ENACTING EMANCIPATION: James Luna, Emily Jacir, Erica Lord, John Halaka. Curated by Tannis Nielsen and Vicky Moufawad-Paul.
The opening includes artist panel discussion 4-5pm, and performance of Artifact Piece, Revisited, by Erica Lord.
When engaging with the similarity of colonial oppression between the Indigenous peoples of North America and Palestine, the late Edward Said stated that the task at hand was “to universalize the crisis, to give greater human scope to what a particular race or nation suffered, to associate that experience with the suffering of others.” Enacting Emancipation was born from this intention.
This study of the interconnectedness of the First Nations and Palestinian experience was inspired by the sixtieth-year memorial of the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe of 1948). The exhibition unravels a universal and international system of colonial technique and strategy, while remaining fully cognizant of the dangers in homogenizing resistant cultures. The curators sought contrast in defining strategies of resistance, which elucidated the fact that the differences of defense were culturally based and inheritably Indigenous.
Together the artists in this exhibition - James Luna, Emily Jacir, Erica Lord, and John Halaka - signify the individualized experiences of Fourth World peoples who have been stripped of context, denied distinction, and disenfranchised from traditional territories. Together they present an immediacy of need in defending land and citizenry, the recognition of sovereignty, and their personal engagements in the quest for freedom.

Greg Angus: The Way Things Are. Greg Angus presents a series of recent paintings. These vibrant, dynamic works are presented on an intimate scale that invite the viewer to contemplation and reflection.

Sculpture Supernova highlights innovative "plasticians" from Berlin, Brussels, Buenos Aires, Calcutta, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rio, Toronto, and Winnipeg. This international group showcases the drastic changes that have occurred within the sculptural medium over the past decade. Unprecedented material and new forms structure this rare and exciting exhibition, while surveying some of today's best young working sculptors. The stuffed plastic animal-like figures by Jon Pylypchuk take a closer look at material and figurative treatment. Complete with representation of monstrously sharp, yellow fangs, Pylypchuk humorously diffuses the bizarre scene with his choice of medium. As the celebration of Artcore's tenth anniversary concludes this September, we take this thrilling opportunity to share with the public our discoveries in the third dimension. Works by Rina Banerjee, Julia Bornefeld, Nicola Costantino, Berlinde De Bruyckere, Riccardo De Marchi, Anne Ferrer, Steve Gibson, Iris Kettner, Jarbas Lopes, Dennis Oppenheim, Evan Penny, Julius Popp, Jon Pylypchuk and Max Streicher.

William McElcheran. Private exhibition of seven sculptures in the Project Room.

Kelly Richardson – Twilight Avenger. Birch Libralato is debuting Kelly Richardson's video installation, Twilight Avenger, and an additional series of new photographs. These new works elicit the language of cinema to create fantastical tableaux reflecting split realities: part real, part imagined.

Ted Tucker and Rory Dean. New paintings.

Ryoko Suzuki: Anikora -Seifuku. These works are highly constructed, digital images that critique the designated social roles of women in contemporary Japan. The artist's face is superimposed over a variety of popular Japanese dolls; the images are larger than life to create humorous but uncanny images.
Chad Gerth: Empty Lots is an installation of photographs that explores the intricacies of urban and human landscapes through images of abandoned parking lots slowly being reclaimed by nature. Made in Gerth's hometown of Chicago, these images represent the contemporary city not through its distinctive skyline but through the flatness of its terrain and the common yet unremarkable areas that exist in any city.
Marc Séguin: Roadkill. Comprised of large-scale, figurative oil paintings, these new works explore the communicative potential of traditional artistic methods and incorporate entirely original found material - the titular roadkill is actual roadkill - to create strange, haunting images. 

A Mix of Gallery Artists with some New Introductions.
A changing exhibition that recaps the last exhibition year and introduces some new talent (West Gallery).

Judith Graham: Impressions: recent ceramics and calligraphy.
Judith's work in clay has been influenced by her extensive travels in the Far East and in the American Southwest. Buildings, abodes and unusual structures are the impetus for a highly personal body of architectural-like ceramics. Her works on paper are informed by over fifteen years of studying Japanese calligraphy. (East Gallery).

