Wisdom: Andrew Zuckerman

A bunch of pictures and banners are in the Alan Lambert Galleria at Brookfield Place from July 11 to August 5, 2011 - the works are a collection of large format photographs titled Wisdom: Andrew Zuckerman and also features quotes from "leaders and visionaries from the world of politics, science, sports, and the arts."

See more wisdom after the jump.

Don't take yourself seriously.

When you teach you learn.

The Brookfield website has this to say about the exhibition. 

WISDOM: Portraits by Andrew Zuckerman

Brookfield Place will host the Canadian premiere exhibit of ‘WISDOM’, an extraordinary collection of photographs and interviews that capture the combined wisdom of legendary leaders and celebrities including Nelson Mandela, Ted Kennedy, Willie Nelson, Billie Jean King, Check Close and others. Visitors can walk amongst the 50 large format photographs and view quotes in which the subjects share lessons learned from a lifetime of work in such diverse fields as politics, sports, science, art, film, architecture and music. The exhibit is part of a project conceived and created by award-winning photographer and filmmaker Andrew Zuckerman, who was inspired by the idea that one of the greatest gifts a generation can give to the next is the wisdom gained from experience. The project was produced in cooperation with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who is also one of the subjects in the exhibit. Zuckerman met with his subjects in the summer of 2007, traveling with his creative team to four continents to interview and photograph fifty luminaries from all walks of life. All of the portraits are shot against the same blank white backdrop, allowing each face to tell its own story.

Wherever you are, be there.

Nobody can teach me who I am.

MotorExpo at Brookfield Place

Within the long public halls of Brookfield Place are a few luxury cars ready for your viewing pleasure. The cars are in the spotlight as part of the 2011 Toronto MotorExpo. This is the first Canadian visit for the ‘World’s Largest Free Automobile Event’ which showcases the latest vehicles. It is not surprising that this takes place in the heart of Toronto’s financial district along Bay Street, later you can head up to Bloor Street to pick out your mink.

The electric TELSA (at top) goes 0-97km/h in 3.7 seconds with '0 tailpipe emissions', the Ferrari has a few more tailpipe emmisions. There are going to be a few E-Type Jaguars on hand to mark the 50^th anniversary of the brand. The show starts Monday, June 20 and will run until Friday, June 24.

I dropped by early to see what is up – I didn’t really know what to expect because Brookfield Place is not that big. The cars aren’t jammed into the place, so in comparison to the fantastic Canadian Motorsports Expo (CME) – the MotorExpo would be in one of CME’s closets. I went early to see if there were any car models because it really isn’t a car show without models, but I think they were still in bed. I will stop by again in the afternoon to see if anything is happening, will happen, or gosh darn it, already happened and I missed it, or if looking up close at the cars and putting in your order is the limit of the activities you can take advantage of during this show.

Luminato 2011 - Art under construction

Hey, good art takes time, great art is timeless and big art takes a lot of work to hang. The Luminato 2011 art installation 'Sargasso' is currently being  put together in Brookfield Place. There is a lot of stuff hanging from the ceiling.

Luminato provides the following information regarding the art installation. "In his Luminato-commissioned installation, Philip Beesley’s Sargasso combines visionary design with high-tech digital engineering to transform a downtown public space – and to offer a glimpse of the potential future of architectural art. A worldwide pioneer in the fast-growing field of responsive architecture, Beesley and his team of collaborators from the disciplines of architecture, engineering, biology, and sculpture use interactive technology to infuse one of Toronto’s busiest spaces with astonishing new life."

Luminato 2011 - Festival of Arts & Creativity

Luminato comes once again to the City of Toronto from June 10^th to 19^th, 2011. Back for its 5^th year and in partnership with L’Oreal, this annual Festival of Arts and Creativity seeks to entertain and inspire everyone with three simple programming principles; collaboration, accessibility and diversity.

The festival takes place at a number of venues and includes both free and ticketed events featuring theatre, dance, music, literature, food, visual arts, fashion, film and more. The festival stage is right between Roy Thomson Hall and Metro Hall (55 John Street) and will have a lot of entertainment throughout the festival – it doesn’t look like any Luminato events will be held at Yonge-Dundas Square this year. Check out their website for the full program, but for me some highlights follow.

I always look forward to art installations in Brookfield Place and Union Station – unfortunately I don’t think anything will happen at Union Station (especially with all the construction work). June 8^th to the 18^th the Alan Lambert Galleria in Brookfield Place will have the installation titled ‘Sargasso’ by Philip Beesley Architect Inc (no entrance fee). Update: Sargasso is now being hung in place in the Galleria - here is a photo taken June 6, 2011, for more pictures check out my blog post here.

On Friday, June 17^th at 8pm k.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang Band with special guest the Belle Brigade will perform at the festival stage – free!

The President’s Choice 1000 tastes of Toronto takes place June 18^th to the 19^th starting at noon on John Street. Entrance is free but all food items are $5 each.

Contact Photography: over here over there

The Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival has an photo installation by Alain Paiement in one of the most perfect place for art installations - Brookfield Place. The glass blocks on the main floor have been covered over by large photos which give the perspective of someone looking down into the bottom floor and the photos of are real life as found by the photographer. There were a lot of stuffed animals in one room.

