The francophone art gallery La Galerie du Nouvel-Ontario, which has been located at 174 Elgin St. for 22 years, will be moving on July 1.
The decision to relocate will help the GNO to continue to fulfill its mission, which has always been to provide rich and varied programming focused on artistic creation, said a press release.
“Since its beginnings as an artist-run centre, the GNO’s main focus has always been on the work being done by artists in order to present remarkable exhibitions to the community,” said GNO director Danielle Tremblay.
“Our relocation will allow us, for example, to offer longer artist residencies.”
The gallery’s relocation will allow it to explore new ways of exhibiting contemporary arts and to reach out to new audiences in the period preceding its move to the Place des Arts building, expected in 2020.
Until Place des Arts is built, GNO will be situated just down the road from its current site, at 54 Elgin St., on top of the Zig's bar and next to the McEwen School of Architecture.
Place des Arts, by the way, will also be located on Elgin Street, so GNO is staying in the same neighbourhood.
Coincidentally, Artists on Elgin, an art store located just a few doors down from GNO at 168 Elgin St., announced recently it is closing its doors for good as of the end of June.
To bring to a close its years of artistic exploration at 174 Elgin St. as well as its 2018-2019 season, the GNO is presenting the work of multidisciplinary artist Patrick Cruz.
The artist’s residency was directly influenced by the news of the gallery’s upcoming relocation. His installation includes historically significant material, objects and archives that he found in the gallery’s basement and put to use in a representation of Sudbury’s mining history.
“This work is very timely. Like a mine's excavation, the artist explored the depths of the GNO to bring to light what we are made of, where we are from and where we are going,” said Tremblay.
Presented from May 31 to June 28, his exhibition entitled Lèvres de mille neuf cent quatre-vingt-seize enseignants (Lips of one thousand nine hundred and ninety-six teachers) combines many artistic mediums such as documentation found on the Internet juxtaposed to recorded testimonies by citizens. The result is a documentary and portrait of Sudbury from the outsider's perspective.
Learn more on the francophone gallery's web page.
