Aside from their vibrant food and hip music scenes, Canada’s dynamic cities are home to some of North America’s most esteemed public art museums, such as the Frank Gehry-designed Art Gallery of Ontario, as well as some of the continent’s most innovative and acclaimed independent galleries. No trip to the country should be considered complete without paying a visit to at least one of them.
Alex Colville, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
23 April – 7 September 2015
Housed in a faceted glass fortress designed by celebrated architect Moshe Safdie, the National Gallery is home to one of the most diverse and impressive collections of art in the nation. Arriving in late April is Alex Colville’s sprawling retrospective of East Coast-cool paintings. Colville’s narrative-rich work takes you into the heart of Maritime Canada, full of mystery and filmic detail. While at the NGC make sure you experience Janet Cardiff’s sublime Forty Part Motet, a feat of literal surround-sound in residence until 30 June. Cardiff’s glorious sound sculpture captures forty separately-recorded choir voices, rippling through forty speakers positioned around the NGC’s Rideau Chapel.
Gallery Admission $16 (adult admission) including Alex Colville. Further information available here.
Robert Arndt, Macaulay & Co Fine Art, Vancouver
7 May – 4 June, 2015
There’s no dearth of beautiful things to see in Vancouver, but between 7 May and 4 June, treat yourself to Robert Arndt’s vivid and dizzying solo show at Macaulay & Co Fine Art. Using a mix of media and skewed documentation to create installations, video and photography, Arndt’s work is as defiant as it is captivating. Macaulay & Co’s intimate shows tend to only run for one month at a time, but they are unmissable.
Free. Further information available here.
Silke Otto-Knapp: Land lies in water, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
Until 19 July, 2015
Toronto’s Art Gallery of Ontario is a beautiful place to wend away an afternoon, walking the sunlit Galleria Italia or dizzily ascending to the uppermost galleries by way of Frank Gehry’s twisting stairwell. The real destination from 14 February – 19 July is LA-based Silke Otto-Knapp’s ghostly, monochromatic paintings, which seem to have been dispatched from somewhere between the Earth and the moon. Adjacent to the gallery is Kensington Market, a tiny community of coffee shops, restaurants, and vintage clothing stores. Keep an eye out for old Hebrew lettering on walls and windows, signs of when the market was a thriving immigrant bazaar in the early 20th century.
Gallery admission $19.50 (adult admission) including Land lies in water. Further information available here.
Rosemary Scanlon, Klondike Institute of Art and Culture, Dawson City
21 May - 12 June, 2015
Dawson City’s charming, Gold Rush-era ambience may make you feel like you’re strolling through a period film set, but the local art, performance, and music adds a jolt of adrenalin to this deceptively sedate little community. Working out of the Klondike Institute of Art and Culture, visiting artists breeze in and out, like painter Rosemary Scanlon, whose solo exhibition opens in KIAC’s ODD Gallery in May. Scanlon’s delicate paintings are dense with Canadian iconography, familiar in some ways yet not in others thanks to her subtle subversions and shifts in perspective.
Free. Further information available here.
David Altmejd FLUX, Museum of Contemporary Art, Montreal
14 June – 13 September, 2015
Dedicated exclusively to contemporary Canadian art, MCAM is the perfect mid-sized gallery for those who love to absorb every piece in the building without going into sensory overload. Beginning in June, Montreal-born sculptor David Altmejd’s FLUX presents a thrilling tour of his large-scale dioramas, a blend of fantasy, nightmare, and material innovation that you will unavoidably find yourself in, thanks to his use of cracked and cut mirrors.
Gallery admission $14 (adult admission) including David Altmejd FLUX. Further information available here.
To find out more about Canada and book your visit, go to keepexploring.co.uk
