2013 Events at the IMC

Noon Time Collection Talk with Don Snyder

Don Snyder, photographer, critical writer and professor in the School of Image Arts, is an expert on the work of Wendy MacNeil. He will show a range of her original preparatory and final prints and discuss her impact on photography at a time when a number of significant women photographers emerged in the field.

Kodak Lecture Series: Mark Sealy

The discovery and announcement of early photographic processes in 1839 represent a defining moment in the history of Western visual culture. This is especially significant when we consider the dominant European ideologies of the mid-nineteenth century and the impact of Enlightenment thought on cultural difference at the time. Sealy argues that the early use of photography across race by those who adhered to ideologies founded on these ideals, helped establish a hierarchical world-view that shrouded ‘otherness’ in violence. It also created the conditions for photographic practices that normalised the violent and debasing treatment of those who were seen as inferior and outside of Western history.

Special Tour of Alfredo Jaar: The Politics of Images and Clive Holden: UNAMERICAN UNFAMOUS

Join Doina Popescu, Director of The Image Centre (formerly Ryerson Image Centre) and Dr. Gaëlle Morel, curator of Alfredo Jaar: The Politics of Images and Clive Holden: UNAMERICAN UNFAMOUS for tours of the exhibitions.

Special Tour of Clive Holden: UNAMERICAN UNFAMOUS

Join artist Clive Holden for a tour of his work UNAMERICAN UNFAMOUS, which draws from the Black Star Collection and is presented on the Salah J. Bachir New Media Wall in The Image Centre (formerly Ryerson Image Centre).

Noon Time Collection Talk with Steven Evans

Steven Evans, photographer, collector and specialist in 19th century photography has emerged as an important player internationally on the collecting scene and in the photography marketplace. His holdings include works by many significant figures in 19th and early 20th century photography, and he has discovered and brought long lost practitioners back into the light. Steven is the generous donor of a range of 19th century albumen prints to The Image Centre (formerly Ryerson Image Centre) Collection by figures important in the history of photography. Using these original prints he will speak about their place in the revolution in visual culture delivered by photography in the decades after the announcement of its invention in 1839.

Kodak Lecture Series: Gabor Szilasi

In a dialogue with Professor David Harris, the curator of the exhibition, Gabor Szilasi will present an overview of his work, illuminating his approach to photography through a selection of images.

Noon Time Collection Talk with Phil Bergerson

Join photographer Phil Bergerson as he speaks about his book, Shards of America, as well as about its continuation and the development of a second book.

Special Tour of Alfredo Jaar: The Politics of Images and Clive Holden: UNAMERICAN UNFAMOUS

Join Doina Popescu, Director of the The Image Centre (formerly Ryerson Image Centre) and Dr. Gaëlle Morel, curator of Alfredo Jaar: The Politics of Images and Clive Holden: UNAMERICAN UNFAMOUS for tours of the exhibitions.

Noon Time Collection Talk with Ruth Kaplan

Beginning in 1991, Bathers is a series of work that Toronto-based photographer, Ruth Kaplan, pursued for more than a decade. It is a seminal body of work in Kaplan’s practice and The Image Centre (formerly Ryerson Image Centre) is proud that it is well represented in the collection. In exploring the universality and cultural variety of the human connection to water, Bathers takes the viewer through contexts as varied as California’s Esalen, a centre of spiritual seeking, to the Czech Republic and other Eastern European settings where water is used as medical treatment. Later works include public baths in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains and hot springs in Iceland. Kaplan will also speak about her current projects.

Ruth Kaplan’s work is held by the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the CMCP, the Canada Council Art Bank and numerous private collections. She is represented by the Stephen Bulger Gallery in Toronto.

Black Star Book Launch

Join us at the The Image Centre (formerly Ryerson Image Centre) on for the launch of Black Star. A limited edition, handmade book, produced by Lumiere Press in Toronto, Black Star is edited and designed by publisher, photographer and author, Michael Torosian.