Avalon. Works inspired by the most easterly peninsula in Newfoundland. New seascapes by Toronto artists David Bolduc (Biscay Bay), Elzbieta Krawecka, Erica Shuttleworth (Pouch Cove), & "remembered landscapes" by NL native Shirley Dean.
Hours: Fri, Sat & Sun 12-5pm June 7- 22; by appt in July.

Appropos. Curated by Kelly McCray.
Over the years, through the ever changing landscape of image production, artists have had to navigate the turbulent chaos of copyright legislation. It appears that with recent Federal attempts to update the Copyright Act, the confusion surrounding the terrain of image production may become braided with knots. On June 12, 2008, the initial digital stages of The Act to Amend the Copyright Act began with Canada's Conservative Government's introduction of Bill C-61, by Minister of Industry, Jim Prentice. Harper's Government proposes that the bill will balance the rights of copyright holders and consumers. Critics warn that we may become a police state. Contemporary visual artists and the use of appropriated imagery will undoubtedly be caught in the crossfire. Bill C-61 prohibits circumventing digital locks or removing Technical Protection Measures (TPM's) on software of digital media. Most media conglomerates are currently initiating digital locks, ensuring complete control over media that is purchased, rented or downloaded.
The locks will prevent artistic, legitimate and legal uses of media. The Appropriation Art Coalition, a coalition of art professionals across Canada opposes Bill C-61, advocating that if the new legislation is passed, it will make it "illegal to access existing material, modify it, comment on it and / or publicly display it. Criticism, parody and satire, under Bill C-61 become criminal acts." A National Post comments reader, GeofG, suggests that since the Bill prohibits circumventing digital locks, "taking a clip from DVD for purposes of parody or political criticism is outlawed; unlocking your cell phone is banned - as is watching overseas DVD's". Another response to the Bill from Dala concludes that "A future with digital locks is one where works go into the Disney vault and never come out again".
The Appropos group exhibition is based on the work of artists whose use of imagery integrates existing popular culture products / icons. One of the purposes of the exhibition is to emphasize the crucial relevance of appropriation to contemporary visual artists and their studio practice. As revisions to Copyright Act legislation, known as the Act to Amend the Copyright Act, are currently underway by the Canadian Government, there are valid concerns that the elements of contemporary artistic practice such as appropriation and "quoting" could potentially be outlawed by draconian legislation.
Artists: John Abrams (represented by Paul Petro Contemporary Art, Toronto)
Dawolu Jabari Anderson (represented by Ingalls & Associates, Miami FL)
Sadko Hadzihasanovic (represented by Paul Petro Contemporary Art, Toronto)
Andrew Harwood (represented by Paul Petro Contemporary Art, Toronto)
G B Jones (represented by Paul Petro Contemporary Art, Toronto)
Dan Kennedy (represented by Edward Day Gallery, Toronto)
Ai Kijima (represented by Franklin Parrash Gallery, New York)
Suzy Lake (represented by Paul Petro Contemporary Art, Toronto)
John Oswald (represented by Edward Day Gallery, Toronto)
Diana Thorneycroft (represented by Art Mûr, Montreal, and Michael Gibson Gallery, London ON)
Daryl Vocat (Art Metropole).

Liana Russwurm: Girlie.

Summer Salon 2. See mixed-media works by Celine Cimon, Susan Fothergill, Christy Haldane, John Climenhage, Nancy DeBoni, Izek Levy, Chung-Im Kim, Gerardo Ramirez and others. Presented in association with Wellington-Cooke Gallery and Pentimento Fine Art Gallery.

Keith Wood. For July, Gallery at 129 Ossington is pleased to have a solo exhibition by abstract encaustic painter Keith Wood from Winnipeg. Light is a key element of Wood's work. Taking advantage of the attributes of the medium he works in transparent layers. Unlike oil or acrylic, the added pigment is suspended in the molten wax as opposed to being emulsified. The refraction of light through the layers of wax creates the appearance of light coming from within the work.

