Featured Events in Toronto in April, 2025 (March Updated)

Inspired by traditional Chinese artwork, Cloudscape is a mesmerizing installation that blends traditional artistry with contemporary themes. Artist Xiaojing Yan masterfully crafts intricate cloud forms using paper and natural reed, evoking the essence of traditional Chinese landscape painting. This awe-inspiring work presents a complex interplay of water and cloud motifs that challenge our perception of the natural world. Immerse yourself in Yan's floating masterpiece, where each sculpted cloud tells a story of cultural heritage and environmental consciousness, and invites us to reflect on our relationship with nature.

Inspired by traditional Chinese artwork, Cloudscape is a mesmerizing installation that blends traditional artistry with contemporary themes. Artist Xiaojing Yan masterfully crafts intricate cloud forms using paper and natural reed, evoking the essence of traditional Chinese landscape painting. This awe-inspiring work presents a complex interplay of water and cloud motifs that challenge our perception of the natural world. Immerse yourself in Yan's floating masterpiece, where each sculpted cloud tells a story of cultural heritage and environmental consciousness, and invites us to reflect on our relationship with nature.

From the Bader Collection at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, the AGO welcomes a remarkable selection of seventeenth century Dutch paintings. Shown in dialogue with paintings from the AGO’s European Collection of Art, at the centre of this focused installation are seven artworks attributed to Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), shown together for the first time. Featuring intensely observed still life paintings, detailed interiors and mesmerizing portraits, these striking artworks offer a rare glimpse of Dutch artistry at work. This exhibition 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. This exhibition is co-organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen's University.

From the Bader Collection at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, the AGO welcomes a remarkable selection of seventeenth century Dutch paintings. Shown in dialogue with paintings from the AGO’s European Collection of Art, at the centre of this focused installation are seven artworks attributed to Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), shown together for the first time. Featuring intensely observed still life paintings, detailed interiors and mesmerizing portraits, these striking artworks offer a rare glimpse of Dutch artistry at work. This exhibition 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. This exhibition is co-organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen's University.

Today, hip-hop culture is not just a musical style, but a global cultural phenomenon. Since its rise in the 1970s, hip-hop music has developed a close relationship with visual art. The exhibition tells the story of hip-hop's influence on contemporary art culture through the works of artists such as Derek Adams, John Edmonds, Diana Lawson and Hank Willis Thomas.

MARVEL AT THE POWER OF COLOUR IN THE NATURAL WORLD. Anywhere you look in nature, colour holds meaning. From the fiery reds of warning to the soothing blues of calm waters, Nature in Brilliant Colour will take you on a kaleidoscopic journey through the vibrant hues of our planet. Awaken your senses, and have your perception forever altered, as you make your way through a series of spaces, each dedicated to a colour of the rainbow. Through over 200 specimens, photo-worthy projections, and shifting soundscapes, this exhibition promises to be a transformative experience that will deepen appreciation for the complex artistry of our world and celebrate its vivid and untamed beauty. This exhibition was created by the Field Museum.

MARVEL AT THE POWER OF COLOUR IN THE NATURAL WORLD. Anywhere you look in nature, colour holds meaning. From the fiery reds of warning to the soothing blues of calm waters, Nature in Brilliant Colour will take you on a kaleidoscopic journey through the vibrant hues of our planet. Awaken your senses, and have your perception forever altered, as you make your way through a series of spaces, each dedicated to a colour of the rainbow. Through over 200 specimens, photo-worthy projections, and shifting soundscapes, this exhibition promises to be a transformative experience that will deepen appreciation for the complex artistry of our world and celebrate its vivid and untamed beauty. This exhibition was created by the Field Museum.

Immersing viewers in the world of hip-hop through contemporary art and fashion, The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century brings together contemporary artists, musicians, designers and stylists to tell the story of the art form and its global impact on visual culture. Organized on the occasion of Hip Hop’s fiftieth anniversary and featuring contemporary art by some of today’s most important and celebrated artists, including Derrick Adams, John Edmonds, Deana Lawson and Hank Willis Thomas, this dynamic and wide-ranging exhibition highlights the art form’s ongoing conceptual and material innovation. Placing fashion, consumer marketing, music, videos and objects in dialogue with paintings, sculpture, poetry, photography and multi-media installations, the exhibition considers activism and racial identity, notions of bling and swagger, as well as gender, sexuality and feminism. The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century 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.

