So much to see in the first half of ‘23!
AGOinsider staff round up the art and culture happenings they’re most looking forward to in the months ahead.
Mary Cassatt, Summertime, 1894. Oil on canvas, 100.6 x 81.3 cm. Terra Foundation of American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection. 1988.25. Photo Terra Foundation of American Art, Chicago. Right: Helen Galloway McNicoll, Picking Flowers, c. 1912. Oil on canvas, 94 x 78.8 cm. Art Gallery of Ontario. Gift of R. Fraser Elliott, Toronto, in memory of Betty Ann Elliott, 1992. © Art Gallery of Ontario. 92/102.
2023 has arrived and it’s coming in unseasonably warm, with a bevy of exciting cultural happenings here and abroad that we can’t wait to dive into. Herewith, a thoroughly biased, totally unscientific round up of the artful things we’re excited to see and visit, in the months ahead.
Exhibitions:
January marks a flurry of activity at the AGO, as we celebrate the opening of Radical Remembrance: The Sculptures of David Ruben Piqtoukun, Ningiukulu Teevee: Chronicles for the Curious and We Are Story: The Canada Now Photography Acquisition. In February, MOCA Toronto debuts new works by Canadian-French artist Kapwani Kiwanga, tTe Power Plant presents Amartey Golding’s first solo exhibition in Canada, and in New York, The Morgan Library & Museum presents more than 70 satirical works by Claude Gillot.
In March, Calgary Contemporary commemorates the invention of the planetarium with Charles Stankievech’s multimedia exhibition The Desert Turned to Glass; the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria pays homage to mushrooms in art with Symbiosis, and Peter Doig debuts new and recent works at an exciting exhibition at the Courtauld Institute.
Hip hop turns 50 this year, and this April, the Baltimore Museum of Art will debut a new exhibition The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century. Wolfgang Tillmans’ acclaimed retrospective, To look without fear, arrives at the AGO that same month, and drama queen Sarah Bernhardt again takes centre stage as the subject of a new exhibition at the Petite Palais, in Paris.
In May, Deanna Bowen’s monumental new work, The Black Canadians (After Cooke), opens at the National Gallery of Canada, and in June, the AGO presents Mary Cassatt and Helen McNicoll together for the first time in Impressionists Between Worlds, alongside an exhibition of photographs by Arnold Newman.
This summer sees a quartet of fashion forward exhibitions opening coast to coast, notably Alexander McQueen: l'art rencontre la mode, in Quebec City at the MNBAQ, Fashion Fictions at the VAG and Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty, at the MET. And back in Toronto, we excitedly await the opening of Sarindar Dhaliwal’s first AGO solo exhibition in July.
Architectural highlights:
February marks the 100th anniversary of the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb by British archaeologist Howard Carter. Fortunately, 2023 is also supposed to see the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum. Billed as the largest archeological museum in the world, and led by Irish architecture firm Heneghan Peng, once open, highlights will include the entirety of Tutankhamun’s treasure, displayed together for the first time. The new International African American Museum coming to Charleston will also likely turn heads.
Closer to home, spring 2023 sees the reopening of the Albright Knox Gallery in Buffalo, now re-named Buffalo AKG Art Museum, and the opening of the new Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough.
On Stage and Screen:
Visitors to Venice have until April 10 to see the exhibition Lee Miller-Man Ray: Fashion, Love, War but expect headlines when Kate Winslet embodies the British model-turned-photographer in a new biopic directed by acclaimed cinematographer Ellen Kuras. Also coming this spring, don’t miss Inside the Uffizi, a new documentary that looks at the history and treasures of that beloved museum. Hot Docs festival returns to Toronto April 27, and while we wait for a release date for Dan Sickles’s documentary on crypto-art, we’ll line up in June for tickets to see the world premiere of Pomegranate, a new opera by Kye Marshall and Amanda Hale at the COC, and to catch a glimpse of Paul Gross when he returns to the Stratford Festival this summer as King Lear.
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