Rosana Simonassi: Afueras. Gallery TPW is pleased to present Afueras, an installation of photographic projections by Argentine artist Rosana Simonassi.
Simonassi's practice has taken her into the uncultivated landscape of many countries. Afueras, loosely translated as "outskirts", is a body of images taken in the central and northeastern territories of Argentina. Transforming the gallery through large-scale and ghostly projections, Simonassi's nocturnal scenes seem at once both alien and open to all possibility.
Simonassi was born in 1974 and lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She graduated from the Universidad del Cine, Faculty of Cinematography in 1998. As a photographer and filmmaker she has exhibited her work internationally with recent exhibitions at: Plume Galerie, Paris; Diagonale, Centre des Arts et des Fibres du Québec, Montreal; National Hall of Visual Arts, and arteXarte Gallery, Buenos Aires.
An essay by Florencio Noceti accompanies the exhibition.

The PRINT Show: 5th Annual Juried Exhibition. Jurors: Vicki Cowan, Cybèle Young.

Stories, in pieces. Curated by Aileen Burns, the exhibition brings together works from Toronto and Vancouver by artists Geoffrey Farmer, Curtis Grahauer & Kara Uzelman, Liz Knox, Myfanwy MacLeod, and Jon Sasaki.
Stories are told in many ways and for infinitely diverse reasons. They pass history and culture between generations, serve as cautionary tales, inspire innovation and adventure, convey news items, communicate personal experience, or provide a much-needed escape from reality. A number of recent contemporary art exhibitions examine possible reasons for the resurgence of narrative in visual art. Artists are reformulating tales of past events from personal perspectives, in order to reclaim and diversify history. They comment on pertinent global issues like ecology, or create psychedelic, alternate worlds that provide fresh perspectives on, or whimsical escape from, the realities of the contemporary moment. Whatever the goal of a particular story, narratives are constructions that follow familiar patterns, and draw on culturally ingrained expectations.
Artists Geoffrey Farmer, Curtis Grahauer & Kara Uzelman, Liz Knox, Myfanwy MacLeod, and Jon Sasaki, create stories through means specific to visual art. The visual and audio cues of their work call on the viewer to engage in narrative processes. This dynamic form of narration contrasts with more linear, predetermined stories that unfold before a viewer, reader, or listener, while watching a film or reading a book. Through their open and suggestive constructions, the works allow viewers to draw on their own associations, memories, or archive of stories, to develop narrative readings of the work. The viewer becomes the causal agent, narrator, or protagonist, and contributes to the essential temporal component of storytelling. A dynamic engagement with the various elements of each piece is integral to the formation of a story.

Michael Laube.

ECNALG: Backward glance. Lindsay Lehman, Margie MacDonald, Megan Morgan, Bridget Rowe, Julie Vetro. Featuring the work of 5 female emerging artists in a variety of media ranging from photography, painting to sculpture.

Summer exhibition: Bad Dog, No Biscuit.

Tanya Cunnington: Passed in the Stuck. Urban landscapes broken down into pure visual abstraction through the use of mixed media collage. Cunnington hopes to achieve something nostalgic with her art; a yearning for, or a memory of, a time past and irrecoverable.
Elizabeth D'Agostino: under leaf and log. Components familiar with various landscapes and specific facets of nature interwoven into new settings through printmaking. Documenting details of growth, drawn up through imagination, producing new oddities of growth, complex root forms and hybridized forms of nature.

Damn Your Eyes: the infinite dimension of sound.
Darren Copeland (Canada), Walter Kitundu (USA), Emmanuel Madan (Canada), Matmos (USA), raster-noton (Germany), Tara Rodgers (Canada) and [The User] (Canada). Curated by Camilla Singh.
Wade your way out of the heavy summer city air and into the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art to hear the exhibition Damn Your Eyes: the infinite dimension of sound. A departure from visually oriented presentations of contemporary art, this exhibition features spaces forged to contain and combine sonic artworks.
On your path from the gallery door to its farthest reaches, you will encounter a series of transitional environments marked by extremes of light and dark, open seated space and stark enclosures. Works are presented in three distinct formats: a four-channel installation, a stereo sound booth and theatrically set headphone stations. Sound is experienced in isolation or in the company of others. As one piece is exited another is entered, an interstitial conflation of programs occurs. The setting is conducive to leisure and devised for repeat visits. The exhibition holds its mass in our aural anatomies.
Sound art related publications are provided by Pages Bookstore in Toronto (www.pagesbooks.ca).

