Partners in Art Online

	OCAD - back to partnerships main May 2006 PIA + OCAD In 2006, Partners in Art collaborated with OCAD to raise $110,000 to launch OCAD’s inaugural Artist-in-Residence Program. Two internationally acclaimed artists, Rirkrit Tiravanija and Ann Hamilton, presented public lectures and participated in workshops with students during their time in Toronto. Entitled Nomadic Residents, the program has brought the world's top practitioners of art to OCAD, increasing the university's international profile, and enhancing the challenging academic and studio program offered at the university.

	February 2007 PIA + OCAD Partners in Art and The Ontario College of Art and Design joined forces to present a panel discussion entitled Great Collaborations: Multi-Party Contributors to the Arts. Our panel, moderated by Gail Lord, President of Lord Cultural Resources Planning and Management, explored the essence of successful cultural collaborations with speakers and case presenters including Lu Jie, the Director of “The Long March Project” in China, Sarah Diamond, President of Ontario College or Art and Design, Jessica Rose, curator of Nuit Blanche 06, and Charles Kriel, a media artist and theorist.

	June 2011 PIA + OCAD PIA has collaborated with OCAD on a new and ambitious project that will continue over a three year period. Called Twinning Artists—Twinning Cities—for its goal of matching artists, cities and cultural groups—this venture will produce a series of partnerships between a Canadian artist and a foreign artist. Each partnership will create a show that will debut at Onsite at OCAD and will prompt a reciprocal activity in the guest artist’s home country. The first project facilitates a collaboration between Shai Heredia, a curator and filmmaker from Bangalore, and Oliver Husain, an artist and filmmaker from Toronto. Together, they will create an exhibition of artworks that extend from a combination of the visuality of Bangalore’s eccentric architecture, the peculiarity of the eclectic film sets of the south Indian film industry, and the horror of mutated creatures in our everyday, referencing Indian mythology and modern science.

	MOCCA - back to partnerships main October 2004 PIA + Mocca In 2004 Partners in Art provided funding ($81 000) for a series of four exbitions at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art. Entitled Future Species, this series of four exhibitions was a spirited speculation on how the human physical form may appear several steps ahead in the evolutionary process. Curated by David Liss, the exhibitions included works by Jubal Brown, Mathew Callinan, Eduardo Cervantes, Karma Clark Davis, Fred Fleisher, Michelle Handelman, Istvan Kantor, David Krepfle, Medrie MacPhee and Brad Phillips.
	KC Adams in Future Species; Cyborg Living. Photo by Walter Willems

	MOCCA May 2010 PIA + MOCCA The Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (MOCCA) collaborated with PIA in presenting their biennial group exhibition of work by contemporary artists living in Toronto. Titled Empire of Dreams, Phenomenology of the built environment, this survey exhibition reflected the beat and pulse of contemporary art produced in the GTA. Empire of Dreams, Phenomenology of the built environment included work by prominent artists whose practices may be well-known and others who may be up-and-coming. There is a very strong case to be made for showcasing Toronto artists, who are every bit as strong as those in Montreal and Vancouver but who do not have the same collective or individual strength of profile.
	David Han, Margaret Learns to Drive from There to Here, 2009, Dorian FitzGerald, Casa de Musica (VIP Room) 2010.

	Canadian Art Foundation - back to partnerships main February 2007 & February 2008 PIA + Canadian Art For the past two years, Partners in Art provided sponsorship funds for The Canadian Art Foundation’s Reel Artists Film Festival. The series was held in Toronto as part of the Foundation's mandate to foster awareness of the visual arts in Canada. A curated showcase of documentaries on Canadian and international visual artists, the festival provides a forum for thoughtful public discussion on questions about the role of the artist and the shaping of contemporary art history.
	Jeff Wall: Restrospective. Jeff Wall photo © Jeff Wall

	AGO - back to partnerships main May 2003 PIA + AGO Partners in Art hosted its inaugural fundraiser to raise $30,000 for the purchase of Frank Thiel’s Stadt 5/23/A (Berlin), 2001 for the permanent collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario.

	AGO - back to partnerships main September 2011 PIA +AGO PIA collaborated with the AGO to launch their first Artist-in-Residence Program, an initiative that will occupy the purpose-built Weston Family Learning centre. The residency is jointly designed by the curatorial and education departments at the AGO. Four local and international artists will be invited each year to work in residence. Partners in Art provided funding for the first year of the program, which includes artists Paul Butler, Margaux Williamson, Heather Goodchild and Hiraki Sawa.

