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Abstract Expressionist New York

 Willem de Kooning: Woman I, 1950-1952, oil on canvas, 192.7 x 147.3 cm, The Museum of Modern Art, New York

May 28 – September 4, 2011
Opening: Saturday, May 27
ART GALLERY OF ONTARIO
317 Dundas Street West,
Toronto, ON M5T 1G4
T:416-979-6648
www.ago.net
Hours: Tue & Thurs – Sun 10 – 5:30, Wed 10 – 8:30

Jackson Pollock. Mark Rothko. Robert Motherwell. Joan Mitchell. Franz Kline. Lee Krasner. Willem de Kooning. These are just a few of the legendary 20th-century artists whose artwork is now on view at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) in an unprecedented international exclusive. Abstract Expressionist New York: Masterpieces from The Museum of Modern Art,  and on view until September 4, features more than 100 works from the unparalleled collection of The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) by the legendary artists whose drips, splatters, and fields of incredible colour catapulted New York to the centre of the international art world in the 1950s and changed the course of art history forever.

“We are delighted to be able to share this exhibition with the Art Gallery of Ontario. The Museum of Modern Art has long and deep ties with the AGO, and I, of course, have a very personal one, and I can think of no better exhibition than Abstract Expressionist New York to reaffirm our admiration for what the AGO has achieved over the years, and especially since its reopening in 2008,” says Glenn Lowry, Director of MoMA. “These masterworks reflect MoMA’s preeminent collection of Abstract Expressionism, and include not only the most important and well-known works, but also key works by lesser-known artists such as Norman Lewis and William Baziotes. Taken together they provide an extraordinary overview of Abstract Expressionism in New York and a unique insight into one of the most important American art movements of the 20th century.”

Abstract Expressionist New York is drawn entirely from MoMA’s collection of works by the pioneers of Abstract Expressionism, from its beginnings in the 1940s through its zenith in the 1950s and 1960s. The exhibition features works across a variety of mediums, including painting, sculpture, drawings, and photographs, including 12 era-defining works by Pollock, and multiple works by Rothko, Motherwell, de Kooning, Arshile Gorky, Barnett Newman, Louise Bourgeois, Philip Guston, Adolph Gottlieb, Franz Kline, David Smith, and others.

Abstract Expressionist New York was organized by the curatorial team of Ann Temkin, The Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture; Jodi Hauptman, curator, department of drawings; Sarah Suzuki, The Sue and Eugene Mercy, Jr. Assistant Curator of Prints and Illustrated Books; Sarah Meister, curator, department of photography; Michelle Elligott, museum archivist; Anne Morra, associate curator, and Sally Berger, assistant curator, department of film; and Paulina Pobocha, curatorial assistant, department of painting and sculpture. The AGO’s presentation, curated by former AGO curator of modern and contemporary art David Moos, draws works from MoMA’s wide-ranging presentation, with a focus on the masterworks that epitomize the pivotal moment in modern art history.

National Bank and Metropia are supporting sponsors of Abstract Expressionist New York.

Remains, mixed media on Mylar, 7 x 15ft.

June 22 – July 16, 2011
Opening: June 24, 7-10pm
THE RED HEAD GALLERY
401 Richmond St. W., Suite 115.
Toronto, ON M5V 3A8
T:  416 504-5654.
Email: art@redheadgallery.org.
www.redheadgallery.org.
Hours: Wed – Sa. 12 – 5 pm.

Teri Donovan’s new body of work deals with time and memory and its impact on identity and culture. According to John Lock, there is no identity without memory. It follows therefore, that there is no memory without time.
In this exhibition Teri Donovan focuses on cultural as well as family histories, and incorporates the use of wallpaper as a signifier of temporal context. Parallels are drawn between the repeat patterns of wallpaper and the repetition of personal and cultural histories. These repetitions speak to the long half-life of influence exerted by some histories, alongside the ever increasing speed at which contemporary developments are relegated to the past tense.