Sarah Peebles, Rob King, Anne Barros and Robert Cruickshank: Resonating Bodies - Bumble Domicile (part 1).
Resonating Bodies is a series of mixed media installations and community outreach projects that focus on the biodiversity of pollinators indigenous to the natural and urban ecosystems of the Greater Toronto Area. Bumble Domicile (part 1) highlights the distinct features of bumble bees through an observation hive, adjacent garden, visual and audio transformations, scent, touch, and biological information. Co-presented by InterAccess and New Adventures in Sound Art (www.naisa.ca). Details at www.interaccess.org.
Talk: Sat 12 July, 7pm: "The Forgotten Pollinators" by Dr Stephen L Buchmann, author / researcher (U-AZ, Tucson), will be held at InterAccess, 9 Ossington Avenue (at Queen), Toronto.

O'Connor Gallery's permanent Inuit Gallery offers a broad selection of high-quality work from renowned artists such as Lucy Tasseor and Nuna Parr.

Tim Whiten. Up, Down, In-Between. Mixed media.

Ulysses Castellanos. Photo-based work & performance.
Gareth Lichty. Installation.

Marjolyn van der Hart's paintings are for lovers of romance and beauty, and are reminiscent of an impressionist style. A further selection of artwork by van der Hart is on exhibit at Petroff Gallery at 1016 Eglinton Avenue West, Toronto, June 3-July 15.

Not Quite How I Remember It.
Diane Borsato (Canada) / Gerard Byrne (Ireland) / Nancy Davenport (Canada) / Felix Gmelin (Sweden) / Sharon Hayes (USA) / Mary Kelly (USA) / Nestor Kruger (Canada) / Michael Maranda (Canada) / Olivia Plender (UK) / Walid Raad (Lebanon / USA) / Dario Robleto (USA) / Michael Stevenson (New Zealand) / Kelley Walker (USA).
Curated by Helena Reckitt, Senior Curator of Programs.
Highlighting forms of re-enactment and reconstruction, Not Quite How I Remember It combines the work of Canadian and international artists to investigate how we channel, mediate and memorialize history. Through projects that reanimate and recreate iconic and obscure events, cultural artifacts and artworks, the exhibition explores the anachronistic place of the past within the present. Works in the exhibition, in a range of media including photography, film / video, performance, as well as object-based sculpture and installation, build on modernist strategies of montage and appropriation as well as cultural practices of sampling and remixing. While some projects evoke specific events – sometimes with an uncanny degree of literalism – others delve into broad themes of mimicry and mimesis in everyday life to think about how we negotiate our cultural inheritance. Recognizing the slippage between fiction and documentary which underlie all historical accounts, they treat the past as a work-in-progress. In so doing, they throw light on timely issues of authorship, ownership, subjectivity, identification, influence, and collectivity.
The exhibition is accompanied by a new publication with essays by Johanna Burton and Helena Reckitt.
Not Quite How I Remember It is generously supported by exhibition donors Gail Drummond & Robert Dorrance, Liza Mauer, Margaret McNee, Gerald Sheff & Shanitha Kachan, and Nancy Beal Young.