	UQAM - back to partnerships main February 2007 PIA + UQAM Partners in Art awarded $1,000 to the Gallery Fund of the Université du Quebec à Montreal for their sponsorship of Canada’s Venice Biennale artist, David Altmejd.
	A detail from The Index, Montreal artist David Altmejd's bird-obsessed installation at this year's Venice Biennale. (Ellen Page Wilson/Andrea Rosen Gallery, N.Y./(c) David Altmejd)

	ICC - back to partnerships main September 2007 PIA + ICC Partners in Art made a $10,000 grant to the Institute for Contemporary Culture at the ROM for a commissioned performance piece by Kent Monkman, as a feature event of the Shapeshifters exhibit. The piece marked the opening of the exhibition that brought together evocative objects from the ROM's collections of works by leading contemporary Aboriginal artists.
	photo credit: Jenny Fraser

	The Power Plant - back to partnerships main November 2008 Partners in Art+The Power Plant With a donation of $120,000, Partners in Art supported The Power Plant's Commissioning Program for 2008 and 2009. For The Power Plant, as Canada's leading, non-collecting contemporary art gallery, the commissioning of major new projects is a distinctive and important role. It is committed to realizing at least one major new artwork of international significance per year. Partners in Art was proud to be its commissioning partner for the fourth and fifth commissions under the program. The 2008 commission was a work by Toronto-based, Canadian artist Scott Lyall. Entitled The Color Ball, the piece is named after a fictitious gala party reminiscent of The Power Plant's annual Power Ball. Inhabiting 3655 square feet of gallery space, The Colour Ball references works from a range of Lyall's previous exhibitions. Exposing the dichotomies that arise from our notions of the contemporary gallery space as a site for presentation, the project investigates how artworks can be finite and infinite, and how an 'art exhibition' can possess both symbolic and imaginary functions. The Color Ball, 2008 - Photo credit: Rafael Goldchain


	Justina M Barnicke Gallery - back to partnerships main March 2009 PIA + Justina M Barnicke Gallery Partners in Art along with Barbara Fischer at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, Hart House welcomed Anselm Franke, the first to be invited to lead the curatorial residency Program at the University of Toronto.During his three week visit starting in February, Anselm engaged with students, artists, curators, professors and the public in Toronto. He gave a public lecture at University College to a packed audience, shared his knowledge with master students from U of T, OCAD, York and Ryerson, extended his research studies and connected with numerous galleries and institutions with our artistic community. June 2009 PIA + Justina M Barnicke Gallery Partners in Art supported the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery at Hart House to represent Canada at the 53rd International Art Exhibition at the 2009 Venice Biennale (June 7 - November 22 2009), with a new project by Mark Lewis, curated by Barbara Fischer. The donation from Partners in Art also provided support for a public lecture by Mark Lewis in conjunction with an exhibition opening for "Mark Lewis: In a City".

	Gardiner Museum - back to partnerships main October 2010 PIA + Gardiner Museum Partners in Art was the lead sponsor for the Gardiner Museum’s Breaking Boundaries exhibit, which launched the re-branding of the museum in October 2010. Breaking Boundaries featured experimental conceptual work that resonates on both personal and universal levels by exploring how memories, experiences and assumptions condition our perception of ourselves and our world. It showcased four Canadian artists under the age of 40: Shary Boyle, Marc Courtemarche, Carmela Laganse and Brendan Tang whose works illustrates a variety of cross-disciplinary approaches to contemporary ceramic art. Each of these artists approaches ceramics from a unique perspective and integrates clay with other materials in different ways. Their work collectively makes a strong case that ceramics remain a vital and relevant part of contemporary art practice in the 21st century.

	Mercer Union - back to partnerships main July 2010 PIA + Mercer Union PIA contributed funds to Mercer Union to support its recent exhibit, Sol Lewitt: A Mercer Union Legacy Project. Originally installed by Sol LeWitt in the founding exhibition space on Mercer Street in 1981, Wall Drawing #349 was re-installed to mark the culmination Mercer Union's 30th anniversary celebrations. The 2010 exhibition of the work paid tribute to the importance of the artist’s legacy within Mercer Union’s innovative history of exhibitions, while also tapping into the currency of conceptual art practices for an emergent generation of artists.
	Photo Credit: Sol LeWitt, Wall Drawing #349 (1981; remounted 2010) Mercer Union

	Images Festival - back to partnerships main December 2011 PIA + Images Festival PIA will collaborate with the Images Festival by sponsoring three commissions for the Festival’s 25th anniversary celebrations. The largest event of its kind in North America, the Images Festival mandate is to present and promote excellence in artist-driven film, video and other time-based media. Lindsay Seers, a young British artist, will be the first artist featured under this commissioning program.

	UTAC - back to partnerships main PIA + UTAC PIA supported the publication of a catalogue for a Suzy Lake’s Political Poetics show at UTAC. Lake was one of a pioneering group of artists in the early 70s to adopt performance, video and photography in order to explore the politics of gender, the body and identity.