Bright Lights and Even Bigger Art – AGO’s 2024 Exhibition Line Up Brings Neon, Hip Hop, and One Stellar Rothko

On view now, June Clark: Unrequited Love is a solo exhibition by the American-born, Toronto-based artist that explores the powerful symbolism and material possibilities of the American flag. In this installation of nine works from the past two decades, Clark harnesses the abstract and illusory associations of the American flag – including freedom and equality. Through repetition and material inventiveness, the artist re-imagines the flag until it feels unfamiliar. Clark writes that materials “are the grammar of my visual language,” — a grammar that reveals itself in work made from rust, tea stains, or found objects. This installation is curated by Julie Crooks, AGO Curator, Arts of Global Africa and the Diaspora and is presented in tandem with The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery.

On view now, Kazuo Nakamura: Blue Dimension is a focused presentation of 15 paintings from the AGO Collection highlighting the late Japanese Canadian artist’s celebrated approach to abstraction. Distinguished by their introspective and precise qualities, Nakamura’s paintings consist of scattered light and fragmented shapes that evoke a range of natural phenomena—from the structure of subatomic particles to the vastness of a forest. Marking 20 years since the AGO’s acclaimed Nakamura retrospective, the exhibition is curated by Renée van der Avoird, Associate Curator of Canadian Art.

On view now, Painted Presence: Rembrandt and his Peers is an installation of 17th-century Dutch paintings. Featuring selections from the Bader Collection at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, alongside works from the AGO Collection, the installation includes six works by Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), shown together for the first time. With intensely observed still-life paintings, detailed interiors and mesmerizing portraits, these striking artworks offer a rare glimpse into Dutch artistry. Co-organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen’s University, this installation is co-curated by Adam Harris Levine, AGO Associate Curator European Art and Suzanne van de Meerendonk, Bader Curator of European Art, Agnes Etherington Art Centre.

Opening March 27, 2024, Making Her Mark: A History of Women Artists in Europe, 1400-1800 brings together more than 230 objects from royal portraits to metalwork, ceramics, textiles, and cabinetry, to demonstrate the many ways women contributed to the visual arts of Europe. Featuring the work of well-known artists Sofonisba Anguissola, Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Leyster, Luisa Roldán, Rosalba Carriera, Rachel Ruysch, and Elisabeth Vigée-LeBrun alongside female artisanal collectives, talented amateurs, and women working in factory settings and workshops, this exhibition is the first to consider women artists across genres, time, and a continent. Making Her Mark is co-curated by Dr. Alexa Greist, AGO Curator and R. Fraser Elliott Chair, Prints & Drawings and Dr. Andaleeb Badiee Banta, Baltimore Museum of Art Senior Curator and Department Head, Prints, Drawings & Photographs and is co-organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Baltimore Museum of Art.

Opening May 4, 2024, Jinny Yu:at once is a solo exhibition of new works, including oil on aluminum paintings and works on paper. Born in Korea and now based in Ottawa and Berlin, Yu has been an active professional artist and educator for the past twenty years, using abstract and geometric forms to consider the implications of mass migration and rapid social change.  In a departure from her usual practice of exclusively using black paint, in this exhibition Yu uses vivid colours, transparency and distorted forms to continue questioning what it means to be a guest and a host. This exhibition is curated by Georgiana Uhlyarik, Fredrik S. Eaton Curator of Canadian Art, AGO.

Opening May 4, 2024, Recuerdo: Latin American Photography at the AGO takes visitors on an odyssey from Mexico to Argentina, through various times and moments, to consider art of and from Latin America. Highlighting new acquisitions and unseen works from the AGO’s Photography Collection, this poetic exhibition juxtaposes photographs from press collections, works by artists once known, and those by noted photographers, including Manuel Alvarez Bravo and Tina Modotti. This exhibition is curated by Marina Dumont-Gauthier, AGO Curatorial Assistant, Photography.

