Tag Archives: Shannon Gerard

HOT TICKET: First Thursdays at the Art Gallery of Ontario

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First Thursdays text and Art Gallery of Ontario's logo
Flyer for art event with various listings of the night and photographs of the performers

Re-contextualizing and re-energizing the Art Gallery of Ontario space with a eclectic and provocative set of performances.

At the tail end of 2012 AGO introduced a new event – 1st Thursdays – that has been running the first Thursday of the month ever since. And it is always SOLD OUT. What to expect? Interactivity, performance, unique giveaways, live music, and a well dressed crowd. And of course, art. For the price of the ticket ($10) you get full access to the Gallery as well as entertainment by provocative Canadian acts like the Yamantaka Sonic Titan (self described as a multidisciplinary hyper-orientalist cesspool of ‘east’ meets ‘west’ culture clash) and Indi DJ collective A Tribe Called Red.

“Their innovative blend of underground club sounds with pow wow music has reached a much wider audience than they’d imagined when they started throwing their monthly parties in Ottawa in 2008. And no one could have predicted the role they’d play in promoting a wider dialogue around aboriginal rights.” (read more on www.nowtoronto.com)

Tonight the AGO snagged “Godmother of Punk”, Patti Smith, as the performance of the month to coincide with AGO’s show Camera Solo an exhibition of Patti’s beautiful photography.

“Smith, known for her improvisational approach, looks for process-based accidents. Going through the exhibition, I was reminded of a line from “25th Floor,” a song on her second album Easter: “The transformation of waste is perhaps the oldest preoccupation of man.” It is certainly Smith’s preoccupation, an imbibing of Mapplethorpe’s Catholic attachment to the object-world, and to a belief in transubstantiation, resurrection and other forms of metamorphosis.” (read more on www.canadianart.ca)

A definite unique time, if you want to get to next’s month 1st Thursday, plan ahead!! Follow @AGOToronto & #AGO1ST to catch the moment tickets go on sale for April’s event.

Read reviews on 1st Thursdays:

BlogTO

Torontoist

She Does the City

People putting up collage on wall with paste in buckets
Man added collage to blue wall using brush with paste
Two woman and a man working on pasting paper up to a blue wall and collaborate on a collage
Pieces of paper and printed photographs pasted to blue wallParticipatory art – getting engaged with Local artist Shannon Gerard leading “interactive wheat pasting and cityscape sketching workshops”.

Art installation using discarded strips of wood to build a wooden wave where a painting of boy rides atop
image of two people fencing in a dual spray painted on plywood boardsInstallation by Aaron Li-Hill in the Galleria Italia.

3 male deejays performing with turntables and screen behind them with reappropriated and remixed images of Native Americans
3 male deejays performing with turntables and screen behind them with re-appropriated and remixed images of Native Americans and First Nations people.A Tribe Called Red performing in front of the Baroque Stair. All images by Leah Snyder for Mixed Bag Mag.