2017-2018 Art Museum Annual Report 1 Art Museum at the University of Toronto 2017-2018 Annual Report 2 2017-2018 Art Museum Annual Report 2017-2018 Art Museum Annual Report 3 Table of Contents Message from the Executive Director 5 Strategic Organizations Development 9 2017-2018 Exhibitions 10 Programs 18 By the Numbers 23 Student Engagement 24 Collections 26 Press Highlights 27 Accessibility 27 Appendix A: Loans 28 Appendix B: Press Highlights 30 Appendix C: Class visits working directly with Exhibitions and Permanent Collections 32 Left: Kelly Jazvac, Salp, Salvaged adhesive vinyl, steel and chip clips, 2012. Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid. 4 2017-2018 Art Museum Annual Report 2017-2018 Art Museum Annual Report 5 Message from the Executive Director It has been just over two years since we launched Sovereign Acts, an exhibition curated by Wanda the Art Museum, comprised of the two major Nanibush, MVS Curatorial Graduate and visual art exhibition spaces at the University of AGO Curator of Indigenous Art, continued its Toronto: the University of Toronto Art Centre national tour; Adjunct Curator John G. Hampton (University College) and the Justina M. Barnicke presented our In Dialogue exhibition at the Art Gallery (Hart House), which were federated in Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba and Carleton 2014. The Art Museum has accomplished a great University Art Gallery; and Kent Monkman’s deal in this short time, and this past year was no Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience exception. Looking back, we are proud to report became the largest touring exhibition in the on several milestones in our programming and combined histories of the Justina M. Barnicke organizational development. Gallery and the University of Toronto Art Centre (UTAC. Since the exhibition first opened, we Our 2017–18 exhibitions program once again have distributed 17,000 brochures across the exceeded past years in terms of both volume touring venues. and scale. We reached larger audiences than ever before—63,393 total visitors. We produced The Hart House and University of Toronto ambitious, original exhibitions, both local and collections continued to expand this past year. touring, and a wide range of special programs Especially noteworthy are our efforts to increase that broached contemporary urgencies through work by Indigenous artists and those of diverse an interdisciplinary lens, allowing us to reach cultural backgrounds, including Deanna Bowen, new visitors. We developed several key strategic Carl Beam and Meryl McMaster. Initiated this partnerships: a new collaboration with the past year, and produced jointly with Hart House, Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) and the Art Museum is implementing the first major an accompanying conference called Have We commission by an Indigenous artist for the Hart Won Yet? (summer 2017); a partnership with House Great Hall, to be unveiled on November the National Gallery of Canada and the Sobey 12, 2019 during a gala celebration to mark Hart Foundation to host the Sobey Art Award (2017); House’s 100th Anniversary. and the exhibition Figures of Sleep (winter 2018), which included the inaugural, interdisciplinary In recognition of our accomplishments, we event Night of Ideas—the beginning of an were enormously gratified to receive numerous ongoing initiative and collaboration with the grants and awards. We received major increases Cultural Services of the French Embassy in to our base funding from the Canada Council Canada, the Institut Français and Hart House. for the Arts, from $75,000 to $120,000 annually, All the while, we have remained committed to a and from the Ontario Arts Council (OAC), from diversity of artists and communities served and $22,000 to $30,000 annually. We received to foregrounding new and emergent voices— several major touring grants, including one including independent curatorial perspectives for Sovereign Acts, $25,500 from the OAC, and and student laboratories for exhibition making. another for Shame and Prejudice, $343,827 from the Department of Canadian Heritage. Recently, This past year, we continued to build our we also received a major grant from Virtual national profile, expanding our reach through Museum Canada and a matching donation from an intensive program of touring exhibitions. the Sobey Foundation for a total of $500,000 to Left Image: The opening reception of the 2018 University of Toronto Shelley Peterson Student Art Exhibition 6 2017-2018 Art Museum Annual Report 2017-2018 Art Museum Annual Report 7 develop an online, virtual version of Shame and The past year has also seen foundational The Art Museum continues to benefit from Prejudice. The project will be developed over additions to our academically related staffing. the contributions of talented and insightful two years (2018–20). Finally, we were grateful to In particularly exciting news, we negotiated volunteers and staff. In 2017–18, some receive five critically important Young Canada the new position of Curator of Indigenous and longstanding members of our Advisory Board Works grants in support