibitions are on view now:

🔴 Scotiabank Photography Award: Stephen Waddell (Main Gallery and Salah J. Bachir New Media Wall)

🟢 Ethan Murphy, "Front & Back" (Student Gallery)

🔜Don’t miss Stephen Waddell’s Tanenbaum Lecture, coming up on September 30, 7 pm (ET). In this virtual talk, the Vancouver-based artist will discuss work created over two decades. Link to register in bio at @ricgallery

📷 Installation views © Larissa Issler, Ryerson Image Centre, 2020

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Sep 24

The Koffler Gallery has re-opened to the public! B

The Koffler Gallery has re-opened to the public! Book your visit in advance to see
Carol Sawyer, "The Natalie Brettschneider Archive," a #CONTACT2020 Core Exhibition.

📷 Carol Sawyer, The Natalie Brettschneider Archive, 2000-ongoing (Last Known Photograph of Natalie Brettschneider, Vancouver, 1986), Archival ink jet print from original negative, Gift of Erika Heininger Sawyer, 2002.

@kofflerarts

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Sep 22

New on our website: "130 Commissioners Street," a

New on our website: "130 Commissioners Street," a study by Vid Ingelevics and Ryan Walker.

Produced by Waterfront Toronto and CONTACT in conjunction with the 2020 Public Installation "Framework."

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