G Gallery was an off-site project space administered by a rotating group of SOFAM alumni from both the Studio and Art History program and supervised by faculty members in Studio. Generously supported by the College of Arts the gallery was active from 2009 to 2016. G Gallery presented a variety of experimental solo and group exhibitions featuring local, national and international contemporary artists.
G Gallery began as a collaboration with the gallerist John Goodwin of goodwater gallery – a private gallery known for its experimental exhibitions of local and international artists – with a program of video screenings at the former goodwater space in Toronto’s east end. G and goodwater worked together to produce two other exhibitions: an exhibition of new work by the Berlin-based Danish artist Jens Haaning, and a new video and limited edition print from the renowned New York photographer Moyra Davey. In 2010, G began its own programming in partnership with the artist collective VSVSVS, a group of recent SOFAM Studio graduates, who programmed a series of exhibitions for a small space adjacent to the main exhibition space in the gallery. G produced eight exhibitions at this location before moving to the Ossington Village neigbourhood in Toronto’s west end in 2011.
From 2011 to 2016 G Gallery hosted over 50 solo and group exhibitions featuring the work of local, national and international artists in addition to presenting 11 MFA thesis exhibitions. Students and Alumni in both the undergraduate and graduate programs at the school were involved at various levels of the gallery project from exhibition programming to promotion and installation. A rotating board of recent alumni managed the day to day operations and exhibition programming. In 2014 MFA graduate Aryen Hoekstra assumed the position of Director at the gallery, overseeing gallery operations. Aryen, who is completing his PhD in the Art and Visual Culture program at The University of Western Ontario opened Franz Kaka in 2016, an exciting new contemporary art project space in Toronto.
G was unique among university-run galleries as it was entirely managed by recent alumni from the school and not by a professional team of curators and administrators. Although it might be argued that the gallery is student-run, like many in-house school galleries, its off-site location and the quality of its programming mitigated this potential perception and expectation, a view confirmed by the positive response the gallery’s programming received over the years from the wider Toronto arts community. The opportunities the gallery provided for recent graduates were among its most vital assets: offering alumni experience in curating, writing, gallery management, fund raising and many other aspects of running a project space that would help them prepare for their own collectively or independently initiated projects.
G Gallery’s programming over the years demonstrated an engagement with diverse media, politics, and forms of representation in art, considering both solicited and unsolicited submissions from artists and artist groups who had a particular interest in exploring and experimenting with aspects of their practice as a way to move their work forward. It was the focus on experimentation that remained an important thread through many of the exhibitions presented at the gallery and a guiding principle of both the undergraduate and graduate programs at the School.