August’s AGO First Thursday takes inspiration from Kim Adams’ dazzling and detailed sculptures, inviting you to focus on a kaleidoscope of miniature worlds inside the Gallery for one night only.

Two-time Polaris Prize nominee Cadence Weapon headlines in Walker Court. Deemed "hip hop's saviour" by Dazed and Confused, Cadence Weapon is a sonic pioneer who is constantly pushing the limits of rap and electronic music. After the release of his most recent album, Hope in Dirt City, the Toronto Star dubbed him “a bona fide, trend-oblivious rap trailblazer.”

DJ Casey Mecija (of Ohbijou) keeps the beats going in Walker Court, while DJ Mama Knows (Anni Spadafora) spins mid-tempo jams in Galleria Italia.

Mohamed Bourouissa and Mindbender present Nothing Yet, a special collaboration between the AGO’s current artist in residence and the Toronto hip-hop artist.

One-of-a-kind encounters with artist-created miniatures and multiples will fill the galleries, featuring unique, small-scale artist editions and books. The Northern Beaver Gallery will make a special appearance, offering unique artworks by Canadian artists for sale from a vintage vending machine, and Toronto artist-run centre Art Metropole will present a special pop-up shop of artist editions and publications inspired by the miniature theme.
It wouldn’t be a First Thursday without multiple opportunities to roll up your sleeves and make art yourself, and the August event is no exception, with tiny painting workshops, a miniature museum featuring mini sculptures created by you, and the return of nude life drawing stations - back by popular demand!

Go behind-the-scenes with pop-up talks on the strange and wonderful objects inside the Thomson Collection of European Art (like snuff bottles and boxwood carvings) and the incredible Thomson Collection of Ship Models. Plus, AGO Conservation presents a special workshop on the process of keeping highly detailed, tiny works preserved for the ages – art under the microscope!

And don’t miss our monthly Out of the Vaults exhibition, only on view at First Thursdays. This month’s show will focus on the tiniest works on paper on our collection — and magnifying glasses will be on hand.

Plus, delicious food, tasty drinks and more tiny surprises!

About Cadence Weapon

Cadence Weapon continues to firmly establish his legacy as a sonic pioneer while constantly pushing the rap and electronic music envelope. Following his critically acclaimed, Polaris Music Prize–nominated albums Breaking Kayfabe and Afterparty Babies and a two year term as Edmonton's Poet Laureate, he returned with a brand new album, Hope In Dirt City, in 2012.

Cadence Weapon has performed with Public Enemy, De La Soul, Mos Def, Questlove, Kool Keith and Lupe Fiasco and toured extensively with acts as diverse as Jurassic 5, Final Fantasy, Islands and Buck 65. He's played internationally renowned festivals such as Glastonbury, Lollapalooza, Roskilde, Pitchfork Music Festival, Incubate and Germany's Splash! Festival. He's remixed Grimes, Roots Manuva, Chad VanGaalen, Kid Sister, Busdriver, Disco D and Stars and made acclaimed bootleg mixes of tracks by Ciara ("Oh") and Rick Ross/Simian Mobile Disco ("Hustlin' Hustler"). He inked deals with labels Epitaph and Big Dada. Most impressively, this was before he reached age of majority.

Composed of a unique hybrid of psychedelic soul, old school rap, IDM and mutant disco, Hope In Dirt City is a groundbreaking achievement in hip-hop. Cadence Weapon has returned to bring rap back to its essence.

About Art Metropole

Art Metropole is a not-for-profit organisation with a focus on the production, dissemination and contextualisation of artist-initiated publication in any media, especially those formats and practices predisposed to sharing and circulation. Art Metropole was founded in 1974 by the artists' collective General Idea as an artist-run centre. Art Metropole is located at 1490 Dundas Street West. Hours are Wednesday to Saturday, 11 am to 6 pm, with shopping also available online at artmetropole.com

About DJ Casey Mecija

Casey Mecija is an accomplished musician and community organizer. There are two experiences that guide her artistic practice: being singer/songwriter of the bands Ohbijou and Warm Myth and her experience as an arts educator. Music has allowed Casey to visit China, Japan, much of Europe and large and small cities across Canada. From these travels she has culled a new grammar of experience that she hopes to craft into music. While at home in Toronto, her involvement in arts education programs like Clutch (a program for young Filipino women), in tandem with her studies in arts education, communication and multimedia studies have helped her to learn that her role as an artist is inextricable from her experiences as a woman of colour. Casey Mecija's mission is to create art that aims to signify an experience that is multi-dimensional and can capture the multiple axis of her personality. She is also the co-founder of the Friends in Bellwoods music project, which has raised $35,000 and counting for the Daily Bread Food Bank of Toronto. Casey likes to DJ hip hop and rnb whenever possible.

About Northern Beaver Gallery

The Northern Beaver Gallery is a tiny space for showing and selling tiny art. Located inside a Canadian-made vending machine,  the NBG offers a very constrained working space for limited editions. The project was launched by curator/artist Rebecca Houston in 2011 as a response to the desire to engage with the colourful machines.

Rebecca Houston is a designer, illustrator and community artist who has worked with homeless youth and marginalized communities for 15 years. She recently returned to school to get her BFA in sculpture and is starting the Master’s program at York University in September. Her work is often involves play and interaction on various scales.

You can follow the project at www.artvendu.com.

About Anni Spadafora

Anni Spadafora is a visual artist and DJ from Toronto. She has performed at multiple installments of the AGO's First Thursdays series and performs regularly at various venues throughout Toronto, including her self-initiated queer dance party GET IT | GOT IT | GOOD.

About Mohamed Bourouissa

Mohamed Bourouissa is an acclaimed artist who is well known for photographic work that has depicted the tensions and issues affecting daily life of young people living in the suburbs of France. His images have combined documentary-style content with formal compositions influenced by traditional paintings by Caravaggio and Delacroix, among others. As the artist-in-residence at the AGO, he will have an opportunity to extend his practice by reflecting on the Toronto setting and exploring The Esther and Samuel Sarick Collection of Inuit Art.

Born in 1978, Bourouissa works and lives in Paris, France. His work has been presented in a number of solo and group exhibitions at the Centre Pompidou, the Palais de Tokyo, the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Palazzo Grassi – François Pinault Foundation in Venice, the MAXXI in Rome, the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the SCAD of Atlanta, the Finnish Museum of Photography of Helsinki, the Muzeum Sztuki in Lodz, the Fotomuseum in Rotterdam, the Nikolaj Kunsthal of Copenhagen, the KW Institute for Contemporary Art of Berlin, as well as during the Berlin Biennale and the 2011 International Biennale of Contemporary Art in Venice. He is represented by galerie kamel mennour, Paris.

Bourouissa's residency at the Art Gallery of Ontario is in partnership with the Paris-Toronto series, coordinated by the Consulate General of France in Toronto with support from the Institut Français.