The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) in Toronto has announced that its new five-storey, C$100m ($73.4m), Dani Reiss Modern and Contemporary Gallery, which will display around 400 modern and contemporary works, will open to the public on 25 September 2027. The expansion project was first made public in April 2022.
“The Dani Reiss Modern and Contemporary Gallery is more than an expansion project—it is Toronto and Canada announcing its global position,” Stephan Jost, the AGO’s outgoing director and chief executive, said in a statement. “When this gallery opens in September 2027, the world will be made aware of the strength of the AGO collection and the degree to which it has evolved to be truly global.”
The new building is the result of a collaboration between three architecture firms: the Toronto-headquartered firm Diamond Schmitt (known for its revamp of Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver and the forthcoming New Brunswick Museum in Saint John); the New York-based firm Selldorf Architects (of the recent renovations of the National Gallery in London and the Frick Collection in Manhattan); and Two Row Architect, headquartered in Ohsweken, Ontario (known for the Perry Centre for Native American Art at the Shelburne Museum in Vermont).
“It’s not a small project,” Jost said at the time of the launch in 2022. The 40,000-sq.-ft expansion, which overlooks downtown Toronto’s Grange Park, increases the AGO’s display space by around 30%, including 5,000 sq. ft of gallery spaces with 23ft-tall ceilings.
Rendering of the Dani Reiss Modern and Contemporary Gallery at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto Courtesy of Art Gallery of Ontario, Diamond Schmitt, Selldorf Architects, Two Row Architect and Play-Time. Rendering courtesy of Art Gallery of Ontario, Diamond Schmitt, Selldorf Architects, Two Row Architect and Play-Time.
The gallery is certainly in need of additional space for its collection of modern and contemporary work, which has grown by around 18,000 pieces in the past decade. In 2024 it received a gift of 37 works from the estate of the telecoms executive Philip B. Lind, including pieces by Laurie Simmons, Stan Douglas, Jeff Wall, Ai Weiwei, William Kentridge, Rodney Graham, Philip Guston and others. Last year, the gallery acquired more than 200 photographs by Peter Hujar and received more than 450 works from the late collectors Carol and Morton Rapp—among them works by Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenburg, Kara Walker, Rachel Whiteread, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Lee Bontecoue, David Hockney and others. (The gallery also found itself at the centre of a culture war debate after opting not to acquire a work by the US photo-based artist and activist Nan Goldin.)
The AGO also boasts the largest public collection of Henry Moore’s work outside the UK—so much so that two years ago, to mark the 50th anniversary of the gallery’s Henry Moore Sculpture Centre, the city of Toronto declared 13 November to be Henry Moore Day.
The project of building a new wing was sparked by a lead gift of C$35m ($25.7m) from Dani Reiss, an art collector, chairman and chief executive of Canada Goose and member of the Order of Canada. The Reiss Gallery project is now fully funded, thanks to contributions from a community of supporters and the governments of Ontario and Canada.
Speaking on behalf of the federal government, Gregor Robertson, the minister of housing and infrastructure, said: “The federal government is proud to support this sustainable, state-of-the-art gallery that will host some of the world’s best modern and contemporary art for generations to come.”