SATURDAY PLAYLIST. Relax at our lakeside listening lounge and enjoy an exclusive mix of eclectic music selected by a different artist every Saturday from 28 June through to the end of our summer exhibition. FREE.
June 28: Nestor Krüger is a Toronto artist whose work is included in the current exhibition, Not Quite How I Remember It. He teaches sculpture and drawing at the University of Guelph.
July 5: Adam Harrison is a Vancouver-based artist working principally in photography. He also co-curates CSA Space, a self-funded, independent project space.
July 12: Matthew Higgs is the Director and Chief Curator of White Columns, New York's oldest alternative art space. In Northern England in the late 1970s he published the fanzine Photophobia and occasionally promoted concerts in his home town of Chorley. In January 1981, aged 16, he organized one of New Order's first concerts, and has been organizing things ever since.
July 19: Toronto's Dean Baldwin is represented by Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Art Projects. He likes a nice Brandy Alexander on a cool winter's night.
July 26: Kelly Mark is a Toronto artist who works in a variety of media including drawing, sculpture, photography, installation, sound, multiples, video, and public interventions. She is represented by Wynick / Tuck Gallery, Tracey Lawrence Gallery and Paul Conway Editions.
Aug 2: Dario Robleto is based in San Antonio, Texas, and is a participating artist in Not Quite How I Remember It.
Aug 9: Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard are artists who have collaborated since the early nineties. Their projects embrace live performance, music, film, and video. They are currently working on video series with Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.
Aug 16: Nicholas Pye and Sheila Pye maintain an active, collaborative art practice which integrates their collective interests in performance, cinema and large-format photography.
Aug 23: Instant Coffee is a service-oriented artists' collective based in Toronto and Vancouver. IC has declared this THE YEAR OF BRIGHT DAYS.
Aug 30: The final SATURDAY PLAYLIST of the summer features music selected by The Power Plant's Animateurs.

SUNDAY SCENE. Speakers from the world of art and beyond offer their responses to the current exhibitions, sometimes focusing on a single work or artist, at others relating our programs to cultural and intellectual debate. FREE.
June 8: Kerri Reid. Born in Vancouver and now based in Toronto, Reid has participated in exhibitions in Lethbridge, Vancouver, and Toronto and has a solo show currently on view at Montreal's Centre des arts actuels Skol.
June 15: Lisa Deanne Smith, artist, educator and mother, will be exhibiting this summer at Toronto's Convenience Gallery and teaches at Ontario College of Art & Design.
June 22: Laurel Woodcock is an artist with a playfully conceptual practice that culls from colloquial language and takes on many forms. Some of her editions are available through Jessica Bradley Art + Projects. She teaches at the University of Guelph.
June 29: Nina Levitt's photographic and media practice ranges from resurrecting lesbian pulp novel covers, to recent video installations about women in space, to her current obsession with women spies.
July 6: Cheryl Sourkes is a photo and time-based digital artist based in Toronto and Manchester, UK. She curates Toronto's akau project space for pure pleasure.
July 13: Zin Taylor is an artist based in Toronto. He is represented by Isabella Bortolozzi Galerie, Berlin and Jessica Bradley Art + Projects, Toronto.
July 20: Andrea Carson. An art writer and curator based in Toronto, Carson's writing appears in Canadian and international publications. She is founder and publisher of the online resource, View on Canadian Art.
July 27: Alexandra Fraser & Eva Kolcze. Alexandra Fraser holds a degree in Art History from the University of British Columbia. Her scholarly interests lie at the crossroads of art education, museum studies and cultural politics in both modern and contemporary contexts. Video and installation artist Eva Kolcze graduated from the Integrated Media Program at OCAD. Both are Curatorial Interns at The Power Plant.

Watercolours in Laking Garden, Revisited. PRIME Gallery is pleased to exhibit the watercolour works of Margaret Best, Milly Acharya, Julia Harris, and introducing Carman Roberts. Originally exhibited as part of the Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington, these artists are exhibiting new works for this Gallery exhibition.

Whole Gallery - 01000100 01101001 01100101 01101001 01110100 01110011 [digits]. Group exhibition. Crossover digital art. For decades photography was not considered to be an artistic endeavour. Digital art is in a similar situation today. [digits] features crossover digital imaging, the integration of digital and classical art expression (i.e. drawing and painting etc.), toward a creation completely created in a virtual world or something yet unknown.

Darwin: The Evolution Revolution. Garfield Weston Exhibition Hall.

Shanghai Kaleidoscope. Institute for Contemporary Culture.

Shanghai 1860-1949: Historical Photographs. Herman Herzog Levy Gallery.

Peter Powning. Seeking Balance: Sculpture and Photography
Sandra Ainsley Gallery presents a solo exhibition featuring the sculpture and photography of New Brunswick artist, Peter Powning. Using a range of materials for his work, the artist presents a cohesive exhibition of large-scale outdoor sculpture and pedestal-sized pieces in bronze, stone, glass and steel complemented by his sensuous photographic Waterbook series. Winner of the 2006 Saidye Bronfman Award (now part of the Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts), Canada's foremost distinction for excellence in the fine crafts, Powning is an internationally renowned artist in full stride.

