Fall 2023 exhibitions

This autumn, MOCA is thrilled to present the work of two internationally celebrated artists whose respective exhibitions offer distinct and bold approaches to sculpture. The museum is equally excited to present an exhibition of work from The Wedge Collection—one of Canada’s largest private collections that engages with Black identity and African diasporic culture—marking the second instalment of MOCA’s The City is a Collection exhibition series. 

British artist Phyllida Barlow’s immense sculptures and bold drawings hold the Ground Floor in a solo exhibition, Eleven Columns. For more than 50 years, Barlow took inspiration from her surroundings to create imposing installations that can be at once menacing and playful. Before passing away in 2023, Barlow collaborated with MOCA to build a relationship between her work and the museum’s character. Co-curated by November Paynter and Rui Mateus Amaral, this exhibition brings together a selection of works that Barlow referenced in discussion with the MOCA team. Acknowledging her enthusiasm for MOCA Toronto’s distinct architecture, the show includes untitled: eleven columns, standing, fallen, broken, 2011, and a collection of works on paper.

Canadian artist Liz Magor has produced one of her most significant commissions to date for her solo exhibition, The Separation, on MOCA’s 2nd Floor. Magor folds organic and synthetic source materials into lustrous artworks that evoke the melancholy and the absurd. The Separation, curated by Rui Mateus Amaral, emphasizes the tensions in Magor’s work, playing rough against refined, flimsy against sturdy, fashionable against passé, and custom-made against mass-produced. Attentive to the physicality of an object, she casts and organizes found material so that intense narratives of dependency and desire can emerge. At once sarcastic and sympathetic, Magor’s sculptures spark questions about our belief and emotional investment in the material world.

Drawing works from The Wedge Collection, Dancing in the Light on Floor 3 at MOCA animates the rich tones and textures of contemporary Black life through portraiture. Established by Kenneth Montague in 1997, The Wedge Collection is one of Canada’s largest private collections of visual art that engages with Black identity and African diasporic culture. The exhibition is part two in MOCA’s ongoing series, The City is a Collection, which brings some of Toronto’s most engaging private collections to the public. Featuring the work of 41 artists including Oreka James, Carrie Mae Weems, Jonathan Lyndon Chase, and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Dancing in the Light examines portraiture across a variety of mediums as a way of entering into a more nuanced consideration of contemporary Black life. Rethinking moments of stillness and vulnerability as instances of strength, the exhibition works against the flattened and commodified image of Blackness so often experienced within art history and popular visual culture. Curated and designed by Farida Abu-Bakare and Kate Wong, Dancing in the Light is conceived of as a capacious place for gathering and study, offering visitors comfortable seating and an array of books and music to explore.

Visitors can also enjoy artist talks, exhibition tours, Free Friday Nights powered by Scotiabank, children’s workshops on TD Community Sundays, and other public programmes.