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Gardiner Museum and BMO events celebrate art

on the scene

A pair of events in November bring people together to celebrate art, both old and new

National winner Xiao Xue and Gilles Oullette at the BMO 1st Art! Exhibition.

Nolan Bryant
Special to The Globe and Mail

This article was published more than 6 years ago. Some information may no longer be current.


Top: Emmanuelle Gattuso, left, and Gardiner Museum executive director and CEO Kelvin Browne. Bottom: Kristina Khanduja and Anjli Patel. George Pimentel

12 Trees Gala, Gardiner Museum

Since the early 1990s the Gardiner Museum, Canada's national ceramics museum located in Toronto, has hosted an annual holiday-time celebration that supports creativity and healing through one of the oldest art forms: clay.

This year, the 12 Trees Gala on Nov. 16, co-chaired by Anne-Marie Applin and Anjli Patel raised $120,000 and focused on that culture and faith-defying symbol of hope – light.

The exhibition, 12 Trees: Let There Be Light, which runs through Jan. 7, is presented by Nordstrom, and was curated by artist Douglas Coupland and Ben Mills of Public Art Management.

It includes trees that run the gamut from tame to insane. Among them is one by Jordan Soderberg Mills made of neon lights.

Another one by Evan Biddell lives in the virtual world. And then there's the tree by artist Jon Sasaki that's powered by a hand-cranking generator, which, thanks to an overzealous gala guest, was out of order and practically smoking 30 minutes into the party.

BMO 1st Art! Exhibition Opening

The BMO 1st Art! Exhibition celebrated its 15 th anniversary on Nov. 15 and Gilles Ouellette, group head of BMO Asset Management, played host once again. The exhibition brought together 13 regional finalists from postsecondary institutions across Canada. These gen-next artists were selected from some 300 entries, the highest number of submissions to date. Not only does inclusion grant finalists the opportunity to show their work in a big-city gallery, but with a big bank behind the initiative, there's as big cash prize too.

T

Top: Maria and Eric Tripp. Bottom: Pan Wendt and Sarah Robayo Sheridan.

This year's winner was University of Victoria graduate Xiao Xue, who took home the $15,000 award for her work Something to Ponder On: A Walking Camper, a work inspired by insects and missing limbs. Xue's 12 fellow regional winners were all in attendance too, and didn't leave the event empty handed. They were each awarded $7,500. The exhibition runs though Sunday at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery at the University of Toronto.