BlogTO profiles D+Q art shows winter 2014-2015!

Art shows in Toronto this winter serve many purposes, but we are a brutal people once the cold sets in, and a good show fills one certain criteria: it takes our minds off the frozen salted sludge leaking into our boots, be it through challenging paintings or charming miniature dioramas. While the AGO's programming will dominate, Dundas West will be a hot spot for visual art and Union Station will be entering the ring as a makeshift gallery.

Here are my picks for winter's must-see art shows in Toronto.

Beware of the Beast (November 28 - December 20, Narwhal)
Jamiyla Lowe's Beware of the Beast is a special take on snakes and ladders, and here artists Nicholas Aoki, Nicholas DiGenova, Amy Lockhart, Jamiyla Lowe, Noel Middleton, Andrew Remington-Bailey, and Will Sweeney take inspiration from the history of games. No longer in the Junction, the gallery is now just east of Roncesvalles on Dundas West.

Art Spiegelman Retrospective (December 20, 2014 - March 15, 2015, AGO)
Pulitzer winner and one of the Time's 100 Most Influential People, the Maus cartoonist's work is a thrill to see in person. The AGO exhibit will include rarely seen works from Spiegelman's career, including autobiographical continuous strip called Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@?*!.

Michael Dumontier (January 10 - February 7, MKG 127)
In the new year, see (former, RIP) Royal Art Lodge member Michael Dumontier's illustration work at MKG on Dundas West. Not sure if Neil Farber, Dumontier's partner in giving animals sharpies, will have work up as well.