From Contact's website "These scenes show people and places in Paiement’s own neighbourhood: apartment interiors, storage spaces, a garage, a rock group studio, his own studio, and other contiguous environments. All are carefully represented and wondrously skewed. Despite the artificiality of his constructions, the chaos within these photographs is never staged. It is simply and objectively documented just as it is “found.”"

Floating Forest in Brookfield Place

The art installation titled ‘Floating Forest’ by Canadian artist Max Streicher hangs over the heads of people walking through the great hall of Brookfield Place. The trees are manufactured from recycled billboard vinyl and are a memorial to lost forests. The “mirage in an urban landscape” has trees that maintain their shape with internal fans so “It is a forest on life support, pointing to the futility of a civilization whose aspirations are frequently in conflict with the earth.” The piece will be in the long hall of the Allen Lambert Galleria from until April 22, 2011.

 Check out the Brookfield Place events page for upcoming events.

Celebrate 27 Art Fest: Urban Landscape

The United Nations (UN) Article 27 describes a universal right of all to participate in the arts and cultural life of the community, I think this was just before the Libyan thing, and the City of Toronto celebrates both the idea and Toronto's local artists with a series of events from April 1st to the 27th of 2011. Within Brookfield Place is an "Urban Landscape" exhibition of photographs under the glass roof of the stately Wayne Manor most commonly known as the Allen Lambert Galleria. These bottom photo is from Hawa Yusuf, mentored by exhibition lead photographer, artist and architect Michael Awad who made the other photos shown.

Mayor Rob Ford will launch the Festival on Thursday, March 31 at 6:30pm at the Galleria.

Brookfield Place Christmas

The folks at Brookfield Place have added bright lights in the massive hallway named the Allen Lambert Galleria. There is also a giant, floating, tree shaped decoration hanging in Sam Pollock Square. There are few interior of Toronto buildings that are more impressive than Brookfield Place and it is a perfect location for installation art displays.

A previous art installation hangs down from the arched hallway.

World Press Photo 10 at Brookfield Place

A large exhibition showcasing the best photojournalism photographs over the past year is traveling to over 100 cities around the world and it currently sits in Toronto's Brookfield Place. The display of pictures in the World Press Photo 10 will be in the Allen Lambert Galleria from October 6th to the 28th. Over 100,000 pictures were entered into the contest and there were only 167 winners.

I was passing through very quickly but I loved the nature shots from Canadian Paul Nicklen of National Geographic. This is a large bull seal elephant throwing sand over it's back.

Photo Vault - Brookfield Place Art

Every time I walk by Brookfield Place on Bay Street I look in their long arched gallery and check to see if they have any art installations hanging from the ceiling. They are big supporters of Luminato and other Toronto events.

I wish they could squeeze in some of the New York Macy's Day Parade giant balloons into the space as I would love to see some of those characters like Spider-Man and Snoopy in Toronto.

You can click on the Brookfield label below to see some of my pictures of their other art installations.

Brookfield Place - art installation

Brookfield Place support of the arts continues with a new installation of coloured balls hanging in the Allen Lambert Galleria.



You can see more of the art that has been displayed in Brookfield Place here.

Luminato Box - Scott Massey

Animal sounds, sod and marsh grass fill the plain white room in Brookfield Place's Sam Pollock Square in Scott Massey's art installation "Swan Song." Information on the Luminato handout say that "recent studies proving some animals, particularly birds, have been studied changeing their cal patterns to mimic sirens, cell phones and other human-derived sounds."

Luminato Box - Sarah Lazarovic tweets

A collection of Twitter 'tweets' are framed and there you go, art. And they go into the temporary structure called the Luminato Box at Brookfield Square and there you go, art in a box.



Sarah Lazarovic is a Toronto artist and illustrator who has picked a bunch of tweets, or sayings used on the social networking site Twitter, and used a few font types "to make these digital Tweets permanent, Lazarovic's work addresses the speed at which communication in today's society quickly becomes 'old,' and subsequently archived." (from the Luminato handout).



Since I was in Brookfield Place I decided to capture the Long Wave installation again. In this photo I was trying to capture the impact that art has on our surroundings - it extends beyond the physical components and in some cases casts artistic shadows. You can see more pictures of Long Wave at my blog post here.

Luminato Box - Artist Jason Baerg

During the course of Luminato a new artist will take over the Luminato Box at Brookfield Place. The box being a whitewashed 26x26 foot room built for the arts festival. Today visual artist and media producer Jason Baerg (pictured above beside my favourite) has filled the room with his large, vibrant abstract paintings and projections.

Long Wave at Brookfield Place

The Allen Lambert Galleria hosts the new commission from Toronto artist David Rokeby. The L'Oreal Luminato public art installation is perfect for long, high arch that runs lengthwise between the adjacent buildings. From the Brookfield website "Entitled long wave, the artwork forms a visual representation of a modified sine wave, the invisible structure of all transmitting devices."



Curiously enough this is an arrangement of a lot of large, red balls although these balls are not as big as the one used in the other luminato installation - Redball. One artist I know says that she considers this one more "art" than the big, red ball which is squished into places where it does not fit (but she still thinks Redball is fun).

I, on the other hand, love both the Long Wave and the Redball installations. Two thumbs up.

Chandelier 2009 by Catherine Harvey

It's time for some unusual art as the installation piece "Chandelier 2009" hangs in Brookfield Place. The large, hanging chandelier was created by Catherine Harvey with recycled plastic containers and a plastic shovel and mirrored disco ball.