Since opening in 1981, the Toronto Sculpture Garden (TSG) commissioned temporary artworks by over 80 artists, in a small City of Toronto park opposite St. James Cathedral on King Street East. Until 2014, it was operated as a partnership between the City of Toronto and the Louis L. Odette Family, benefactors who created the non-profit L.L.O. Sculpture Garden Foundation which funded and administered the exhibitions. Under the direction of Rina Greer, the TSG allowed artists to explore issues of scale and materials, as well as engage with the local community and visitors to the neighbourhood. For some, the expansion of their practice beyond the studio led to major public artworks elsewhere.
The Toronto Sculpture Garden is now managed by the City of Toronto and acts as a stepping stone between studio work and public art, providing artists with the opportunity to work experimentally in public space.
September 12, 2023, to May 20, 2024
Presented in partnership with Art Toronto and United Contemporary
To Reflect Everything is a monumental sculptural work that investigates the complexities of queer utopia. Inspired by the 1986 Ajisai satellite, the large sphere is adorned with mirror-finished steel panels that both seamlessly and incongruously merge with its surroundings. To Reflect Everything appears poised for departure, as if preparing to transcend earthly boundaries. Reminiscent of a disco ball, the alluring surface invites viewers to delve into the realms of self-reflection and transformation, and to reconsider the urban environment of the TSG through distorted and fractured reflections. Read the exhibition text by Renata Azevedo Moreira.
Ryan Van Der Hout is a Canadian interdisciplinary artist based in New York City who activates the material processes of making to navigate states of being such as grief, undoing, and queer becoming. His work spans photography, public art and sculpture. Van Der Hout has exhibited at Metropolitan University Gallery, Filter Photo Chicago, Stills Scotland’s Centre for Photography, AGO and Parsons School of Design New York, and commissions include public art for the City of Toronto, Toronto Archives, TTC, OCAD and Pemberton Developments.
The Toronto Sculpture Garden is located at 115 King Street East, just east of Church Street, directly across the street from St. James Cathedral and between two of the oldest buildings in the city, dating from the 1840s.
The park is approximately 80′ by 100′ (25m x 30m) and is open to the public between 8 a.m. and 11 p.m. With its proximity to King Street to the north and the St. Lawrence market neighbourhood to the south, the park serves a wide variety of users, from those who live and work in the area to visitors to the neighbourhood and the City, people of all ages, those seeking out art and those coming across it by accident.