Opening May 16, 2024, Moments in Modernism brings together great works from the AGO holdings of Modern Art. Featuring well-known artists Helen Frankenthaler, Jules Olitski, Gerhard Richter, Mark Rothko and Andy Warhol, alongside Brazilian and Canadian artists including Jack Bush, Alex Colville, Rita Letendre, Agnes Martin, Guido Molinari, Norval Morrisseau, Tomie Ohtake and Rubem Valentim, the exhibition showcases the strength, diversity and impact of Modern Art internationally. This presentation features artworks that will form the cornerstone for the expansion of the new Dani Reiss Modern and Contemporary Gallery, starting construction in 2024. The exhibition is co-curated by Stephan Jost, Michael and Sonja Koerner Director, and CEO and Debbie Johnsen, AGO, Manager, Modern and Contemporary Collections.

Opening June 8, 2024, Tissot, Women and Time presents two of the AGO’s most beloved James Tissot paintings alongside a selection of more than 40 works on paper to explore the many ways that the French artist represented modern women and envisioned their relationship to time during the last decades of the nineteenth century. The contradictions of the period come alive in these works, as the progress and pace of modernity is juxtaposed against the constrained pace of women’s everyday lives. This exhibition is curated by Mary Hunter, Associate Professor, McGill University and by Alexa Greist, AGO Curator and R. Fraser Elliott Chair, Prints & Drawings, and Caroline Shields, AGO Curator of European Art.

Opening June 22, 2024, Bright Signs: Spotlight on Video Art showcases experiential video installations and dynamic sculptural works by 17 leading contemporary artists from the AGO Collection. Reverberating with sound, at the centre of the exhibition is Kahlil Joseph’s cinematic three-channel video installation Wild Cat (Aunt Janet) from 2016, an homage to the founder of an African American rodeo that takes place every summer in Grayson (formerly Wildcat), Oklahoma. Additional highlights include neon works by Theaster Gates, Canadian-born artist Sarah Sze’s 2020 sculptural installation Disappearing Act and Lisa Reihana’s expansive installation in Pursuit of Venus [infected]. Curated by Debbie Johnsen, AGO Manager, Modern and Contemporary Collections, this exhibition features artworks that will form the cornerstone for the expansion of the new Dani Reiss Modern and Contemporary Gallery, starting construction in 2024.

Opening July 27, 2024, Reality & Reverie: Canadian and European Painting Beyond Impressionism is a focused installation of 13 paintings from the AGO Collection of Canadian and European Art that highlights the late 19th and early 20th-century fascination with the human mind.  In these beloved works by familiar artists including Emily Carr, Helen McNicoll, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, we see artists giving shape and credence to their subjects’ rich interior lives, through scenes of children at play, people lost in thought and dream-like landscapes. This exhibition is co-curated by Renée van der Avoird, AGO Associate Curator of Canadian Art and Caroline Shields, AGO Curator of European Art.

Opening July 27, 2024, Lucy Qinnuayuak is a solo exhibition of 20 stonecuts, prints and drawings by the celebrated graphic artist. One of the first artists to ever begin creating works at the print studio in Kinngait, Nunavut in the 1960s, Lucy Qinnuayuak’s (1915-1982) colourful depictions of birds and scenes of domestic life bring to life the world as she saw it.  The viewer is invited to explore the evolution of Lucy Qinnuayuak’s style, from her concept drawings to stone-cut prints, including many of her much-loved owls.  This exhibition is curated by Emily Henderson, former AGO Curatorial Assistant, Indigenous & Canadian Art.

Opening September 19, 2024, Sonia Boyce: Feeling Her Way centers four Black female musicians: Jacqui Dankworth, Poppy Ajudha, Sofia Jernberg and Tanita Tikaram in a playful and thought-provoking installation combining video, collage, music, and sculpture.  Recipient of the prestigious Golden Lion prize at the 2022 Venice Biennale, Sonia Boyce: Feeling Her Way is presented at the AGO in partnership with the Toronto Biennial of Art 2024. The Canadian presentation of Sonia Boyce: Feeling Her Way is initiated and organized by the PHI Foundation for Contemporary Art.

Opening October 9, 2024, Pacita Abad brings the exuberant and wide-ranging works of the late Philippines-born artist to Canada for the first time. Best known for her large-scale hanging trapuntos, a form of quilted painting made of stitched and stuffed canvas, this acclaimed retrospective includes more than 100 artworks, showcasing Abad’s experiments in different mediums: textiles works on paper, paintings, prints, and a range of archival material and studio ephemera. Organized by the Walker Arts Center in collaboration with the artist’s estate, the exhibition is curated by Victoria Sung, Phyllis C. Wattis Senior Curator at Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), and former associate curator, Visual Arts, Walker Art Center; with Matthew Villar Miranda, curatorial associate at BAMPFA, and former curatorial fellow, Visual Arts, Walker Art Center. The AGO presentation will be organized by Renée van der Avoird, Associate Curator, Canadian Art.

Opening in November 2024, Light Years showcases major works from the collection of the late Phil Lind, a prodigious Canadian collector of contemporary art. An enthusiast for what is commonly referred to as the Vancouver school of conceptual photography, this exhibition features works by noted Vancouver-born artists Stan Douglas, Rodney Graham, Ron Terada, and Jeff Wall. Complimenting these lens-based works – some intimate, some large-scale light boxes, some multimedia – are paintings, photographs and sculptures by Thomas Demand, William Eggleston, Anthony Gormley, Philip Guston, William Kentridge, Thomas Ruff, Laurie Simmons, Wolfgang Tillmans and Ai Wei Wei. This exhibition is curated by AGO Associate Curator of Modern Art Adam Welch.

Opening December 4, 2024, The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21^st Century brings together contemporary artists, musicians, designers, and stylists to tell the story of the art form, its ongoing innovation, and its global impact on visual culture. Organized for the occasion of Hip Hop’s fiftieth anniversary, the exhibition features contemporary art by some of today’s most important and celebrated artists, including Derrick Adams, John Edmonds, Deana Lawson, and Hank Willis Thomas. Co-organized by the Baltimore Museum of Art and Saint Louis Art Museum, the exhibition is co-curated by Asma Naeem, the BMA’s Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director; Gamynne Guillotte, the BMA’s Chief Education Officer; Hannah Klemm, SLAM’s Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art; and Andréa Purnell, SLAM’s Audience Development Manager. The AGO presentation will be organized by Julie Crooks, Curator, Arts of Global Africa, and the Diaspora, AGO.

Opening December 14, 2024, Kenojuak Ashevak: Highlights from the Dr. Ronald M. Haynes Collection, presents 14 prints by the renowned Inuit artist Kenojuak Ashevak (1927–2013). The first of two installations showcasing artworks from the Dr. Ronald M. Haynes Collection, the works on view celebrate Ashevak’s fluid graphic storytelling and stunning skill with stonecut printing across more than three decades. A highlight is The Woman Who Lives in the Sun, one of the most iconic and recognizable works in Inuit art history. Curated by Renée van der Avoird, AGO, Associate Curator of Canadian Art, these works are all promised gifts to the AGO.

Opening December 21, 2024, Naoko Matsubarais a career-spanning exhibition of 20 woodcut prints by the celebrated Japanese Canadian print maker. Anchoring the exhibition is Tagasode (2014), a monumental 2-meter-long single-sheet print that recalls the ikō – a piece of furniture on which a kimono hangs. Composed of an array of vibrant, complementary colours animated with incisions and wood grain, Tagasode is the culmination of Matsubara’s printmaking career, and a testament to her accomplished handling of the woodcut medium. Curated by Renée van der Avoird, Associate Curator of Canadian Art, AGO, this exhibition is the artist’s first AGO solo exhibition.