ENLIGHTENED – An action sports photography contest with winners highlighted using 2'x3' light boxes. Photographers from around the globe capture the marriage of sport and art with an explosive display of inspiration and dedication by both athletes and the artists.

Robert Giard: Portraits, Nudes and Landscapes.
The gallery's first exhibition as representative for the Estate of Robert Giard (American, 1939-2002) will feature a key selection of vintage works from three genres: landscapes of the South Fork of Long Island, portraits of artists and writers, and the nude figure.
Beginning in 1972, Giard photographed "The Hamptons" when many of the fashionable houses were boarded up for the season. With the region largely depopulated, the surrounding grounds assumed for him "a mysterious, even somewhat sinister air."
His studies of the nude are less a classical and idealizing rendering of form than they are a description of a specific person. He felt that "rather than being examples of "the Nude", they are "pictures of people who are naked."
Ultimately, Giard's career made its most indelible mark in the area of portraiture. Synthesizing his life-long interest in literature and his involvement in gay issues, Giard set about documenting in straightforward, unadorned, yet sometimes witty and playful portraits, a broad representation of literary figures. His archive of portraits includes such iconic figures as Edward Albee, Allen Ginsberg and Adrienne Rich as well as then emerging novelists such as Sapphire, David Leavitt, Shay Youngblood, and Michael Cunningham.
His work is in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery, the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, the San Francisco Public Library, the Brooklyn Museum, and the renowned Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.
Giard's work will also be featured in the concurrent exhibition QUEER CANLIT: Canadian lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (lgbt) literature in English, at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, June 12-Aug 29, 2008.

Studio 1234 is one of Toronto's newest galleries located in the west end of the city.

Group show. Paintings of Various Artists - Still Life.

Sculpture by Susan Valyi. Susan Valyi's art is a product of personal reflection on her visual memories. Her current work explores metamorphic human / animal postures that are both anthropomorphic and mythical.

Paintings by Soheila Esfahani. Born in Tehran, Esfahani moved to Canada in 1992. Esfahani's paintings incorporate elements of graceful Persian script in compositions which synthesize her traditional roots with western abstract artistic influences. Her paintings explore the shapes and negative spaces defined by text and text-like calligraphy and pose questions about the interpretation of both text and image.

The Battleground Project. Curated by Max Allen.
Battleground: War Rugs from Afghanistan. The terror of bombs falling from the sky and land mines exploding from the earth is revealed in Battleground. During three decades of international and internal wars, Afghans have borne witness to disaster by weaving unprecedented images of battle and weaponry into their rugs. This exhibition presents 120 rugs that tell the story of the Afghan world turned upside down.
Patches: Military Uniform Insignia. Soldiers wear patches on their uniforms to identify their fighting units. These woven and embroidered insignia are often beautifully designed and reflect each unit's specialty and battlefield history. Some of the patches, with their drawings of weaponry, are a key image-source for the Afghan war rugs exhibited in Battleground. In addition, there are unofficial "off-duty" patches that brag about military prowess or express a loathing for the enemy.
The Kandahar Journals of Richard Johnson. Artist Richard Johnson spent two months last summer in Afghanistan. He lived with Canadian troops in and around Kandahar, documenting what he saw in words and sketches. His celebrated pictorial reports for The National Post are a record of military life and the relationship between Afghans and Canadians. The Kandahar Journals presents a selection of Richard Johnson's original drawings and diaries from Afghanistan.
Media sponsor: The National Post
Generously supported by: 61 friends of the Museum through the Global Threads campaign.

Close to You: Contemporary Textiles, Intimacy and Popular Culture. Curated by Sarah Quinton, Close to You examines the use of idioms and images from popular culture in the work of five artists from Canada and the United States. Using craft as the medium, Ai Kijima, Scott Kildall, Allyson Mitchell, Mark Newport and Michèle Provost explore mass media messages about popular myth, comic book heroics and contemporary social and sexual customs. They critique these mass-mediated ideals, scripted gender roles and mass production through mechanically reproduced images or music, or by inserting themselves into humourous and revealing scenarios.
Generously supported by: The Anne Angus Contemporary Program Fund, and Imperial Tobacco Canada Foundation.

