AGO Insider
19 oct, 2022

‘‘Multidisciplinary artist Caroline Monnet presents visions of the future with a selection of recent works at Arsenal Contemporary Art Toronto, on view now..”

Juxtapoz Art & Culture, by juxtapoz
July 7, 2022

‘‘For her project Other Sister, Toronto-based artist Jen Mann has constructed an elaborate, fictional narrative that enticingly engages, as it simultaneously critiques our contemporary culture of self-representation.”

Toronto.com, by Toronto Newsroom
Mar 18, 2022

“The second edition of the Toronto Biennial of Art (TBA) — What Water Knows, The Land Remembers — opens on Saturday, March 26. The Biennial’s free exhibitions and programs, presented across several sites throughout the 72-day event, remain on view through June 5.”

ARTORONTO, by Megan Kammerer
Dec 13, 2021

“Returning to its mystical lagoon, Greenberg takes an absorbing new step in his practice. The supernatural pool is populated by three solid sculptures, the first to be produced and displayed by the artist. The figures are familiar and humanoid, yet jagged and abstract.”

Tasman Richardson at Arsenal Contemporary Art, by Hugh Alcock
Apr 13, 2021

‘‘Tasman Richardson mines the intimate condition of video feedback and capture to explore contemporary practices of vanity and voyeurism.”

Le Devoir
Feb 15, 2020

L’exposition en cours de Pascal Grandmaison renoue avec l’installation vidéo à grand déploiement étudiée en fonction de la galerie René Blouin, de vastes espaces qu’il a déjà su occuper intégralement.

Momus
Apr 27, 2019

Through a series of portraits featuring the exhausted landscape of the New Mexico desert, Cadieux allowed herself to inhabit the corporeal, less as a vessel for introspection than a light tower from which to look out.

London Short Film Festival
Jan 15, 2020

An intensely personal yet universal exploration of the experience of loss, marking the first time Perry has chosen to address the tragedy of the recent suicide of her best friend and artistic collaborator, Pete Morrow.

MutualArt
Nov 16, 2019

Arsenal Contemporary Art Toronto is pleased to present "Liquid Language", the first exhibition in Toronto by London, U.K. artist Hannah Perry.

Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival
Apr, 2019

In a new series of ‘Fragment’ portraits, Monnet has developed individualized masks that overlay the faces of chosen subjects. Mixing facial features with geometric shapes, new identities are forged through abstraction and interference.

A SATYR IN THE CREAMERY

Jan 26 - Mar 20, 2019

OFluxo
Jan, 2019

Arsenal Toronto is proud to present Enchantment, the first international solo exhibition by Greg Ito presenting paintings, sculpture, and installation that explores the state of lucid dreaming where daily life collapses into fantasy, nightmare, hope, failure, and the unforseen future.

Jun, 2018

Standing on the western edge of the North American continent, by the boats docked at a Vancouver Marina, Maskull Lasserre’s enormous steel sculpture takes a shape that most viewers might hardly recognize. This monumental single-horn anvil, 25 feet long, and about 800 times larger than a normal anvil is perplexing and mysterious. Did it fall from the sky onto a Loony Tunes character? Or is it waiting for its blacksmith of gigantic proportions? Getting closer reveals the anvil to be an amplifier, outfitted with a recording of the sound of the ocean, which can be heard through musical “F” holes (like the ones on a violin,) cut into the sculpture’s side.

A tool whose flat top supports an object as it’s struck by metalworkers, the anvil was once commonplace but now elicits more cartoon associations than industrial ones. Indispensable for centuries, anvils were used to form all kinds of metal objects including chain, saws, and wheels for carriages. “Blacksmiths and their tools,” reflects Lasserre, “were the Fords and Toyotas of civilization, because they were putting the shoes on horses that moved goods and carried the mail. That was transportation, and for a time they were highly valued for that contribution.” With mechanized production supplying most of our goods now, anvils are used primarily for custom metal work.

Anvils are uncommon musical instruments, but this is not the first time an anvil has been used acoustically. Ringo Starr played one in the song Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, and composer Richard Wagner used 18 tuned anvils in a cycle of operas in 1869. With fourteen years of classical violin training, Lasserre is frequently drawn to musical instruments as sculptural material. His version of the anvil as instrument ties it to the more delicate violin while recalling Vancouver’s industrial history in a string of associations that remains porous and open-ended.

Added to its ambiguous meaning, the sculpture has a mystifying effect on those who stand near it. “People think the sound is air passing through the column,” Lasserre notes, “kids say it’s breathing. Many layers of interpretation emerge beyond just the sound of the ocean.”

Lumbering and poetic, Lasserre’s acoustic anvil stands in a landscape that has changed around its ancient, genius design. A stand-in for all the remarkable tools civilization used to arrive at the current moment, the tool/instrument both celebrates and questions technological progress, giving the impression that our tools are often impressive, but also asking at what cost, and to whom. Equal parts lullaby and monster, Lasserre’s sculpture provokes without judging, offering up questions without prescribing all the answers.

Acoustic Anvil: A Small Weight to Forge the Sea is installed in Vancouver’s Leg-In-Boot Square until July 2020 as part of the Vancouver Biennale. His sculptures are currently on view at Arsenal Contemporary Toronto until October 18, 2018.