DECADE: 10 Years of Creation at Youngplace

For 10 years Toronto’s Youngplace at 180 Shaw St. has been a crucial community hub for artists, arts groups, and engaged audiences. DECADE: 10 Years of Creation at Youngplace celebrates the role the building's tenants have played within the cultural ecology of Toronto.

The exhibition features eight contemporary artists currently or recently working in the building and whose work offers an exciting range of media from painting, textiles and sculptural installation to video and photography: Ruth Adler, Barbara Astman, Shabnam K. Ghazi, Vid Ingelevics, Gillian Iles, Carolyn Murphy, Midi Onodera, and Matthew Schofield.

Ruth Adler / Barbara Astman / Shabnam K. Ghazi / Gillian Iles

Vid Ingelevics / Carolyn Murphy / Midi Onodera / Matthew Schofield

Curated by David Liss

In a building designed by architect C. H. Bishop, the Shaw Street Public School opened in 1914 and was closed by the Toronto District School Board in 2000. After a transformation of the interior by Teeple Architects, the building re-opened in 2014 as Artscape Youngplace, named in honour of a lead donation from The Michael Young Family Foundation. Over the past 10 years 180 Shaw St. has become a crucial community hub for artists, arts groups, and engaged audiences.

To acknowledge and celebrate the role the building and its tenants have played within the cultural ecology of Toronto over these past 10 years, Koffler Arts is excited to present DECADE, a group exhibition by eight contemporary artists currently or recently working in the building.

While the building itself is significant to Toronto’s architectural heritage, it is ultimately the human activity that is the heart and soul of a place. Over the past 10 years, 180 Shaw St. has had nearly 100 artists and cultural groups practicing a diverse range of media and forms, solidifying its purpose and value.

The exhibition also comes at a time of economic challenges in Toronto that demands consideration of how artists and cultural groups can inhabit the city, contribute to its growth and vitality, and achieve greater security for the future of this and other cultural spaces across Toronto.

DECADE opens on February 22nd and runs until May 12th.

For media inquiries please contact Laura Chapnick-Klein lchapnick@kofflerarts.org.

RUTH ADLER is a multidisciplinary artist whose work includes painting, textile collage and video and has been exhibited internationally since the 1980s. She has presented numerous solo exhibitions including Jim Kempner Fine Art (New York), Lonsdale Gallery (Toronto) and Lorber Gallery (Tel Aviv). In the 80s and throughout the 90s she ran her own t-shirt label in Tel Aviv and designed t-shirts and textiles for Marci Lipman (Toronto), Martex and Macy's (New York). Adler has received awards and grants for her work including a Bravo Fact award for her video “How Yellowknife Got Its Name.” She has also done commissions for the Iroquois Hotel (New York) and The Schneider Children's Medical Centre (Petach Tiqvah, Israel). In 2000, Ruth began making her digital circles on paper that are currently represented by Artstar (New York). Ruth lives and works in Toronto and Tel Aviv.

BARBARA ASTMAN belongs to a visionary group of artists who have continued to radicalize visual culture since the early 1970s by defining new ways of seeing. Over four decades, she has explored a wide range of photo-based media and produced work, which has received national and international recognition. She is represented in important public, corporate and private collections including the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Deutche Bank, New York, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Her artist’s archives are held in the E.P. Taylor Research Library & Archives, AGO.

As a Professor Emerita at OCAD University, Toronto, she has been instrumental in inspiring generations of emerging artists. Active in the Toronto arts community, Astman has served on numerous boards and advisory committees, including the AGO Board of Trustees (2009- 2013) and was President o f the Board of Directors at Prefix (ICA) Institute of Contemporary Art, Toronto.

Astman is represented by Corkin Gallery, Toronto and Paul Kyle Gallery, Vancouver.

Toronto-based artist SHABNAM K. GHAZI, originally from Tehran, embarked on an artistic journey through apprenticeships with Iranian masters in the 1990s. A graduate of York University's Bachelor of Fine Arts program, she has showcased her diverse body of work nationally and internationally, with exhibitions spanning galleries in Iran, the United States, Canada, and Cuba, and her pieces featured in prominent collections such as the TD Bank Corporate Art Collection.

GILLIAN ILES’ practice spans painting, sculpture, constructions and video/projection. Mixed media installations construct or alter physical spaces, implicating the viewer within a composite of realities. Since 1997, she has exhibited in Düsseldorf, New York, San Francisco, Brooklyn, Chicago, Miami, Montreal and Toronto in public institutions, university galleries, artist-run centres and commercial galleries. Gillian is a founding member of two artist collective galleries in Toronto - Propeller and Loop, and is currently a member of the Red Head Gallery. Gillian teaches at OCADU, Sheridan College and Toronto School of Art in Canada.

VID INGELEVICS is a Toronto-based visual artist, independent curator, writer and educator at Ryerson University. His artworks and curatorial projects have been exhibited across Canada, in the United States, Europe and Australia. His writing has appeared in numerous publications in Canada and Europe.

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CAROLYN MURPHY’S work in textiles explores modern abstract design, taking the traditional art of quilting and turning it on its head. Deeply inspired by the improv work of the quilters of Gee’s Bend, Murphy has explored this art form for over 25 years, leaning hard on improvisation to inform the direction of her work. Murphy is fascinated by quilts, the tactile richness of the fabric, the physical heft and pleasure of each piece, the punch of colour, the thrill of design, the double duty that her medium provides: quilts are experiential art. She lives and works in Toronto.

MIDI ONODERA is an award-winning filmmaker and media artist who has been writing, directing, and producing films and videos for more than 35 years. Her films have been critically recognized and included in national and international exhibitions and screenings. She is the recipient of the 2018 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts.

MATTHEW SCHOFIELD is a Toronto based Canadian born artist who has been exhibiting his artwork in commercial galleries, museums and artist run centres nationally and internationally since 1996. He has exhibited in Paris, Brussels, Florence, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Brooklyn, Provincetown, Chicago, Orlando, Miami and Toronto. He is represented in Toronto by Nicholas Metivier Gallery; in Chicago by Zia Gallery; in Provincetown by Rice Polak Gallery; and in Orlando by Snap Orlando.

Matthew's paintings explore snapshots painted with unsentimental observation. He is interested in observing the idiosyncratic nature of the photographer and their subjects. The overarching theme of his work has been painting snapshots and overlooked moments while attempting to order the outcome of random sequences. The resulting paintings are usually one to one scale recreations of the original photographs installed in collage form; giving order and/or disorder to the cumulative imagery.

Exhibition Curator

DAVID LISS is an independent curator, writer and artist currently living in Toronto. From 2000 to
2020 he was Director, Curator and Artistic Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art
Toronto. From 1995 to 2000 he was Director and Curator of the Gallery of the Saidye Bronfman
Centre for the Arts in Montreal. During the early 1990s he contributed art and music reviews to
the Montreal Gazette, Vice, Canadian Art, and other publications. Since the late 1980s he has
organized, curated, written texts and essays, published books and developed interdisciplinary
programs for numerous exhibitions and projects in Toronto, Montreal, and venues across
Canada and internationally.

Photography by Max Power

DECADE: 10 Years of Creation at Youngplace

Photos