Join curator Max Allen in the galleries for a discussion of Battleground. Free with admission.

Summer Term: July 2-August 22. Summer discount ends June 6th.

Mushroom Studio: Katie Bethune-Leamen. The artist has created a studio space in the stem of her 20'-high model of an Amanita Pantherina mushroom. Periodically, the artist will be in residence, busy at work, and inviting interaction with visitors; at other times it will be empty, but lit from within. This artwork, which is a site in which to create more artworks, poses the pragmatic questions about the usability of art and the ability of artists to live through their art.

Kim Ondaatje: Paintings 1950-1975
Kim Ondaatje produced a unique body of work. Committing herself to painting full-time by the early 1960s, Ondaatje later became an award-winning printmaker, directed two art films and three documentaries, and published three books of photography. Early in her career, in the 1960s, Ondaatje helped found and develop CAR/FAC (Canadian Artists Representation / Front des artistes canadiens), with fellow London-based artists Jack Chambers and Tony Urquhart.

40: Rotating Gallery Artists Exhibition. Celebrating 40 Years!

Z GALLERY: BETWEEN US - A TORONTO / VANCOUVER EXCHANGE.
Alissa Firth-Eagland and Johan Lundh, curators.
An experimentally curated group project that invites six artists to participate as key contributors to and creators of a national dialogue between the cities of Toronto (ON) and Vancouver (BC). The project is comprised of three editions of double-sided posters, available free of charge throughout the exhibitions. The second part of the exhibition will take place at the Western Front in Vancouver (Fall 2008). The posters will continue to be distributed after the exhibitions close. The following artists have collaboratively conceptualized and crafted one poster in a long distance dialogue: Luis Jacob (Toronto) and Paul de Guzman (Vancouver), Will Kwan (Toronto) and Kristina Lee Podesva (Vancouver), Fedora Romita (Toronto) and Sara Mameni (Vancouver).
Born in Manila, the Philippines, where he studied Engineering, Paul de Guzman immigrated to Canada in 1986 and currently lives and works in Vancouver. He is a self-taught artist. Some recent exhibitions in Canada include shows at the Dalhousie Art Gallery in Halifax, the Kenderdine Art Gallery at the University of Saskatchewan, The Art Gallery of Windsor, The Vancouver Art Gallery and The Art Gallery of Ontario; and in New York at Kinz Tillou + Feigen, Hofstra University Museum, New General Catalog, and apexart; and internationally at Galerie Markus Richter in Berlin, Galerie Dominique Fiat in Paris and Transit - aktuele kunst in Antwerp.
Alissa Firth-Eagland is an interdisciplinary artist-curator who works in and between video, publication, web-based research, sound, performance, public intervention, installation and gallery exhibition. She has coordinated projects for organizations such as the TRANZ<--->TECH 2003 Toronto International Media Art Biennial, Fado Performance Inc in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Cultural Human Resources Canada, the Walter Phillips Gallery at the Banff Centre, the first annual Toronto Alternative Arts Fair International 2004, and the Images Festival of Independent Film and Video. She is the Director / Curator of Western Front Media Arts in Vancouver, Canada.
Luis Jacob is an artist, curator, educator, writer, organizer and activist whose practice challenges categorization. His art production alone manifests itself as photography, sculpture, performance, artist multiples, public intervention, video and installation. Jacob's pursuits are varied, but all are unified by his thoughtful concern for the philosophical and cultural possibilities of social interaction.
Will Kwan was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Toronto. He received an MFA from the School of Arts at Columbia University in 2004 and was, between 2005 and 2007, a researcher in visual art at the Jan Van Eyck Akademie in Maastricht, The Netherlands. His projects have been presented internationally in venues including P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center (New York), the Venice Biennale in 2003, Art in General (New York), Exit Art (New York), Artist House (Leeds), Contemporary Art Center (Vilnius, LT), and Cittàdellarte-Fondazione Pistoletto (Biella, IT). His single-channel media works have been exhibited and screened in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, New York, and Berlin.
Kristina Lee Podesva is an artist based in Vancouver, Canada. She is the founder of Colourschool, a free school within a school dedicated to the speculative study of five colours: white, black, red, yellow, and brown. The initial project, which opened in her studio at the Univ of British Columbia in Nov 2006, attempts to develop a critical colour consciousness through a variety of collaborative activities including roundtable discussions, film screenings, artists' talks, listening labs, lectures, residencies, performances, slideshows, and social events. She is also an editor at The Fillip Review and co-founder of Cornershop Projects, an alternative art site that aims to explore the critical nuances of traditional and non-traditional economic models.
Johan Lundh is an artist, curator and writer, splitting his time between Stockholm, Sweden, and Vancouver, Canada. Deeply rooted in analytical and dialogue-based approaches, his practice poses questions about creative methodologies, and often sits between multi- and interdisciplinary actions. Working within performative collaborative processes, his unexpected gestures defy categorization. Lundh has recently curated and co-curated exhibitions and projects for Botkyrka Konsthall (Stockholm), Index Foundation (Stockholm) and Kulturhuset (Stockholm).
Sara Mameni is a Vancouver-based artist who is currently completing her MA in Art History at UBC. She does not think bios say much about a person and wonders if her increasing debts are more indicative of her social position than the particularities of her art practice.
Fedora Romita's versatile practice encompasses performance, video, and drawing. By using text and recording information, her process-based works both respond to and envelop the creation of these productions themselves over a period of time. Her methodical and even mathematic projects range from interactive drawing assignments she provides to willing participants to durational measuring performances wherein she painstakingly charts out the dimensions of shared spaces such as street level storefronts.

