Toronto’s new downtown public art gallery opens this weekend
Ryerson Image Centre
33 Gould Street (one block northeast of Yonge and Dundas)
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
The Ryerson Image Centre (RIC), the latest addition to Canada’s gallery landscape and Toronto’s newest cultural destination, opens its doors this Saturday, September 29. The grand opening marks the establishment of an innovative arts centre dedicated to collecting, research and public exhibition of photography and related arts, including new media, installation art and film. The Ryerson Image Centre is located in the heart of downtown Toronto and at the core of Ryerson University’s urban campus.
The public opening of the Ryerson Image Centre takes place on the night of Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, with the gallery open from 7pm Saturday September 29 to 7am Sunday September 30. During Toronto’s biggest annual one-night celebration of visual art, the public is invited to the RIC’s grand opening exhibitions and to program the building’s exterior LED lighting system, transforming the building itself into a work of art with a possible 16.7 million different colour combinations that anyone can change from their smart phone.
The Ryerson Image Centre’s two inaugural exhibitions, Archival Dialogues: Reading the Black Star Collection and The Art of the Archive showcase groundbreaking work by some of Canada’s foremost professional contemporary artists alongside emerging artists associated with Ryerson University’s School of Image Arts.
“Our grand opening brings together four exciting and extraordinary experiences,” says Doina Popescu, Director of the Ryerson Image Centre, “never before seen commissioned work by some of the most important Canadian artists of our time; recent work by talented emerging artists from Ryerson University; an engaging view into the Black Star Collection of culturally and historically significant photojournalistic prints that tell the history of the 20th century; and the inauguration of our spectacular new building designed by Diamond Schmitt Architects.”
“We’re proud and excited to welcome the public to this one-of-a-kind facility and these two exhibitions,” says Sheldon Levy, President of Ryerson University. “The grand opening is the first opportunity to share what is one of the top facilities in the world for photography and related arts.”
Archival Dialogues: Reading the Black Star Collection, features a who’s who of contemporary Canadian visual artists, including Stephen Andrews, Christina Battle, Marie-Hélène Cousineau, Stan Douglas, Vera Frenkel, Vid Ingelevics, David Rokeby and Michael Snow. Each artist has created new, multidisciplinary work inspired by Ryerson University’s prestigious Black Star Collection, a legendary photojournalism archive of more than 292,000 black and white photographs that trace the social and political history of the 20th Century. Doina Popescu, director of the of the RIC says, “The Black Star photographs, which reveal so much about our past, are recontextualized and brought to life in revelatory ways through the contemporary readings and interpretations that the artists have brought to their projects. It has been an honour to work with the eight selected artists and with my co-curator Peggy Gale, one of Canada’s finest critical thinkers and curators.”
In The Art of the Archive, Ryerson University School of Image Arts students and recent alumni investigate time, memory and history through photographic and video images. The exhibition, curated by Gaëlle Morel, Exhibitions Curator at the RIC, includes works by Alyssa Bistonath, Kyle Brohman, Julia Callon, Jenna Edwards, Tara Ernst, Daniel Froidevaux, Elisa Gilmour, Ben Lenzner, Marc Losier, Eugen Sakhnenko, Kate Tarini, and Andrew Williamson.
Archival Dialogues: Reading the Black Star Collection
New works by Stephen Andrews, Christina Battle, Marie-Hélène Cousineau,
Stan Douglas, Vera Frenkel, Vid Ingelevics, David Rokeby and Michael Snow
inspired by the Black Star Collection at Ryerson University.
Curated by Doina Popescu and Peggy Gale.
September 29–December 16, 2012
The Art of the Archive
Works by Alyssa Bistonath, Kyle Brohman, Julia Callon, Jenna Edwards,
Tara Ernst, Daniel Froidevaux, Elisa Gilmour, Ben Lenzner, Marc Losier,
Eugen Sakhnenko, Kate Tarini, and Andrew Williamson.
Curated by Gaëlle Morel.
September 29–December 16, 2012
Admission is free.
