Eclectic roster of Toronto artists featured in MOCCA’s summer exhibition Empire of Dreams: Phenomenology of the built environment

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Eclectic roster of Toronto artists featured in MOCCA’s summer exhibition Empire of Dreams: Phenomenology of the built environment

TORONTO, Ont., June 3, 2010 – The Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art is pleased to present its summer exhibition Empire of Dreams: Phenomenology of the built Environment, Contemporary Artists from Toronto, from June 19 to August 15, 2010. This group exhibition features the work of some of the city’s most active and vital artists, including Dan Bergeron, Joda Clément with Nigel Craig, Liam Crockard, Dorian FitzGerald, Sara Graham, Alberto Guedea Zamora, David Han, Janet Jones, Yvonne Lammerich, Tristram Lansdowne, An Te Liu, Samina Mansuri, Alex McLeod, Jade Rude and Bruno Billio, Lisa Steele and Kim Tomczak, T&T (Tyler Brett and Tony Romano), Josh Thorpe and David Trautrimas. The opening reception, presented in collaboration with the IMAA ON.Fire 2010 National Media Arts Conference + Festival, will take place on June 19 from 7 – 11 p.m.

The things that we build embody our highest aspirations and our essential instincts to survive. They also express our will to find place, to establish dominion over territory, over our destiny. Empire of Dreams is an exhibition of recent work by artists that looks at ways in which we exist within our built environment – the phenomenon that is our experience and interaction with structures and architectures that shape complex sensory and cognitive relationships to our surroundings.

The artists’ backgrounds are diverse yet are filtered through the common lens of living in Toronto, Canada in the year 2010. Though the exhibition and the artwork do not always reference Toronto specifically, this shared experience of living in a large urban centre inevitably reflects conditions of existence common to all of us in the age of globalisation, of an emerging global empire. Through a remarkable range of approaches, techniques and in various media, the works in Empire of Dreams awaken within us new understandings of our surroundings, of the worlds that we build and inhabit.

Empire of Dreams has been made possible with the support of Matthew Teitelbaum, Partners in Art, the RBC Foundation, and David Blackwood. Partners in Art would like to acknowledge the support of First Capital, BMO Financial Group, Aastra, Rogers, TD Securities, C.A Delaney Capital Management Ltd, Gluskin Sheff, Odgers Berndtson, RP Investment Advisors, St. Joseph Communications, and UBS.

Admission for this exhibition and for the rest of 2010 is FREE thanks to the support of the Hal Jackman Foundation.

Highlights:

• This is the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art’s biennial exhibition of artists living in Toronto.
• Empire of Dreams includes a magazine-format publication produced in collaboration with new Toronto-based art journal One Hour Empire, to be released in September.

Links / URLs:

• Read exhibition essay
http://mocalegacy.webpreview.site/media-centre/20091123-134/

• Read full text press releases
http://mocalegacy.webpreview.site/media-centre/20100602-153/

• Download press ready images
http://mocalegacy.webpreview.site/media-centre/press-ready

Quotes:

•  David Liss, Artistic Director and Curator, MOCCA
“Toronto is home to some of the most talented and relevant artists working anywhere today and MOCCA considers this exhibition to be an important showcase to prove this point.”

Tags / Keywords:

Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art,  Empire of Dreams: Phenomenology of the built environment, Contemporary artist from Toronto, Biennial Exhibition, David Liss, Dan Bergeron, Joda Clément with Nigel Craig, Liam Crockard, Dorian FitzGerald, Sara Graham, Alberto Guedea Zamora, David Han, Janet Jones,Yvonne Lammerich, Tristram Lansdowne, An Te Liu, Samina Mansuri, Alex McLeod, Samina Mansuri, Jade Rude and Bruno Billio, Lisa Steele and Kim Tomczak, T&T (Tyler Brett and Tony Romano), Josh Thorpe, David Trautrimas, IMAA ON.Fire 2010 National Media Arts Conference + Festival.

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About MOCCA
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Media Contact
Fayiaz Chunara
416.395.7490
fchunara@mocca.ca

All programs and activities of the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art are supported by Toronto Culture, the Ontario Arts Council, the Canada Council for the Arts, BMO Financial Group, individual memberships and private donations.