Exploring the many ways that the French artist James Tissot represented modern women and envisioned their relationship to time during the last decades of the nineteenth century, this exhibition presents two of the AGO’s most beloved Tissot paintings alongside a selection of more than 30 works on paper donated by Allan and Sondra Gotlieb. The contradictions of the period come alive in these works, as the quickness of modernity, exemplified by the newfound speed of travel, fashion and commodity culture, is juxtaposed against the constrained pace of women’s everyday lives, characterized by the wait to find a husband, caregiving, tending to customers or recovering from illness. 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, this exhibition illustrates the many ways that time, and a gendered understanding of it, shaped women’s identities.

The Toronto Raptors, established in 1995 and based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, play their home games at Scotiabank Arena. The Raptors won the NBA Championship in 2019. Current key players include RJ Barrett and Scottie Barnes. The Portland Trail Blazers, established in 1970 and based in Portland, Oregon, USA, play their home games at Moda Center. The Trail Blazers have won the NBA Championship once, in 1977. Current key players include Anfernee Simons.

The Toronto Raptors, established in 1995 and based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, play their home games at Scotiabank Arena. The Raptors won the NBA Championship in 2019. Current key players include RJ Barrett and Scottie Barnes. The Detroit Pistons, established in 1941 and based in Detroit, Michigan, USA, play their home games at Little Caesars Arena. The Pistons have won the NBA Championship three times, in 1989, 1990, and 2004. Current key players include Cade Cunningham.

For more than 60 years, Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama (born 1929) has invited people to participate in her groundbreaking visions of infinity. Over the past three decades, this prolific experimental artist has become an internationally acclaimed art-world icon, with work presented across the globe. INFINITY MIRRORED ROOM - LET’S SURVIVE FOREVER features mirrored spheres suspended from the ceiling and arranged on the floor. A mirrored column inside the room invites visitors to peer into a seemingly infinite field of silver orbs. Thanks to the generosity of over 4,700 #InfinityAGO donors who participated in the AGO's ambitious crowdfunding campaign and the David Yuile & Mary Elizabeth Hodgson Fund, Yayoi Kusama’s INFINITY MIRRORED ROOM - LET’S SURVIVE FOREVER is now a part of the AGO Collection.

The Toronto Raptors, established in 1995 and based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, play their home games at Scotiabank Arena. The Raptors won the NBA Championship in 2019. Current key players include RJ Barrett and Scottie Barnes. The Charlotte Hornets, established in 1988 and based in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA, play their home games at Spectrum Center. The Hornets have not won an NBA Championship. Current key players include LaMelo Ball.

Annually, photographers spanning ages and abilities submit tens of thousands of images to the international Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest. This winter, ROM is thrilled to once again host the renowned exhibition. Organized by London's prestigious Natural History Museum, UK, this fan-favourite showcases the very best in nature photography from around the globe. Experience our world in vivid detail, beholding extraordinary species through unimagined perspectives. Each photograph, exquisitely backlit, unveils unparalleled quality and depth. Through the lens, viewers become privy to animals' lives and the challenges they face. Emotive, surprising glimpses of life on our planet are showcased via exceptional talent, technical mastery, and perfectly captured moments. Mark your calendars and get ready to embark on a visual journey that will leave you inspired and enlightened by the incredible beauty that surrounds us.

Annually, photographers spanning ages and abilities submit tens of thousands of images to the international Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest. This winter, ROM is thrilled to once again host the renowned exhibition. Organized by London's prestigious Natural History Museum, UK, this fan-favourite showcases the very best in nature photography from around the globe. Experience our world in vivid detail, beholding extraordinary species through unimagined perspectives. Each photograph, exquisitely backlit, unveils unparalleled quality and depth. Through the lens, viewers become privy to animals' lives and the challenges they face. Emotive, surprising glimpses of life on our planet are showcased via exceptional talent, technical mastery, and perfectly captured moments. Mark your calendars and get ready to embark on a visual journey that will leave you inspired and enlightened by the incredible beauty that surrounds us.

