8-eleven is a gallery, sculpture garden, and performance space formed in 2014 in Toronto. It is run by a collective of artists and nonartists, adopting structural elements from commercial galleries, artist-run centres, publishing and academic institutions, and performance companies. We commission and present projects across platforms. Laurie Kang makes work that does not seek to identify a singular position. Multiplicity and divergences are manifest in the work’s embedded modularity, its parts existing elsewhere in relation to another environment with different proximities, added and lost appendages, etc. This topographical long view is distinctly opposed to a single reading, or the stasis of common relief that is found by grasping or apprehending content in a work.

With a collection of more than 80,000 works of art, the AGO is among the most distinguished art museums in North America. From the vast body of Group of Seven and signature Canadian works to the African art gallery, from cutting-edge contemporary art to Peter Paul Rubens’s masterpiece The Massacre of The Innocents, the AGO offers an incredible art experience with each visit. In 2002 Ken Thomson’s generous gift of 2,000 remarkable works of Canadian and European art inspired Transformation AGO, an innovative architectural expansion by world-renowned architect Frank Gehry that in 2008 resulted in one of the most critically acclaimed architectural achievements in North America.

The Justina M. Barnicke Gallery is located on the University of Toronto’s central campus, housed within the Hart House student centre, a Gothic Revival building constructed in1919. The Barnicke Gallery is led by writer and curator Barbara Fischer, who previously worked at the Art Gallery of Ontario and Banff’s Walter Phillips Gallery, and was commissioner and curator of Mark Lewis’ project for Canada at the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009). Fischer’s program at the gallery includes a commitment to exhibitions that narrate the history of Canada’s art scene, including “General Idea Editions 1967–1995” (2003–2007), which toured internationally. Currently, the Justine M. Barnicke Gallery is undergoing amalgamation with the adjacent University of Toronto Art Centre, under Fischer’s stewardship.

Kunstverein Toronto is a nomadic exhibition platform operating alongside its partners in Amsterdam, Milan and New York. Moveable in time and space, Kunstverein Toronto is dedicated to experimentation, discussion and hospitality in art and exhibition practices. Kunstverein Toronto seeks to foster exchange between local and international conversations, while prodding at expectations of authorship, form, and display in contemporary art. Initiated by curator Kari Cwynar and artist/designer Kara Hamilton, Kunstverein Toronto is a not-for-profit institution supported through membership. We program in dialogue with a local advisory board as well as an international group of artists, curators, thinkers, and enthusiasts.

Established in 1979, Mercer Union began as an artist-run centre through the collective efforts of artists who believed in alternative art production and presentation. It remains a hub of artistic activity and local culture in Toronto, and is also part of a framework of peer organizations found internationally — artist-driven project spaces and contemporary art institutes. We seek to channel new artistic currents by presenting Canadian practices alongside those of international artists in a way that serves the wider dissemination of contemporary art. One of our main objectives is to support the development of new work, often giving first exhibition opportunities to emerging artists who go on to prominence in the wider international sphere.

The Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art was born on the cusp of the millennium and exploded onto the Toronto and Canadian art scene with ambitious local-to-global programming. Showcasing the work of over 1,000 Canadian and international artists since arriving on Queen Street West, Mocca functions as a hub for cultural production and creative exchange.

 

With a pioneering approach to partnership, Mocca actively collaborates with like-minded organizations, including the Scotiabank “Contact” Photography Festival, Toronto International Film Festival (Tiff) and the National Gallery of Canada.

The conceit of this salon series is simple, its name tongue-in-cheek. No Reading After the Internet is an out-loud reading and discussion group. No pre-reading or research is required. You just show up, read aloud with others and improvise an understanding of a text. To participate in No Reading is to invoke an exuberant not-knowing. Symbiotic in nature, No Reading takes place within other frameworks.

 

Symbiotic in nature, No Reading takes its cues from artists, the texts a means for interpreting an artist’s work; an artist’s work a way of understanding a text. The urgency of the project is in this action, of reforming publics and experimenting with the act of reading as its own media form.

Founded in 1987, The Power Plant is Canada’s leading public art gallery devoted to the presentation of contemporary art, artists and ideas. The gallery is renowned for its vision and commitment to groundbreaking contemporary Canadian and international art. Easily recognizable by its smokestack and exterior façade, the Power Plant displays exhibitions that represent the range of advanced practice in visual arts; issues publications that increase knowledge of contemporary art; presents lectures and symposia that encourage debate and understanding; generates interpretative tools that invite visitors to question, explore and reflect upon their experiences; and incorporates other areas of culture as they intersect with visual art.

Scrap Metal is a privately owned not-for-profit exhibition space. Founded in December 2011 by Toronto-based art collectors Joe Shlesinger and Samara Walbohm, the space exists as a site for exchange between audiences and cultural producers committed to contemporary art, and where Shlesinger and Walbohm’s art collection serves as the starting point for such exchanges. Exhibitions to date include: Ragnar Kjartansson, “The End” (2012); Mirosław Bałka, “Heaven” (2012); “Locating Ourselves” (2013);“Eva Kotátková” (2014) in partnership with Art en Valise; and “Somebody Everybody Nobody” (2014). Of importance to the organization are partnerships with local and international cultural programs such as Villa Toronto, Art en Valise, and Tiff Future Projections, to name a few.

Vtape is a distributor of artists’ work on video and related media. Established in 1980, the organization is among the most influential of Canada’s original network of artist-run centres, which AA Bronson characterized as “a connective tissue… 5000 miles long.” From its beginnings as an artists’ co-op, Vtape was activated by artists Lisa Steele and Kim Tomczak in 1983, and now distributes the work of over 800artists to an international network of galleries, museums, festivals and educational institutions. Located in the 401Richmond Street building, home to many of Toronto’s thriving arts organizations, Vtape’s facilities combine active distribution with duplication, restoration and preservation services, an accessible on-site research centre for the media arts and an annual cycle of curated programming.