Tom Dean: GOOD-BYE

Join The Robert McLaughlin Gallery for the opening reception on Saturday, April 5, 1 – 3:30pm.

Tom Dean, GOOD-BYE, blue and gold sequins on canvas, 1970. Photograph of work hanging from Dean’s studio on Saint Laurent Boulevard, Montreal by Gabor Szilasi.

Tom Dean: GOOD-BYE

Curated by: Yan Wu + Leila Timmins

April 5 – September 7, 2025
Opening Reception: Saturday, April 5, 1 – 3:30pm | Exhibition tour with curators and artist at 2pm
The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa

Driven by two essential inquiries—why “GOOD-BYE” then, and why Tom Dean now—the exhibition GOOD-BYE revisits the artist’s life in early 1970s Montreal. It brings together a rarely seen body of work including early conceptual artworks on canvas and sculptural forms as well as archival materials, documenting the artist’s extensive and active engagement with the local alternative art scene and broader cultural milieu.

GOOD-BYE travels back in time to map and remap the vision and ambition projected by the artist at the time, while simultaneously standing in the present—behind the passage of history—to re-evaluate and reflect on its significance in today’s context.

Please let us know you’re coming by completing our online registration form. Coming from Toronto? We’ll pick you up! Save your seat on the art bus shuttle using the RSVP link above. The bus will collect guests from Factory Theatre (125 Bathurst St, Toronto) at 11:30am and return around 5pm.

Refreshments provided. Artist and curators in attendance.

Tom Dean, GOOD-BYE #2, oil on canvas, 1970. Goodbye, 1970. Collection Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. Image courtesy of Tom Dean.

Related Programming:

Tom Dean: Roundtables
Saturday, June 7, 2 – 7pm
Top Top Projects, 165 Geary Ave, Toronto, ON M6H 2B8

In partnership with Art Metropole and The Plumb, we are pleased to convene roundtable discussions around two essential nodes of Dean’s early practice: artist’s press and publications and artist-run spaces. Bringing together an illustrious panel of speakers, the discussions will shed light on the historical context of these movements and activities and reflect on the threads of resonance that are visible, at work, and needed in this present moment.

The event will take place at Top Top Projects (165 Geary Ave, Toronto, ON M6H 2B8) and will be followed by a reception with refreshments. More details to come.

About the Artist

Tom Dean (b. 1947) is a conceptual artist, known for his work in a diverse range of media including sculpture, installation art, performance, drawing, and printmaking. Playing on tensions between the ordinary and mythical, his works reference both everyday objects and classical icons, alluding to the dream world of the psyche and matters of the soul, while always residing in the intensely material world of desire and the body. He received the Governor General’s Award for Visual and Media Arts (2001), was selected to represent Canada at the 1999 Venice Biennale, and was honoured with the Toronto Arts Award for Visual Arts in 1996. His work can be found in major collections including the National Gallery of Canada, Art Gallery of Ontario, Musée d’Art Contemporain, and Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

About The Robert McLaughlin Gallery

The Robert McLaughlin Gallery is the largest public art gallery in Durham Region.

The Robert McLaughlin Gallery is in the treaty lands of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation. This land has been the traditional territory of the Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg and was stewarded by various communities belonging to the Haudenosaunee and Wendat confederacies. It is covered under the Williams Treaties and the Dish with One Spoon Wampum.

This area continues to be home to many Indigenous people from across Mishiike Minisi. We recognize the sovereignty of all Indigenous nations and acknowledge the cultural history of this place and its people.