of our full-time summer Contemporary Canadian Art, cross-appointed concluded their terms: Gail Todgham, Don and longer-term internship positions. with the University of Toronto’s Department of McCaw, Marwan Osseiran, Pamela Edmonds, Art. This position, which will come into effect Mary Wells, and our undergraduate student Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience July 2019, is the fruition of our long trajectory representative Chloe Yue Yin. We welcomed was selected as the recipient of the Canadian of fostering Indigenous curatorial positions new members Asad Raza, Sandra Brewster, and Museum Association Award of Outstanding at the Art Museum (including our work with Jacqueline Martinz, and are very pleased to have Have We Won Yet? Photo by Dominic Chan Achievement in the Exhibition category Wanda Nanibush, John Hampton and cheyanne them aboard as we embark this fall on our first (presented to the Art Museum on April 12, turions), and will add an important new lens shared strategic planning process. in Vancouver), as well as two 2017 Ontario to the offerings of the Department of Art. In Association of Art Galleries (OAAG) Awards: addition, we have appointed Seika Boye Adjunct In the year ahead, we’re looking forward to a Exhibition of the Year and Installation and Curator for Dance/Performance Initiatives, in a range of initiatives that will further enhance the Design. Luis Jacob’s text for Form follows Fiction new collaboration with the University of Toronto Art Museum’s presence and capacity: our first won an OAAG Curatorial Art Writing Award. Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance External Review, commissioned by the University Studies, for a three-year limited term. of Toronto’s Vice-Provost, Students, Professor The year also marked the completion of major Sandy Welsh; the completion of a new strategic improvements to our infrastructure, initiated Our 2017-18 Curator in Residence Yan Wu’s plan; a new fundraising initiative through in 2016–17 and continuing through 2017–18, produced Making Models (fall 2017) and is Friends of the Art Museum; and way-finding with the support of a major Canadian Cultural currently preparing a new project for 2019-20. improvements in and around the galleries. Not Spaces grant of $524,257 from the Department to mention an exciting program of upcoming of Canadian Heritage. The first phase of the The introduction of a new cycle of three or four exhibitions including Robert Fones’s solo work resulted in improved storage for our vault consecutive student-curated exhibitions to be retrospective; Cheyanne turions’ I continue to Ron Benner’s Cuitlacoche Corn Roast. at UTAC, as well as the installation of a new held over the course of the summer each year shape; and Vision Exchange: Contemporary Art HVAC system at Hart House. Over the past year, has intensified our student mentorship across from India. the second phase has seen the transformation all elements of exhibition production through of UTAC’s east entrance from a nondescript focused, one-on-one mentorships and team- With these and many other projects, the Art emergency exit into a welcoming, wheelchair oriented workshops. Museum will continue to make vital contributions accessible double-glazed portal. University to the University community and to visual arts in College supported this project with the Toronto, across Canada and internationally. renovation of the entire main floor foyer. 2017 Sobey Art Award Exhibition opening reception. 8 2017-2018 Art Museum Annual Report 2017-2018 Art Museum Annual Report 9 Strategic Organizations Development This was a year of capacity-building across We have completed a welcoming new entrance all our operations—in physical and digital that is visually and physically more accessible. infrastructure, personnel project management, Sound contingency planning allowed us the roll-out and assessment skills—arising from our flexibility to deal with unforeseen renovation renewal projects. delays and to be ready for the May 2018 opening of our newly glazed and expanded entrance. We improved our collections infrastructure This component of our infrastructure renewal for better conservation and access. As a occasioned a new program of high-visibility, direct outcome of the collections storage site-specific projects. A new work by Robert transformation undertaken in 2016–17, more and Fones, as part of his retrospective exhibition, larger classes can now, for the first time, work represents the first foray of this initiative, directly with both ancient and contemporary designed to reach beyond the museum walls and objects, supervised within the security of engage with the public. the vault. Such experiential learning creates exciting moments of observation and insight, We have begun enhancing online access for particularly for undergraduate students. both scholars and the public. We initiated an in- depth assessment of our website’s performance This academic outreach has placed the Art in 2017–18, to be continued as we address Museum alongside partners on the forefront site functionality and audience development of academic innovation.