two seven two, Toronto
The Canadian art landscape is ever-changing. Akimbo keeps you apprised of the standard-bearers as well as the upstarts in our monthly series on exhibition spaces from across the country. This month, we hear from Emma Bain and Yasmin Nurming-Por, co-founders of two seven two, a new contemporary art gallery in Toronto.
What is the history and mandate of your gallery?
Elizabeth Burmann Littin exhibition at two seven two
The gallery is a partnership between Yasmin Nurming-Por and Emma Bain. Our inaugural exhibition opened in August 2023 and represented our vision of mixing Canadian and international artists. Our second presentation of Santiago-based Chilean artist Elizabeth Burmann Littin is an example of how we’d like to envision developing meaningful relationships between international artists and Canada. Thanks to the support of the Chilean government, Elizabeth was able to travel to Canada and produce a new body of work in response to her time here. This past spring we had a special project where we presented and ran events to screen New York-based Mohawk artist Alan Michelson’s moving-image work Wolf Nation, which had previously been shown at the Whitney Museum and the Tate Modern. Our current exhibition with Argentinian-born Gala Berger is an installation of works made in response to her year living in Toronto and understanding climate-based concerns from here. Overall, we’re interested in working with artists and showing practices that make us think differently about contemporary art, both materially and conceptually.
Gala Berger exhibition at two seven two
What’s a highlight of your neighbourhood?
We found the space after six months of focusing on the west end of Toronto. Serendipitously, it turns out it was a gallery in the 1970s called the Electric Gallery that was an important player in the local and international art world. They also functioned as a neon business — for example, they made the iconic Sam the Record Man sign. More generally, the gallery is located in the Republic of Rathnelly, a community with a history of self-organization. In the 1960s and 1970s, the neighbourhood association fought the development of the Spadina highway that was going to destroy and displace the residents (home to many artists and writers). When they won the fight, they proposed a republic separate from the Federal Government of Canada. Many laneways in the neighbourhood are named after these activists. In fact, you access our gallery off a laneway dedicated to the late-great Canadian artist Michael Snow. We feel it is important to highlight this bit of Canadian art history to as many visitors as we can.
Suzy Lake & Lisa Lacroix exhibition at two seven two
What’s your favourite part of running an art gallery?
Running a gallery entails full work-life integration. The relationships we build with artists, writers, curators, and collectors are invaluable. Many of them have become important friends, mentors, and colleagues. It’s really satisfying when you can make a known artist’s practice feel new and introduce new practices.
How do you find out about new artists?
Claire Greenshaw exhibition at two seven two
We never stop looking for new artists: seeing exhibitions at artist-run centres, museums, grad school student exhibitions; looking through old gallery/museum programming; Instagram; personal introductions from other artists and curators, etc. We both love traveling to see art – which is always inspiring in terms of discovering new names, but also in seeing new approaches to installation and contextualization.
Where do you see yourself in five years?
Primarily, we want to continue to offer the gallery as a platform for artists. Bigger picture, we’d love to expand into having a destination art gallery somewhere in Ontario that will function as an exhibition space, residency, and chicken farm. Possibly some goats.
What excites you about your upcoming exhibitions?
Zoe Ann Cardinal Cire
We have a number of first-time solo exhibitions (in Toronto) coming up with artists such as Zoe Ann Cardinal Cire, who just graduated from Yale with an incredibly strong sculptural and painterly practice; Luther Konadu, a photo-based artist who had an amazing exhibition at the MacKenzie Art Gallery earlier this year; Holly Ward, who has a beautiful new body of work of large-scale rubbings of ancient cedars that have since been clear-cut in northern BC; as well as a group exhibition of neon works, which is a nod to the history of the Electric Gallery. We’re also participating in Art Toronto in October, and are especially excited about showing work from the estate of Kaija Sanelma Harris on the heels of her major retrospective opening this month at the Remai Museum.