The Art Gallery of Burlington (AGB) celebrates its golden anniversary with January exhibitions opening for Time Isn’t Real and Dry Thunder.
2025 marks 50 years of the Art Gallery of Burlington (AGB), giving us a unique chance to examine the past, look towards the future and find our place in the present. Exhibitions feature Canadian artists and curators, circulating stories of place and our relationship to time.
The AGB is kicking off this golden anniversary with a winter exhibition opening reception on January 16, 2025 for Time Isn’t Real and Dry Thunder. Members, media, and VIP are invited for a special preview from 5:30–6:30pm, followed by the public opening from 6:30–8:00 pm. Artist remarks and tours will take place at the gallery over the course of the night.
The AGB is thrilled to launch Time Isn’t Real. This landmark exhibition celebrates 50 years of artistic production, cultural festivities, and storytelling through the lens of contemporary Canadian ceramics. It invites viewers to consider how the lessons of the past and the potential of the future shape the artistic moment we live in today.
Opening January 17, 2025, and running until April 27, 2025, this dynamic exhibition, curated by Suzanne Carte, explores the intersections of time, materiality, and imagination. The Lee-Chin Family Gallery, with its vast 4,800 square feet of exhibition space, is dedicated to large-scale initiatives.
Time Isn’t Real invites visitors to reflect on the fluidity of time and its relationship to one of the oldest and most enduring art forms—ceramics. The exhibition takes its title from the words of Ojibwe Anishinaabe Grandmother, Kim Wheatly, who reminds us that indoctrinated time is not the only measure of time, and that the natural cycles of earth and cosmos inform our ways of being. In contrast to this prescribed notion of time, the exhibition invites viewers to reconsider how clay—an ancient material that embodies the passage of time itself—can serve as both a witness and a participant in the shaping of history and the imagining of the future.
The exhibition features works from the AGB’s unparalleled collection of over 4,000 contemporary Canadian ceramic pieces alongside bold new creations by artists including Alex Jacobs-Blum, Roy Caussy x Glenn Lewis, Gabi Dao, Hannah Faas, Thomas Haskell, Manuel Mathieu, Julie Moon, Lindsay Montgomery, Anahita Norouzi, ORXSTRA, Linda Sormin, and Shanie Tomassini. These artists’ explorations span digital innovation sustainable practices, and interdisciplinary approaches, creating a dialogue that transcends temporal and cultural boundaries. The AGB’s smaller exhibition space, the Perry Gallery, is a dedicated 400 square foot area that focuses on project-based applications.
Curated by Sarah Edo, the Perry Gallery features another exhibition, Dry Thunder, opening January 11 and running until April 27, 2025. Dry Thunder, Misbah Ahmed’s first institutional solo exhibition, brings together ceramic sculptures and paintings to explore and meditate on regional folklore, eco-poetics, and urban and wildlife transformation. Similar to the atmospheric and metaphoric contradictions of dry thunder, Ahmed molds traditional vessel shapes into anamorphic forms, inscribing them with local (Sindhi-Punjabi-Hunza) folktales and mythologies.
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ABOUT THE EXHIBITIONS
Public Opening Reception and Artist Talk: Thursday, January 16, 2025, 6:30 – 8:00 pm
Time Isn’t Real Dates: January 17, 2025 – April 27, 2025
Dry Thunder Dates: January 11, 2025 – April 27, 202
Visit the Art Gallery of Burlington at 1333 Lakeshore Rd. Burlington, ON L7S 1A9 Admission: Free
Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Thursday: 10 am – 9 pm, Friday – Sunday: 10 am – 5 pm AGB Shop Hours: Tuesday – Sunday 10 am – 5 pm
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ABOUT THE AGB
The Art Gallery of Burlington (AGB) is a dynamic space where art, community, and culture converge and share in the wealth of human creativity. We pride ourselves on delivering thought-provoking exhibitions, learning opportunities, and public programs that spark meaningful connections for people to learn, see, think, and make.
Our gallery is home to the largest collection of contemporary Canadian ceramics globally. We offer a unique perspective that challenges traditional boundaries and encourages new ways of thinking and creating.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The Art Gallery of Burlington is supported by the City of Burlington, Ontario Arts Council, and Ontario Trillium Foundation. The AGB’s learning programming has been sponsored by The Burlington Foundation and the incite Foundation for the Arts. The opening reception for our Winter Exhibitions was made possible with the generous support of Louise Cooke and the 50th Anniversary Exhibitions have been sponsored by the J.P. Bickell Foundation.