Springtime at MOCA

The promise of spring brings with it a crop of new exhibition openings. In Toronto, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) launches us into the warmer season with its energizing line-up of shows, site-specific installations and programming. While presenting diverse and distinct perspectives on some of today’s most pressing issues, the art and artists on view are linked through a central theme of “connections (and disconnections) to place”.

Shirin Neshat, Roja, 2016. Video Still. Copyright Shirin Neshat. Courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York, and Brussels. 

Qazvin born and New York-based, Shirin Neshat unveils Land of Dreams – the first major solo exhibition for the internationally recognized artist in Canada in twenty years. On view at MOCA in one immersive experience are four bodies of work from Neshat’s three decades of production: Roja (2016), Land of Dreams (2020), Women of Allah (1993-97) and Rapture (1999). Neshat’s photographic and film compositions, presented in striking black-and-white, reflect her experiences as an Iranian woman living in exile in the U.S., Iran’s political injustices and treatment of women, to “global issues of displacement, migration, and geopolitical conflict”.  A specially commissioned short documentary featuring Neshat speaking in her mother tongue, Farsi, is also available to view at the Museum.

Jeffrey Gibson, POWER FULL BECAUSE WE'RE DIFFERENT, 2020, Acrylic on canvas, glass beads and artificial sinew inset into wood frame. Image Credit: Sikkema Jenkins & Co.

I AM YOUR RELATIVE by Jeffrey Gibson is a site-specific project, co-commissioned by MOCA and Toronto Biennial of Art, consisting of a series of stages that can be moved and reconfigured throughout the space, allowing for gatherings and spontaneous performances. Posters, textiles and stickers designed by Gibson adorn surfaces throughout the space. A member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and half-Cherokee, Gibson is an interdisciplinary artist known for his colour-saturated and visually rich paintings and sculptures, infusing patterns, images, text and mixed materials. Thematically, his work draws from “various aesthetic and material histories rooted in Indigenous cultures of the Americas”, as well as “modern and contemporary subcultures”. Included in Gibson’s installation is also a library of locally acquired and donated children’s books, prioritizing Indigenous, Black, Brown and Queer voices.

"Untitled" (Shield), 1990. C-print jigsaw puzzle in plastic bag. 7 1/2 x 9 1/2 inches. Edition of 3, 1 AP. © Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Courtesy of the Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation. Photographer: Lance Brewer. 

Felix Gonzalez-Torres was a Cuban-born, American artist, educator, writer and activist. Marking another first at MOCA is Summer, the debut solo exhibition of Gonzalez-Torres’ in Canada. His practice draws from Minimalism and Conceptual art traditions, taking the forms of mass-produced everyday items like light strings, candies and beaded curtains. Gonzalez-Torres’ experiences as an openly gay man in the 1980s and ‘90s had a direct influence on his work, reflecting a period including the HIV/AIDS health crisis, racial inequalities, rapidly evolving climate crisis and more. Featured in Summer is a curated arrangement of works that “[establishes] local resonances and [generates] new reflections on our relationship to the landscape.” As the temperatures climb and daylight extends into the summer months, works in the exhibition will move to a different location in the Museum and the exhibition’s title will change to Winter.

Maria Qamar, In Pyaar With a Superstar!, 2022, Digital Drawing. Courtesy the artist.

Artist and author Maria Qamar presents a new body of Pop art-inspired work in Dhamakedar, Superstar! on view through May 8. A multimedia installation featuring painting, a lenticular print, vinyl installation and a seating area, Dhamakedar, Superstar! “centres around a starry-eyed woman declaring her love for a superstar”, taking inspiration from 1970s disco-themed Bollywood films. Qamar moved to Canada at age nine in 2001 and was raised with a Gujarat and Bangladeshi upbringing. Through her art, and with playful humour, she often speaks to her experiences encountering racism, classism and the patriarchy in a post 9/11 world. 

Debashis Sinha, The Elephant Headed God Ganesh Sleeps in the Bamboo Grove (neural network output image), 2021. Image courtesy of MOCA.

Described as “a collaboration with artificial ‘intelligence’ readings and systems”, artist and educator Debashis Sinha’s site-specific sound installation, in the house’s endeepened wide gracious flow, invites viewers to pause and contemplate. The work, installed near MOCA’s South Stairwell, “combines speculative mythology with processes that are derived from a blending of machine learning, sonic art, and audio composition”. A series of video commissions by Sinha will be shown on MOCA’s website and installed on the ground floor later in the spring.

Make your way to 158 Sterling Road this spring to experience the art MOCA has to offer. For more information or tickets, visit www.moca.ca.

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