June 23 – July 3, 2011 Opening: Thursday, June 23, 7-9pm
GALLERY 1313
Main Gallery1313 QUEEN STREET WEST,
TORONTO, ON M6K 1K8
T: 416 – 536-6778
E mail: director@g1313.org
www.lccatoronto.com or www.g1313.org
Hours: Wed – Sun 1- 6

LCCA PRESENTS A VISUAL ARTS EXHIBITION:
“BEYOND OUR ROOTS” is a Visual Arts Exhibition presented by the Latino Canadian Cultural Association that shows the fusion between the different cultures and roots of the Latin American artists involved and the influence of the multicultural society where they work and reside. The artists’ starting point is their own cultural background and experiences, going through the discovery first, and then the sharing of other cultures, to finally, develop and transform them into a new and original product. 

Curator: Alejandro Freeland

June 10 – 30, 2011
Opening: June 10 5-8pm
art Works art Gallery
238 Jane Street
Toronto, ON M6S 3Z1
T: 416-766-0662
www.artworksartschool.com
Hours: Monday – Saturday 9-5pm

Ideas of these painting come from the artist’s imaginary world. First these images of houses and plants just lived in his mind then he gave them form in clay. He decided later to use them as models for his painting, mixing them with images of nature and underwater plants. Nazmi’s compositions are inspired by the Persian miniatures as well and the outcome is a unique style combining abstraction, figuration and fantasy.

Kathleen Munn, Untitled (female nude in forest setting), around 1923, oil on canvas, 54.5 x 45 cm, Collection of Bernard and Sylvia Ostry, promised gift to the Art Gallery of Ontario, © 2011 Kathleen Munn Estate

June 4 – August 28, 2011
Free tour: July 17, 2pm by curator Georgiana Uhlyarik and artist David Urban
ART GALLERY OF ONTARIO
317 Dundas Street West,
Toronto, ON M5T 1G4
T:416-979-6648
www.ago.net
Hours: Tue & Thurs – Sun 10 – 5:30, Wed 10 – 8:30

“I am very hopeful that my art will be rediscovered again.” – Kathleen Munn, 1974

 The Passion of Kathleen Munn will features nearly 40 works by Munn, including her highly regarded Passion Series drawings, as well as paintings and prints. In addition, the exhibition will be supported by archival material from the AGO’s collection, including sketches, notebooks, diagrams, collages and a custom-made light box.
 
Born in 1887 in Toronto, Kathleen Munn was one of the first Canadian artists to embrace abstraction. Little known yet much admired by fellow artists, Munn studied in New York, and during the 1920s travelled to Europe and exhibited with the Group of Seven. Around 1939, she stopped making art due to family obligations and an unresponsive art public in Toronto. She spent the rest of her life here in relative obscurity, only to be rediscovered a decade after her death in 1974.

Curated by , assistant curator, Canadian art at the AGO, The Passion of Kathleen Munnfocuses on the artist’s work and life and is augmented by important additional loans from private collections as well as archival material. Selected works from the exhibition Kathleen Munn and Lowrie Warrener: The Logic of Nature, the Romance of Space, conceived and organized by Cassandra Getty, form the foundation of the AGO installation. That exhibition has traveled across Canada since 2008, when it first opened at the Art Gallery of Windsor (AGW).

Munn’s landmark works are widely considered to be a group of ten large ink and graphite drawings inspired by scenes from the Passion and Resurrection of Christ that together form The Passion Series. She laboured for a decade, from 1928 to 1939, to produce these intricate final drawings that represent the culmination of Munn’s artistic vision and ambition. A gallery space in the exhibition is devoted exclusively to this series.

“Kathleen Munn is extraordinary in many ways,” explains Uhlyarik. “She created art for art’s sake, was highly meticulous and methodical, and pursued a style and way of thinking about art that was yet to be acknowledged in Canada. Art for her was not a goal to be arrived at, but a way of life.”

A 177-page catalogue titled The Logic of Nature, The Romance of Space: Elements of Canadian Modernist Painting accompanies the exhibition and is published by the Art Gallery of Windsor and the Robert McLaughlin Gallery. The publication includes 80 full-colour illustrations and essays by Uhlyarik and Getty, among others. It is available at shopAGO for $50.

This exhibition is organized and circulated by the Art Gallery of Windsor and supported by the Museum Assistance Program of the Department of Canadian Heritage. The AGO installation is generously supported by Gretchen and Donald Ross.