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Showroom

Photo of volcanic eruption with text that reads

Works by:

Abbas Akhavan, Nadia Belerique, Jeff Bierk, Adrian Blackwell, James Carl, Miles Collyer, Georgia Dickie, Ryan Ferko, Eric Glavin, Maggie Groat, Oliver Husain, Lili Huston-Herterich, Jeremy Jansen, Kelly Jazvac, Will Kwan, Life of a Craphead, Jimmy Limit, Corwyn Lund, Annie MacDonell, Vanessa Maltese, Kelly Mark, John Massey, Niall McLelland, Olia Mischenko, Roula Partheniou, Sandy Plotnikoff, Jon Sasaki, Liana Schmidt, Jennifer Rose Sciarrino, Derek Sullivan, Margaux Williamson, Laurel Woodcock, VSVSVS

close up of a clothing hook with a green wooden geometric object, a multicoloured woven object and purple ribbon. All hanging off pegs.
Metal pieces arranged
Wooden shelf with bottles and jars on shelf

Showroom

How do Toronto artists perceive new social and visual orders brought about by a decade of rapid urban development?

January 21–March 5, 2016

Curated by Sarah Robayo Sheridan

Justina M. Barnicke Gallery
University of Toronto Art Centre

Showroom is a survey exhibition of Toronto works that have emerged within a period of rapid urban development and concomitant transformations in representation of the city. Drawing on the showroom as a flattened ideal of living that is devoid of the nuances of difference, the exhibition considers how textures of the built environment have nevertheless asserted themselves through the works of artists living here and in ways that complicate given knowledge of architecture, place, and the social order. Where real estate rhetoric has appropriated the artist as a benign element in the landscape, Showroom reverses the figure/ground relationship in order to identify particular nodes of production amongst artists currently working in Toronto or associated with its artistic milieu. Showroom furthers our sustained institutional engagement with developing histories of Toronto art and artists and offers the most extensive survey of Toronto works within our combined history of display at the University of Toronto Art Centre/ Justina M. Barnicke Gallery.

Additional Exhibition Resources

Opening Reception

Thursday, January 21, 2016, 6-8pm

Part I: Performance series curated by Life of a Craphead

Saturday, February 6, 2016, 2pm
Sebastian Butt & Charlie Murray, Camille Turner, and Marlo Yarlo

Part II: Performance series curated by Life of a Craphead

Saturday, 5 March, 2016, 2pm
Randy Gagne, Liz Peterson, and Zoe Solomon
Receptions in the UTAC lounge following each performance.

Panel Talk

Art and Artists in Toronto
Thursday, March 3, 6pm
Featuring Barbara Fischer, Sarah Robayo Sheridan and Luis Jacob
University of Toronto Art Centre

Curator’s Tour: Sarah Robayo Sheridan

Thursday, February 11, 2016, 6pm
Tour will start at the University of Toronto Art Centre

Our Supporters

We gratefully acknowledge the operating support from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, with additional project support from the Hal Jackman Foundation, Partners in Art, Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts, Manulife, TD Insurance, and MBNA.

Title Image: Laurel Woodcock, Skyline, 2013. Blue neon. Courtesy of the artist and MKG12.

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