Y GALLERY: SWINTAK in YYreZidence.
YYZ, which celebrates its 30th anniversary next year, is responding to contemporary discourse about the breadth and depth of institutional engagement at artist-run centres by working beyond the crate and offering Toronto-based artist, Swintak, an inaugural two-month residency this summer. The Y Gallery will be utilized as Swintak's studio, available to the artist around the clock and open to the public during gallery hours. An exhibition of work produced in the space follows the residency.
YYZ's current direction toward open engagement was born out of its renewed mandate to provide artists with the financial, physical and intellectual support in a communal setting and for diverse practices. YYZ takes the leap of opening the process of creation to the public hosting an ongoing series of YYreZidency artists. Curiosity, questioning, investigation and participation are encouraged and indeed expected in this new space where the isolation of the studio is broken down, and conversations between artist and audience area a natural part of the formation of work. This reinvention of the space instigates social interaction and exposes the audience to the stages of process and progress that are usually shielded from public view. Swintak's presence at YYZ as an interdisciplinary artist promises an ever-transformative space where no two visits will be alike, and where anything is possible.
Swintak is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and inventor. Part armchair scientist, part amateur enthusiast, Swintak's projects generally involve an experiment with an unknown outcome. Working in a number of media including installation, intervention and performance, Swintak has exhibited in a variety of contexts including Nuit Blanche (Toronto), Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), ArtCity Festival of Art and Architecture (Calgary), Conflux Festival of Psychogeography (New York), Space 1026 (Philadelphia), The Living Museum (Greensboro), Khyber Centre for the Arts (Halifax), Dalhousie University Art Gallery (Halifax) and Rockefeller Centre (New York). Swintak has also presented numerous public installations and relational happenings in places like Vancouver, Teslin, New York, Salt Lake City, Death Valley and Los Angeles. Swintak is currently working on a series, Impossible Projects, with assistance from the Canada Council for the Arts. She received a BFA in 2003 from NSCAD University and is committed to continual self-directed research.

Wu Wing Yee: stone thoughts: positive-negative space.

Leonard Cohen: Original Drawings.

2008 Baker Lake Prints. 10 new graphics by established and emerging artists combine the traditional style of past collections with an innovative and refreshing approach. This collection features work by Irene Avaalaaqiaq, Jimmy Kamimmalik, Thomas Iksiraq, Philippa Iksiraq, Tony Anguhalluq, William Noah, among others. Sheila Butler, Baker Lake print expert, and vital force behind this release, will speak at the opening reception.