MOCA Toronto
MOCA is a permanent home for contemporary art right here in Canada’s largest city.
It’s now housed in what used to be an old aluminum factory, five times the size of the previous West Queen West space. MOCA started out as the Art Gallery of North York in 2000.
The first floor is always free and open to the public, though admission to the entire museum is $10 for adults, $5 for students and seniors and if you’re under 18, it’s free.
Art Metropole, formerly found on Dundas West, moved into this first floor, selling books and art publications. There’s also a location of Forno Cultura housed in a light-filled glass front area.
The first floor will also always be home to what’s being called an Invitation Project. Andreas Angelidakis’ DEMOS - A Reconstruction is composed of 74 foam modules covered in vinyl the public is free to interactively rearrange, and which can be repurposed to create makeshift performance spaces.
Inaugural exhibit of 16 international artists BELIEVE centres around the powerful, positive verb, meant to reflect the positive impact of the art gallery on the community.
The first piece encountered exiting elevators up to the second floor is Indigenous artist Carl Beam’s The Columbus Suite, 12 photo-based etchings depicting those who died for their beliefs from Martin Luther King and Abraham Lincoln to Sitting Bull and religious martyrs.
Scarborough artist Nep Sidhu created Quazarz Pinball Arcade with Security and Leisure Enhancement Console, an entirely redesigned, reprogrammed pinball machine with sounds and music by Shabazz Palaces connected to a responsive opposing machine that calls to mind concepts of surveillance.
Toronto-based Rajni Perera’s Talisman is a captivating double throne created in collaboration with Yorgo Liapis, and immediately evokes an opportunity for discussion of different viewpoints and a bridging of ideas.
Darkened rooms for exhibiting video art are slotted into corners of the gallery, Jeremy Shaw’s Quickeners appropriating footage from a documentary about a Pentecostal Christian sect, two rows of chairs thoughtfully but eerily set up in imitation of a church basement environment.
Originally installed in Montreal, Dineo Seshee Bopape’s And-In. The Light of This._ creates art out of Haitian voodoo symbology and spells.
Having a Barbara Kruger piece as part of BELIEVE solidifies MOCA as a gallery where world-class art can be seen.
Half the fifth floor is devoted to rotating programming, an Art in Use program of rotating exhibits centring around new commissions, events and workshops. The other half is devoted to a location of Akin collective with over 30 studio spaces available.
Hector Vasquez
Join MOCA Toronto on March 21, 2024 from 8 –10 pm for an exclusive first look at our triennial exhibition, Greater Toronto Art 2024, opening across all three floors of the museum. Explore our new exhibition with music and beverages before it opens to the public!
GTA24 showcases the work of 25 intergenerational artists, duos, and collectives from or with a connection to the region. The exhibi...
The Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto (MOCA) will launch Greater Toronto Art 2024 (GTA24), the second edition of the museum’s highly-acclaimed triennial exhibition, on March 22, 2024. Presenting 25 artists, duos, and collectives, GTA24 is a project that challenges the notion of individualism and focuses instead on the interconnectedness of individuals within a larger social fabric. The exhibit...
To celebrate the opening of Greater Toronto Art 2024 and in continuation of MOCA’s Friday Night Performance Series, join MOCA on March 22 at 7pm for a free performance by renowned experimental artist Nobuo Kubota. Kubota will present a new performance that brings together vocal work and sound poetry. Inspired by free improvisation and the sensibilities of jazz, as well as Kabuki theater, Kubota...
Join MOCA Toronto to celebrate the Greater Toronto Art 2024 exhibition opening weekend through a series of drop-in hands-on workshops centred around the theme of Mapping the GTA! Each workshop is free with the cost of admission.
Saturday, March 23: 12–4 pm
This drop-in workshop asks participants to reconsider our relationships to the land we live on. Working collaboratively, participants ...
Join MOCA at Paradise Theatre on March 23 from 2–3:30 pm for a talk between two of the artists in GTA24, Jes Fan and Sin Wai Kin. Fan and Sin will be coming together to discuss their connections to and distance from the Greater Toronto Area, and the notion of desire as it relates to each of their practices.
About the GTA24 Live & Screening Programme:
Greater Toronto Art 2024 (GTA24) showc...