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Toronto Gallery to Showcase
U of G Studio Art Program
Partnership ‘an innovative and important next step’
U of G fine art students will obtain first-hand experience producing contemporary art projects and events thanks to an innovative collaboration between the School of Fine Art and Music (SOFAM) and a downtown Toronto art gallery.
SOFAM has partnered with John Goodwin of Toronto’s goodwater gallery on a new venture called “G: Guelph Goodwater.” It involves Guelph students and studio art faculty working with Goodwin and national and international artists on exhibitions and other events.
Students will also explore art’s conventional relations with education and exhibition, says SOFAM director Prof. John Kissick.
“We visualize this as a hybrid space in which contemporary art and creative pedagogy are nurtured.”
“G” is located at 234 Queen St. E. in Toronto and will be open Fridays from 6 to 9 p.m. and Saturdays from 1 to 5 p.m. An opening reception runs Nov. 19 from 7 to 10 p.m.
Kissick says the new collaboration is “an innovative and important next step” in the continuing development of Guelph’s nationally recognized studio art program. The students engaged in each project will receive credible professional experience, including the opportunity to work with artists in a collaborative format, he says.
“The result will be an experience for our school and our students that is unlike anything else offered in this country.”
Goodwin agrees. “Collaboration with artists is what goodwater has been engaged in since Roger Bywater and I opened the gallery in 2001. This new arrangement will continue the tradition of providing a storefront space in downtown Toronto where ideas get tested in a laboratory-like context.”
Fine art professor Nestor Kruger, a longtime collaborator with goodwater, says the partnership will be a unique opportunity for both parties. Goodwin has a reputation for producing exhibits that are challenging and provocative and has always encouraged artists to consider the gallery as a kind of testing ground, he says.
“It’s exciting to imagine a new relationship with U of G, which has a similar history of encouragingstudents to re-examine their standard methods of working and to develop new ways of thinking.”
The art community will also benefit, adds Kruger. The new gallery will endorse cultural explorationand provide a space where such exploration can be rendered meaningful, he says.