Upcoming Events!
Transmutation at Gagné Contemporary
Gagné Contemporary is pleased to present TRANSMUTATION, an exhibition of painting, photography, ceramics, sculpture and video that explores radical change in flora and fauna as we (yes WE) morph into something strange yet beautiful.
The artists hail from Toronto, Canada and Milan, Italy – so please welcome Stephanie von Awesome, Carmen Mahave, Ramona Nordal, P. Elaine Sharpe, Jonah Strub, Alex Valentina and Emily Zou.
OPENING: Friday May 30, 6-8pm
Lower Level at 401 Richmond St. West, Toronto
Fabulous Four-Legged Friends at Art Gallery of Burlington
AGE: Adult
DAY: Thursday
START/END: Thursday August 7
TIME: 6:30 - 9:30 PM
MEMBER COST: $65 (includes material and firing fee)
NON-MEMBER COST: $70 (includes material and firing fee)
INSTRUCTOR: Jonah Strub
LOCATION: Onsite
Join sculptor Jonah Strub as he walks you through all the steps of creating a fabulous four-legged friend! This could be an existing animal like your pet, your favourite animal, a mythological beast, or even a being of your own creation. Jonah will teach the basic properties of clay, and instruct participants on the handbuilding techniques involved in making your own little creature. Each participant will be able to paint their creation with underglazes to glamourize and accessorize their critter prior to firing. This workshop is suitable for artists of all experience levels including beginners.
Exhibition Tour with Jonah Strub | Shtetl in the Sun
To conclude the run of our most colourful exhibition to-date, please join us for a guided exhibition tour of Shtetl in the Sun with featured artist Jonah Strub and our curatorial team.
Admission is free, though guests will have the option to offer a suggested donation of $8. All are welcome! This tour will take approximately one hour with time for questions throughout and afterwards. Please note that this tour will take place in English, but questions may be asked in French.
Build-a-Bubbie
When someone mentions glamour, who is the first person in your own life that you think of? If your first thought was your Jewish mother or grandmother, this workshop is for you!
Pop culture has a veneration for Jewish women. The tropes and stereotypes of Jewish women, especially mothers and grandmothers are wildly influential in the worlds of musical theatre, television, movies, and drag. Jewish women, both actors and characters, in many of these examples are the embodiment of camp. Think of Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, Fran Drescher, and Michelle Visage. These women, many of them bubbies, are the epitome of camp, glitz, and theatricality.
In celebration of the final week of our exhibition Shtetl in the Sun, join us for a hands-on workshop by artist and sculptor, Jonah Strub. In this 3-hour workshop, participants will be provided plasticine clay and many embellishments including (but not limited to) glitter, rhinestones, and feathers to sculpt and photograph your own glamorous grandmother or any person of your choice. Your sculptures can be based on someone in your life or be entirely fictitious, as long as they are extremely glamourous. We hope to celebrate the chic and dazzling legacy of Bubbies with you all!
Prior to the workshop, Jonah will take participants on a brief guided tour of the exhibition, explaining the process behind his own sculptures on view.
Tickets are $40 each or $35 for students. All materials included. Capacity is limited, so reserve your spot early to avoid disappointment.
Shtetl in the Sun at the Museum of Jewish Motreal
In the late 1970s, more than 20,000 elderly Jews, many of them Holocaust survivors and transplants from the Tri-state area or Canada, lived in South Beach, Florida – the storied Miami neighbourhood nestled between Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. This area of less than two square miles became akin to a modern-day shtetl, reminiscent of the tightly knit, predominantly Jewish pre-World War II Eastern European villages.
Shtetl in the Sun, on loan from the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU, lovingly captures the ferocious strangeness of this place through the eyes of Andy Sweet, one of the most dynamic young American photographers of the late 1970s. Photographed between 1977 and 1980, Sweet’s work showcases a distinct aesthetic and cultural moment in South Beach: a rich portrait of lives that unfolded between the paparazzi-chronicled Beach visits of Dean Martin in the 1950s and 60s, and Madonna’s reign in the 1990s. His photographs dispel the stereotype of 1970s South Beach being “God’s Waiting Room.” Instead, the images capture the community’s daily rhythms in all their beach-strolling, deli-noshing and cha-cha dancing glory.
On view in Canada for the first time, the Museum of Jewish Montreal has put Shtetl in the Sun in conversation with the tongue-in-cheek sculptures of Canadian contemporary ceramicist Jonah Strub. Irreverent, extravagant, and kitsch, Strub’s figures appear to be taken straight from the candy-coloured scenes caught on film by Sweet. Together, the works highlight an emblematic and instantly recognizable North American Jewish phenomenon and figure – the Snowbird – whose vibrancy resonates across time, regions, and generations.
Shtetl in the Sun: Andy Sweet’s South Beach 1977-1980 is a project of the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU and the family of Andy Sweet.