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.
June 1 to September 10, 2024
This exhibition is presented in partnership with York University’s School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design and the L. L. Odette Centre for Sculpture.
“The Garden Gardens” explores the intricate systems that underpin urban life by transforming familiar urban elements into revered artifacts. In a deliberate nod to the tradition of the museum presentation, Campisi employs the plinth to create an open air art gallery that creates a striking narrative between adoration, artifice and absurdity. The installation invites us to navigate the complexities and generative effects that progress has in shaping our perception of reality, culture and identity. In doing so, she offers a powerful meditation on the nature of truth, authenticity and the enduring allure of facades in our modern world.
Working autobiographically, Campisi uses labour intensive and experimental methods to re-make seemingly random elements from her daily life. She is not interested in maintaining reality but rather is more interested in generating a fantasy to create a space where assumptions, absurdity and artifice are front and centre. She is not trying to trick the viewer but rather draw out their judgments and bring into question the general feeling or idea of culture as ascribed to our built environment. Ultimately, her work is fixated on why we exist and how the things that we never pay attention to ultimately define, generate and build who we are.
Amidst our cultural fixation with facades, “The Garden Gardens” serves as a commentary on society’s preoccupation with surface appearances. In our pursuit of the idealized and the superficial, we often unwittingly embrace facades to obscure deeper truths, blurring the lines between reality and illusion. These sculptural works invite viewers to confront this paradox and contemplate the profound implications of living in a world where truth is often veiled by artifice.
Julia Campisi is an artist who works in sculpture, installation and collage. Working autobiographically, Campisi uses labour intensive and experimental methods to re-make seemingly random elements from her daily life. She is not interested in maintaining reality but rather is more interested in generating a fantasy to create a space where assumptions, absurdity and artifice are front and centre. She is not trying to trick the viewer but rather draw out their judgments and bring into question the general feeling or idea of culture as ascribed to our built environment. Ultimately, her work is fixated on why we exist and how the things that we never pay attention to ultimately define, generate and build who we are.
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.