Media Releases

UTSC announces design for major new artwork on campus

December 21, 2010

Largest single commission of public art in campus history

TORONTO, ON — The Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to Scar­bor­ough (UTSC) is proud to announce artists Daniel Young and Chris­t­ian Giroux have been select­ed to pro­duce an orig­i­nal pub­lic art work for the atri­um of the new Instruc­tion­al Cen­tre on cam­pus.

Con­struct­ed of pow­der-coat­ed steel tub­ing, Young and Giroux’s win­ning pro­pos­al presents a series of lines form­ing planes and vol­umes in an abstract com­po­si­tion that cel­e­brate UTSC’s archi­tec­tur­al his­to­ry.

Their pro­pos­al nods to UTSC archi­tect John Andrews and his preva­lent Neo-Futur­ist vision for the university’s cam­pus in the stack­ing quadri­lat­er­al forms that com­prise the Human­i­ties Wing.

Young and Giroux were select­ed from an ini­tial 92 submissions—the out­come of an inter­na­tion­al call for expres­sions of inter­est. In adher­ence with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toronto’s Pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dures, the Selec­tion Com­mit­tee assigned three artist teams to a short­list, from which emerged this win­ning team.

Young and Giroux’s pro­pos­al was sin­gled out by a selec­tion com­mit­tee com­posed of artists, crit­ics, cura­tors, fac­ul­ty, and admin­is­tra­tors, who agreed that it pre­sent­ed a vision of the new Instruc­tion­al Cen­tre that is in keep­ing with UTSC’s growth and move­ment into the new mil­len­ni­um.

Jurors were most impressed by Young and Giroux’s con­sid­er­a­tion of the UTSC cam­pus as a whole, their rig­or­ous engage­ment with cur­rent themes in con­tem­po­rary art and archi­tec­ture, and their com­pelling sculp­tur­al solu­tion to the unique prop­er­ties of the space.

Daniel Young and Chris­t­ian Giroux have been mak­ing art togeth­er since 2002. They pro­duce sculp­ture, pub­lic art and film instal­la­tions. Their work is the prod­uct of an ongo­ing con­ver­sa­tion con­cern­ing the moder­ni­ty of the mid-cen­tu­ry, the pro­duc­tion of space and the built envi­ron­ment. Their work has been shown at Scope Mia­mi Beach (2004); Ace Art Inc (Win­nipeg, 2004); the Pow­er Plant (Toron­to, 2006); the EXiS fes­ti­val (Seoul, 2009); and the Muse­um Fur Kun­st und Gewerbe Ham­burg (2009). They are rep­re­sent­ed by Diaz Con­tem­po­rary in Toron­to.

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For more infor­ma­tion, please con­tact:

Karen Ho,
Media and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Assis­tant
Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to Scar­bor­ough
416–208-5149
karen.ho@utsc.utoronto.ca