Toronto's Luminato Festival branches out into Vaughan

Yorkregion.com
April 15, 2014
By Adam Martin-Robbins

Internationally celebrated artist Terence Koh has reportedly abandoned the party-all-the time lifestyle and shock art creations that put him in the spotlight. And he’s fled his New York City apartment to take up residence out in the country, in upstate New York, where he’s pursuing a simplified and more contemplative way of life.

So it seems fitting the Beijing-born, Mississauga-raised artist’s first solo show in Canada is being held on the 100-acre, forested grounds of Kleinburg’s McMichael Canadian Art Collection, which is a haven for those seeking to escape the hustle and bustle of city life.

The exhibition, taking place June 6 to 13, is part of the Luminato Festival, which is branching outside Toronto for the first time since its launch in 2007.

“The Luminato Festival is a wonderful event that engages people with art and artists and the McMichael is absolutely privileged to be part of it,” McMichael executive director and CEO Victoria Dickenson said at a press conference last week. “We’re also delighted to work with contemporary artists, such as Terence Koh, who represent a distinctive voice in Canadian art and on the international art scene.”

The gallery will showcase two new works by Mr. Koh, commissioned by festival organizers, dubbed Tomorrow’s Snow and A Way to the Light.

For the former, Mr. Koh came up with the idea of spreading powdered tapioca amongst trees in a park where two 8-year-old children, dressed head-to-toe in white, would hold hands and make snow angels for eight minutes.

The challenges of staging this performance piece, inspired by a passage from Margaret Atwood’s novel Cat’s Eye, in a Toronto park is, in part, how the exhibit ended up at the McMichael gallery.

Jorn Weisbrodt, artistic director for the Luminato Festival, was struggling to figure out where in Toronto city officials would allow them to spread tons of tapioca powder when Ms Dickenson invited him to visit the McMichael gallery.

After arriving in Kleinburg and seeing the gallery’s vast property, Mr. Weisbrodt knew he’d found the answer.

Tomorrow’s Snow will be performed on the McMichael grounds daily at 9:30 p.m. during Luminato.

Each performance will be preceded by free presentations, starting at 8:15 p.m., that complement Mr. Koh’s pieces.

The gallery will also remain open until 9 p.m. on performance nights, with reduced admission fees.

Mr. Koh’s other piece is an installation, featuring a gravestone for iconic Canadian painter Emily Carr, that will be set up in the McMichael’s Artists’ Cemetery, where six members of the Group of Seven are buried alongside their spouses and gallery founders Robert and Signe McMichael.

Luminato, a multi-disciplinary art festival staged annually in June, is now entering its eighth season.

This year’s festival features an array of renowned musicians, singers, actors, writers, chefs, magicians and visual artists including Josh Groban, David Byrne, Kid Koala, Rufus Wainwright, Isabella Rossellini, R.H. Thomson and Rob Drummond, among myriad others.

“This is a dream that David Pecaut and I had from day one: For Luminato, in time ... to become the pre-eminent, the most important multi-arts festival in the world,” said Tony Gagliano, a Vaughan resident who co-founded the festival with Mr. Pecaut. “The festival where artists compete to participate in this festival (because) it’s so important; it’s where all the action happens; it’s where they can be discovered. We want the greatest artists in the world to feel that way about our festival.”

Mayor Maurizio Bevilacqua, a longtime friend of Mr. Gagliano, who is also executive chairperson and CEO of St. Joseph Communications, said about five years ago he began lobbying for the Luminato Festival to expand into Vaughan.

“I’m a big believer that each community in the Greater Toronto Area has something to offer to (Luminato) Festival that is truly the embodiment of all that is truly exceptional about the expression and manifestation of the human condition through art and music and everything else that (the festival) is about.”