Toronto Art & Public Art

Toronto's art scene spans both ends of the formality spectrum at once: a major international museum downtown, and a genuinely lawless-looking laneway of legal graffiti a short walk from it.

The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO)

One of the largest art museums in North America by exhibition space, holding a collection of roughly 120,000 works spanning European masters, a major Group of Seven and Canadian collection, and significant Indigenous and contemporary art. Its current building — a dramatic titanium-and-glass renovation completed in 2008 — was designed by Toronto-born architect Frank Gehry, his first major project in his home city.

Graffiti Alley

A stretch of laneway running roughly parallel to Queen Street West, officially sanctioned for street art since the 1970s and now one of the most consistently repainted, photographed stretches of public art in the city — a rotating, unofficial open-air gallery rather than a single fixed mural. It's become enough of a landmark in its own right that it regularly turns up as a filming location and photo backdrop, feeding back into Toronto's Hollywood North production scene.

Public art beyond the two big names

Beyond the AGO and Graffiti Alley, Toronto runs a formal public art program requiring large new developments to fund public art installations, which is why the city's newer condo neighbourhoods — Liberty Village, CityPlace, the waterfront — tend to have a noticeably higher density of sculpture and installation art than older, established neighbourhoods.

Sources

• Art Gallery of Ontario — About the AGO
• Wikipedia — Art Gallery of Ontario
• blogTO — Graffiti Alley Toronto

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