Moments in Modernismhighlights the diversity and high quality of the AGO’s modern art collection, which has been built over time by generations of museum curators and patrons. This installation will show collection strengths from artistic movements such as Pop Art, Abstraction, Realism, and Minimalism. An international approach in artistic styles will be presented, including a body of work from the AGO holdings by Brazilian artists, recognizing the global nature of modernism. A selection of contemporary works that respond to modernist movements will also be shown. Many of the artists, including Andy Warhol, Helen Frankenthaler, Jules Olitski, Gerhard Richter, and Mark Rothko are well known while others are still yet to be broadly recognized such as Tomie Ohtake, Rubem Valentim, Gene Davis and Kazuo Nakamura.A particular focus will be Canadian artists including Alex Colville, Rita Letendre, Jack Bush, Agnes Martin, Guido Molinari and Norval Morrisseau. Moments in Modernismfeatures artworks that will form the cornerstone for the expansion of the new Dani Reiss Modern and Contemporary Gallery, starting construction in 2024. The new building is being designed by architects Diamond Schmitt, Selldorf Architects and Two Row Architect to showcase the AGO's growing collection of modern and contemporary art.

At the dawn of the 20th century, on both sides of the Atlantic, the human mind was of great interest to scientists, scholars, and artists alike. What does it look like, they wondered, to learn and to dream? What is the shape of imagination? This installation of 13 beloved paintings from the AGO collections of European and Canadian Art brings together dream-like landscapes, portraits of children reading, and adults lost in thought, to consider the many ways artists gave form to that intangible thing – one’s interior thoughts. Featuring examples of Realist, Impressionist, Expressionist and Symbolist art, the installation demonstrates how this pursuit helped push the bounds of traditional representation.

A prodigious collector of contemporary art, the late Phil Lind (1943-2023) was drawn to artworks that illuminated social and political histories. An enthusiastic supporter of what has since come to be known 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. Complementing these lens-based works – some intimate, some large-scale light boxes, some multimedia - are paintings, photographs and sculptures by Thomas Demand, William Eggleston, Antony Gormley, Philip Guston, William Kentridge, Thomas Ruff, Laurie Simmons, Wolfgang Tillmans and Ai Weiwei. This exhibition is curated by AGO's Curator of Modern Art Adam Welch.

For more than five decades, distinguished Toronto artist Louise Noguchi has been working in sculpture, installation, photography, and video. Unifying her work is a conviction that identity is not given—but constructed—shaped by events, beliefs, and circumstance. Spotlighting Noguchi’s work in video and sculpture, the AGO’s Associate Curator of Canadian Art Renée van der Avoird brings together three works from the AGO collection. Reverberating with sound, Noguchi’s looping video workCrack(2000) sees the artist performing as an assistant in a wild-west act, holding out flowers only to have them suddenly cut down mid-air by the lash of whip. Noguchi’s large sculptural installationFruits of Belief: The Grand Landscape(1986) brings together a head, a cornucopia, and a photographic reproduction of Thomas Gainsborough’s 1770s painting,A Grand Landscape, to examine our shared relationship to nature—as something real, constructed, and imaginary. By contrast, the third work in this exhibition, Noguchi’s 1990–91 mirror sculptureEden,addresses themes of surveillance and freedom, asking: are we approaching paradise, or withdrawing from it?

At the dawn of the 20th century, on both sides of the Atlantic, the human mind was of great interest to scientists, scholars, and artists alike. What does it look like, they wondered, to learn and to dream? What is the shape of imagination? This installation of 13 beloved paintings from the AGO collections of European and Canadian Art brings together dream-like landscapes, portraits of children reading, and adults lost in thought, to consider the many ways artists gave form to that intangible thing – one’s interior thoughts. Featuring examples of Realist, Impressionist, Expressionist and Symbolist art, the installation demonstrates how this pursuit helped push the bounds of traditional representation.

Recipient of the prestigious Golden Lion prize for Best National Participation at the 2022 Venice Biennale, acclaimed British artist Sonia Boyce DBE RA brings Feeling Her Way to the AGO for its second North American presentation. This captivating installation combines video, collage, music and sculpture. Feeling Her Way centers the vocal performances of four female musicians: Jacqui Dankworth, Poppy Ajudha, Sofia Jernberg, and Tanita Tikaram in a playful and thought-provoking visual and auditory experience. Brought together by Boyce at Abbey Road Studios in London and Atlantis Studios in Stockholm, the vocalists were guided by composer Errollyn Wallen through improvisation, imagination, and exploration. Spanning across two adjacent galleries, the audience will encounter colour-tinted videos that take centre stage among immersive and tessellating wallpapers created by Boyce, as well as gold 3D geometric sculptures, and a rich display of music memorabilia from the artist’s ongoing collection documenting the transnational contributions made by Black British female musicians. This site-specific installation 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. The work was originally commissioned by the British Council for the 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, 2022.