Join curators Luis Jacob and Wanda Nanibush as they discuss their respective exhibitions – Form Follows Fiction: Art and Artists in Toronto and Toronto: Tributes + Tributaries, 1971-1989.

This fall, the AGO looks at a remarkable transitional period in Toronto’s recent history. Highlighting artists and artworks from the late 1960s through to the end of the 1980s, a time marked by the emergence of new artistic practices and institutions, this major exhibition delves into the AGO’s collection to reflect on Toronto as a cultural space, its experimentation, its cultural diversity and possibility. Curated by Wanda Nanibush, Toronto: Tributes + Tributaries, 1971-1989 explores some of the tributaries of Toronto artmaking and pathways forged by Toronto artists.

Curated by Luis Jacob for the Art Museum at the University of Toronto, Form Follows Fiction: Art and Artists in Toronto concentrates on a period of more than 50 years to consider the ways in which artists visualize Toronto. Presenting a thematic clustering of works by 86 artists, the exhibition is premised on the tendency of artists in this city to favour performative and allegorical procedures to articulate their sense of place. Four gestures—mapping, modelling, performing, and congregating—serve as guideposts to a diverse array of artistic practices. The exhibition is a constellation of symbolic forms, or memes, that repeatedly appear in the work of artists of different generations. It presents a panorama of the blueprints that artists have drafted over many decades to give form to life in one of North America’s largest cities.