The Image Centre (formerly Ryerson Image Centre) Symposium - The 'Public Life' of Photographs

The Image Centre’s symposium entitled “The ‘Public Life’ of Photographs” will analyze the dissemination of photographic images from the nineteenth century to the present. The reproducibility of a photograph largely determines how it is used, shared, and made accessible. Photography can perform a wide range of functions: it can be a vehicle of information, an instrument of ideology, a means of scientific exploration, and an artistic medium. The flexible nature of photography and its use within many different contexts demand a wide scholarly approach. 

Special Tour of Arthur S. Goss: Works and Days

Join exhibition curators Blake Fitzpatrick and John Bentley Mays for an exhibition tour of Arthur S. Goss: Works and Days.  

Special Tour of Gabor Szilasi: The Eloquence of the Everyday

Join exhibition curator David Harris for a special tour of Gabor Szilasi: The Eloquence of the Everyday.

Special Tour of Arthur S. Goss: Works and Days

Join exhibition curators Blake Fitzpatrick and John Bentley Mays for a special tour of Arthur S. Goss: Works and Days.

Noon Time Collection Talk with Peter Higdon

Join Peter Higdon, Collections Curator, as he speaks about Toronto collector Mark Wolfson’s important 2010 gift of thirty-two photographs to The Image Centre (formerly Ryerson Image Centre).

Special Tour of Ghost Dance: Activism. Resistance. Art.

Join guest curator Steve Loft and special guest(s) for an exhibition tour of Ghost Dance: Activism. Resistance. Art.

Kodak Lecture Series: Alfredo Jaar

The artist will discuss his most recent projects realized around the world. 

Noon Time Collection Talk with Marcus Schubert

The Image Centre (formerly Ryerson Image Centre) is pleased to have a strong representative selection of prints from photographer Marcus Schubert’s seminal body of work, Visionary Environments. A gift of the artist, the works were produced over the period of 1985 – 1990 in Europe, the United States and Canada. Schubert’s deep interest in Outsider Art led him to both document and interpret a diverse range of extraordinary architectural and sculptural creations constructed by untrained practitioners. Marcus Schubert’s work is a testament to these artists’ fantastical and often obsessive visions, which flow from rich imaginations unimpeded by the limitations of traditional artistic convention. Please join us for a presentation and discussion of the work by the artist.

Special Tour of Ghost Dance: Activism. Resistance. Art.

Join guest curator Steve Loft and special guest(s) for an exhibition tour of Ghost Dance: Activism. Resistance. Art.

Film Screening: Spring & Arnaud

Cinematically gorgeous and beautifully crafted, Spring & Arnaud is a breathtakingly tender and intelligent love story about acclaimed Canadian artists Spring Hurlbut and Arnaud Maggs. Arnaud, turning 85, embarks on a series of self-portraits that wryly depict his life’s work. At 60, Spring is creating haunting works that evoke mortality while harboring the certainty that Arnaud’s time is limited. The couple’s devotion to each other as they face the reality of Arnaud’s illness is matched only by their dedication to their own work. Together and alone, each grapples with the nature of an artist’s creativity where the drive for invention and discovery resists life’s finite reality

Special Tour of Ghost Dance: Activism. Resistance. Art.

Join guest curator Steve Loft and artist Alan Michelson for an exhibition tour of Ghost Dance: Activism. Resistance. Art.

Noon Time Collection Talk with Valérie Matteau

Join Valérie Matteau, The Image Centre’s (formerly Ryerson Image Centre) Curatorial Associate + Exhibitions Coordinator, as she speaks about two current projects whose aims are to deepen our knowledge of the Black Star Collection − the first being an oral history documentary film project, and the second, a crowd-sourced ‘keywording’ initiative that offers a new point of access into the holdings. 

Special Tour of Ghost Dance: Activism. Resistance. Art.

Join guest curator Steve Loft for an exhibition tour of Ghost Dance: Activism. Resistance. Art.