By Yuna Cho

From a viral floating convenience store to the Art Gallery of Ontario’s (AGO) striking Impressionist exhibition Monet to Matisse, Toronto’s art scene offered a diverse range of artistic experiences this summer.

An inconveniently-placed convenience store

An outdoor installation titled Global Convenience by Toronto-based artist Trevor Wheatley went viral on social media this summer, catching the attention of many Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) students.

Second-year biomedical sciences student Shiza Anwar visited the exhibit with her sister after hearing about it from friends. “I honestly kind of already knew what it looked like online but I just thought it would be cute to go.”

The installation features a fully-stocked, life-sized convenience store, located on a floating platform about 40 feet offshore of Toronto’s waterfront.

What caught Anwar’s interest was the idea of taking something as ordinary as a convenience store and placing it somewhere unexpected. “[It’s] the irony of calling it a convenience store. We would jokingly call it the inconvenience store,” she said, echoing a name many Torontonians have begun to dub Wheatley’s piece.

In an interview with Waterfront Toronto, Wheatley said “By translating this shared urban experience into a floating public artwork, Global Convenience invites visitors to reflect on the cultural exchange that unites Toronto and cities worldwide.”

He also noted that, in connection with the World Cup, the installation reflects Toronto’s connection to the wider world.

4.2 kilometres of outdoor art

The newly-opened Lassonde Art Trail, which runs for 4.2 kilometres through Biidaasige Park, features contemporary artworks within the natural environment. The trail was unveiled in June and is open year-round.

November Paynter, chief curator and artistic director of the Lassonde Art Trail, said the project is a key part of Waterfront Toronto’s revitalization efforts in the Port Lands neighbourhood.

She said the park is part of a major flood protection program for downtown Toronto and that cultural elements were a priority for the project from the beginning.

“It is a destination park, so they wanted to have many reasons for people to experience this park system and contemporary art can tell stories,” she said.
“By working with artists, we could sort of reveal the complexities of the site, the bioengineering, the history, the industrial history, Indigenous histories, the flood protection program.”

Impressionism hits the AGO

At Toronto’s art mecca, the AGO, a landmark exhibit on impressionism chronicled how the style emerged from existing artistic traditions and influenced later generations of artists, continuing to shape art today. As visitors follow the connections between works, they can experience the full scope of the impressionist movement.

At the centre of the exhibition are several works by Claude Monet, the French Impressionist painter who sought to capture what he perceived rather than simply reproduce the world according to established artistic conventions. The exhibition, which runs through to mid-October, features works from the Dallas Museum of Art, including pieces by Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin and Henri Matisse.