TORONTO.- Art Toronto 2015 launched last night with the Opening Night Preview Gala to benefit the Art Gallery of Ontario. The AGO acquired five works by four Canadian artists, including Michael Dumontier, Luis Jacob, Seth and Jacob Whibley. The purchases were made possible by funds raised at the Preview, with assistance from the Peggy Lownsbrough Fund and dedicated funds for Canadian and contemporary art acquisitions.

This is the tenth consecutive year that the AGO has purchased artwork on the Opening Night Preview. $466,000 CAD was raised to support these acquisitions as well as the Gallery’s ongoing programs and its Canadian art collection.

The AGO’s chief curator, Stephanie Smith, led the Gallery’s selection committee, which included Kitty Scott, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art; Andrew Hunter, Fredrik S. Eaton Curator of Canadian Art; Sophie Hackett, Associate Curator of Photography; Georgiana Uhlyarik, Associate Curator of Canadian Art; Kenneth Brummel, Associate Curator of Modern Art; and Jon Davies, Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art. “Offering an incredible diversity of works, Art Toronto highlights an exciting mix of emerging and established artists,” says Stephanie Smith. “The artworks we purchased reflect impressive depth – allowing us to bring two new artists into the Gallery’s collection and to continue collecting works by Canadian artists in depth. These works, which share a common concern with the environments we construct around us, are outstanding additions to the AGO’s collection of contemporary and Canadian art.”

Michael Dumontier’s playful sculpture Untitled (Nails) (2015) is further evidence of the Winnipeg artist’s experimentation with materials. A wall installation constructed out of bent, cartoonishly rendered nails crafted from aluminum and painted black, they protrude deceptively from the wall, as though a once-flat line drawing has come to life. This is the first work by the artist to join the AGO’s collection.

Two works by Luis Jacob were purchased, adding to one object already in the AGO collection. “Jacob is an important Toronto artist, whose work considers not only the city as a built environment but also as a site of collective action and desire,” says Kitty Scott. “The AGO is committed to collecting major contemporary Canadian artists in depth, and together these two important early works allow us to broaden our understanding of the foundations of Jacob's practice.”

A unique portrait of Toronto’s financial district, Jacob's BILTS (1997) is a sculptural installation of six seemingly abstract forms, rendered in maple, derived from the footprints of various high-rise office buildings. Jacob turns the mighty skyscrapes on their sides, presenting them horizontally and on the floor.

In the corresponding work Model City (2000), Jacob revisits the Toronto skyline through a series of a twelve black-and-white photographs. Shot from the scale model of Toronto found at City Hall, these images depict various Toronto skyscrapers from two vantage points, both head on and from above. These images, like the model they come from, present Toronto as an abstracted reality. Both BILTS and Model City were originally shown together in a a solo exhibition at the Robert Birch Gallery in 2001.

Based on a rare photograph, Death of Jumbo (2006) is the second work by acclaimed Ontario cartoonist Seth to join the AGO’s collection. Working in watercolour, ink and silver, the illustration is from the exhibition Jumbo’s Remains, originally commissioned by Museum London in 2006. Jumbo the Elephant was the star of the Barnum & Bailey circus, and his death in a rail accident in St. Thomas, Ontario in 1885 made headlines around the world.

A delicate collage of paper scraps and ephemera, Toronto-based artist Jacob Whibley’s abstract mass 3 (eeb) (2012) is the first work by the artist to join the AGO’s collection. Inspired by early modernism, geometric forms take on a multitude of textures as Whibley draws on a vast collection of vintage paper fragments.