Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973), Portrait of Dora Maar, 1937. Oil on canvas 92 x 65 cm Musée National Picasso, Paris Pablo Picasso gift-in-lieu, 1979, MP158 (C) Succession Picasso, 2011 (C) RMN / Jean-Gilles Berizzi

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Recorded: Wednesday, May 9, 7 pm in Jackman Hall
Duration: 01:34:04

During the early years of the twentieth century a new form of painting was born. This was not a further resolution of the aesthetic conundrum that had been teasing European artists for centuries – this wasn’t an evolutionary step that took us closer to understanding the mechanics of paint and canvas – this was the establishment of a new kind of aesthetic aim. This is the beginning of a radical change in pre-war cultural trajectory, an unstoppable revolution that defined post-war popular culture, and continues to inform the arts. It was a shift that found its most dramatic form in the work of Pablo Picasso, but was triggered and inspired by the art of Africa.

Photo courtesy Iain Baxter&

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Recorded: Wednesday, April 4, 7 pm in Jackman Hall
Duration: 01:26:36

Baxter’s work encompasses photography, installation, sculpture, painting, drawing, and a performative aspect that seeks to challenge and redefine the role of the artist. Collaboration and contingency are central to Baxter’s working method. In 2005 he legally changed his name to IAIN BAXTER&, underscoring that all art transpires in relation to and in partnership with a viewer/receiver. Follow Iain Baxter& on his journey from zoologist to conceptual artist to Br&. The &man will share his insights on the ecology of life and art &……..

Stephen Shore, Sault Ste.-Marie, Ontario, August 13, 1974, 1974. Chromogenic print, 20 x 24 in. © Stephen Shore, courtesy 303 Gallery, New York

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Recorded: Wednesday, March 21, 7 pm in Jackman Hall
Duration: 01:22:16

Stephen Shore is an American photographer, known for his pioneering use of colour in art photography. His book Uncommon Places is  a classic in the field. His acclaimed writings on The Nature of Photographs illuminate the many ways photographs impact on our perception. Through examining the trajectory of the development of his work, he will explore a number of essential factors of the medium of photography. Shore has been recognized with many prestigious awards, and is a Director of Photography at Bard College, New York.

Generously supported by Penny Rubinoff

Photo: Roderick Field

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Recorded: Friday, March 9th, 2012, noon – 1 pm in Baillie Court
Duration: 00:56:26

Join philosopher and author Alain de Botton for the next in a series of brown-bag lunch-time talks. Born in Zurich, Switzerland and now living in London, Alain is a writer of essayistic books that have been described as ‘philosophies of everyday life.’ He’s written on love, travel, architecture and literature. Alain also started and helps to run a school in London called The School of Life, dedicated to a new vision of education. Alain has long been passionate about modern architecture and was instrumental in starting the organization Living Architecture, as well as writing The Architecture of Happiness, which asks the question “what is a beautiful building?” His latest book, Religion for Atheists, is a deeply moving meditation on how we can still benefit, without believing, from the wisdom, the beauty, and the consolatory power that religion has to offer.  A book signing with the author will follow. Alain will bring to this talk his extensive knowledge of art history, aesthetics and the art world.

The Brown Bag Lunch & Talk series is generously supported by

Maxine Granovsky Gluskin & Ira Gluskin

In association with

Jack Chambers Lunch (unfinished) 1969 oil and synthetic paint in a natural resin varnish (possibly) on plywood 197.9 cm x 182.9 cm Purchase with the assistance of the Judith Rachel Harris Foundation and Ethel Harris, 2007 © 2011 Estate of Jack Chambers

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Recorded: Wednesday, March 7, 7 – 8:30 pm in Jackman Hall
Duration: 00:52:04

Join Christopher Dewdney for an evening of insights into the work of Jack Chambers along with personal, often humerous, anecdotes from Dewdney’s long familial acquaintance with the artist.

Christopher Dewdney has been writing art criticism for more than three decades. He is the author of four books of non-fiction as well as eleven books of poetry. His most recent non-fiction title is Soul of the World: Unlocking the Secrets of Time. Dewdney teaches creative writing and poetics at the Glendon Campus of York University in Toronto.

British Two-decker 50-54 Gun Warship, around 1703; Navy Board Model, scale 1:48; boxwood, fruitwood, brass, paper; 83.0 x 103.0 x 39.0 cm; The Thomson Collection © Art Gallery of Ontario

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Recorded: Wednesday, February 29, 7 pm in Jackman Hall
Duration: 01:23:06

Join Simon Stephens  to hear about ships, ship models and Tintin.
Simon Stephens is curator of the Ship Model and Boat Collection at the National Maritime Museum, London. He curated the Thomson Collection of ship models installation at the AGO and co-curated the National Maritime Museum’s 2005 Tintin At Sea exhibition.

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Recorded: Friday, February 24, 7 pm in the Weston Family Learning Centre
Duration: 01:36:42

In the 1300s plague ravaged Europe and was called the Black Death. The horrors of this pervaded all aspects of medieval culture and especially art. What are today’s plagues and how do we cope with them physically, psychologically and spiritually?

Allan Peterkin will explore the topic of contemporary plagues, arts and medicine in conversation with Kate Rossiter and Robert Houle.  Dr. Rossiter is Assistant Professor in Health Studies at the Brantford campus of Wilfrid Laurier University. Robert Houle is a Saulteaux First Nations artist, curator, critic and educator.

Presented in partnership with the Wilson Center, the Arts, Health and Humanities Program and the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto.

Paul-Emile Borduas, Résistance Végétale, oil on canvas, 114.2 x 147.2cm, Bequest of Charles S. Band, Toronto, 1970, Copyright Art Gallery of Ontario

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David Ciavatta
Recorded: Wednesday, February 15, 7 pm in Jackman Hall
Duration: 01:34:57

What is it that we actually see when we take the time to linger with one of Paul-Émile Borduas’ abstract paintings?  The paint on these canvases does not completely efface itself for the sake of allowing objects to appear; but nor is the sheer materiality of the paint–rich as it is–the primary object of our gaze.  In this talk Ciavatta draws from the philosophical insights of existentialist phenomenologists Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, to suggest that what these paintings make visible is, in the end, the expressive movement of existence itself:  through these paintings our eyes bear witness to the spontaneous emergence of a pre-objective sense and purpose out of the contingency of the world’s sensuous materiality.

David Ciavatta is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Ryerson University, Toronto, where he teaches seminars on Existentialism, Phenomenology, and the Philosophy of Art.

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Lloyd DeWitt
Recorded: Wednesday, February 8, 7 pm in Jackman Hall
Duration: 01:30:04

In mid-career, Rembrandt shifted to a new model of Jesus based on a living, accurate-looking model, possibly the first time in the history of Christian Art this had been done.  Lloyd DeWitt will outline the recent exhibition he organized at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which travelled to the Musée du Louvre and the Detroit Institute of Arts.  Rembrandt’s break from tradition, which was based on miraculous images of great authority, likely began as a quest for an emotional, realistic face of Jesus for finished works of art such as the 1648 Supper at Emmaus (Louvre) in which it first appears. The series of small oil sketches that document the shift seems to have continued growing and taking on new significance for the artist, at a tumultuous period in his own life, but a time when he was dealing with those at the heart of an extraordinary interfaith dialogue in his city of Amsterdam.

Lloyd DeWitt is Curator of European Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario, and organizer of the exhibition Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus.