Right here, right now
MOCA unveils Greater Toronto Art 2021 (GTA21), an ambitious group exhibition open until early January 2022, bringing together 21 of the GTA’s most energizing contemporary artists.
Aaron Jones, Conscious Energy on the Sea, 2021. Collage, light box. Courtesy Zalucky Contemporary, Toronto. Photo Toni Hafkenscheid (installation view MOCA Toronto, 2021). Image courtesy of MOCA
A new triennial survey exhibition ushers in a revamped era in the history of Toronto’s Museum of Contemporary Art (now known simply as MOCA). GTA21 triumphs in bringing together an eclectic group of 21 contemporary artists and art collectives of divergent backgrounds and artistic modalities, all based in the Greater Toronto Area or with direct ties to the city. It’s an expansive, thoughtfully planned presentation of commissioned and never-before-seen works, taking up all three floors of gallery space. The exhibition also includes public artworks as part of Toronto's Year of Public Art, a beautifully designed print catalogue and a responsive digital platform, GTA360. Guided by the Museum’s renewed pledge to bolster local art and artists working today, GTA21 is an apt play on words, referring to the Greater Toronto Area, the name of the city's sprawling metropolitan area.
Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, Dynasty, 2021. Pencil, acrylic and oil on wood, linen and canvas. Courtesy Goodman Gallery Johannesburg, Cape Town and London Photo Toni Hafkenscheid (installation view MOCA Toronto, 2021). Image courtesy of MOCA.
Three MOCA team members (Daisy Desrosiers, guest curator, Rui Mateus Amaral, MOCA Adjunct Curator and November Paynter, MOCA Artistic Director) developed the exhibition by working remotely with the artists over the past year. Their curatorial approach, driven by the selected artists, is a result of a growing network of relationships in Toronto’s art scene. “Rather than bringing these artists together under a particular theme,” explained Paynter in a press statement, “each participant was given space, resources, freedom, and curatorial support to explore what feels most urgent to them today. As ideas emerged, we composed a structure for each Museum floor, an open plan that positions shared concerns and attitudes as well as contrasting artistic processes and practices.” Much like the city of Toronto and the artists themselves, the responses are diverse, evolved from convergent themes, and presented in three groupings: Ambivalence, Inheritance and Mutation. “Taken together,” explains MOCA Executive Director and CEO Kathleen Bartels, “[the artists’] responses offer different imaginings of the city, society, and the world. Uniting them, however, is a profound belief in remembering, storytelling, questioning, resisting, celebrating, making, and speculating.”
Azza El Siddique. Fade into the Sun, 2021. Steel, bukhoor, sandaliya, slip cast ceramic, water. Courtesy the artist. Photo Toni Hafkenscheid (installation view MOCA Toronto, 2021). Image courtesy of MOCA.
A standout on the second floor is Azza El Siddique’s Fade into the Sun (2021). The third iteration of El Siddique’s series of works titled Begin in Smoke, End in Ashes, the site-specific steel structure, built around the Museum’s columns, recalls the plan of a Nubian burial chamber and Muslim burial traditions. Burning chunks of bukhoor (a compressed incense made with wood chips, sandalwood, myrrh, rose, frankincense) and sandaliya (sandalwood infused oil) engage the senses with a fragrant scent. Over the course of the exhibition, a slow drip irrigation system will erode El Siddique’s slip-cast ceramic vases and sculptures into unpredictable shapes. Artists like El Siddique, Kareem-Anthony Ferreira and Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, also on the second floor, deal with Inheritance—the term interpreted here as a framework for art, possibilities and making sense of shared histories.
Oluseye. Ploughing Liberty, 2021. Found farm tools, hockey sticks, brass dowels Courtesy Patel Brown Gallery, Toronto. Photo Toni Hafkenscheid (installation view MOCA Toronto, 2021). Image courtesy of MOCA.
GTA21 is on view through January 9, 2022, online and in-person, featuring new works by the following artists: Ashoona Ashoona and Alexa Hatanaka, Ghazaleh Avarzamani, Nour Bishouty, Jesse Chun, Tom Chung, Common Accounts − Igor Bragado and Miles Gertler, Julia Dault, Azza El Siddique, Kareem-Anthony Ferreira, Aaron Jones, Pamila Matharu, Native Art Department International − Maria Hupfield and Jason Lujan, Oluseye, Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, Jagdeep Raina, Tony Romano, Jennifer Rose Sciarrino, Walter Scott, Kara Springer, Sahar Te, and the collective of Parastoo Anoushahpour, Faraz Anoushahpour and Ryan Ferko.
Visit the MOCA website for updates on GTA21-related programming with the artists and curators this fall and winter. Keep reading AGOinsider for our coverage on art happening inside and outside the AGO walls.