Opening reception: Saturday, April 5, 1-3PM

Roundtable Discussions: Press and Publications and Artist-Run Spaces and Culture
Saturday, June 7, 2025, 2-5pm, followed by a reception, 5-7pm
Co-presented with Art Metropole and the plumb
Featuring: Vincent Bonin, Robert Fones, Peggy Gale, and Luis Jacob; Anthony Cooper, Suzy Lake, Nell Tenhaaf, and Adam Welch

Satellite Exhibitions at Art Metropole and the plumb
Details below.

In 1970, a large piece of raw canvas was hung outside the window of artist Tom Dean’s studio on Saint Laurent Boulevard in Montreal. Measuring 23 feet by 6 feet, the canvas bore gigantic lettering fashioned from glittering blue and gold sequins spelling “GOOD-BYE.” This intervention marked the artist’s very first public presentation—an address of farewell that launched an art career spanning over five decades, exceptional and still evolving. Boundless and expansive, fluidly transcending media, style, space, and norms, Dean’s work continues to challenge conventional categories of artistic production and meaning-making.

Driven by two essential inquiries—why “GOOD-BYE” then, and why Tom Dean now—the exhibition GOOD-BYE revisits the artist’s life in early 1970s Montreal. It brings together a rarely seen body of work—early conceptual artworks on canvas and in sculptural forms—and archival materials from that period, documenting the artist’s extensive and active engagement with the local alternative art scene and broader cultural milieu.

GOOD-BYE travels back in time to map and remap the vision and ambition projected by the artist at the time, while simultaneously standing in the present—behind the passage of history—to reevaluate and reflect on its significance in today’s context.

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During the run of Tom Dean: GOOD-BYE at the RMG, two satellite projects will be exhibited by our programming partners Art Metropole and the plumb.

Art Metropole (AM) will feature a display of Tom Dean’s works drawn from their inventory, including several print and publication projects that highlight the many collaborations between the artist and AM over several decades.

Where: Art Metropole, 896 College St, Toronto, ON

When: TBC

Hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 11am to 6pm

the plumb will present an evolving exhibition of Tom Dean’s drawings. Spanning several decades, these works offer an intimate glimpse into Dean’s artistic practice—one that is at once conceptual and playful.

Located in the lobby of the plumb, the exhibition will feature a rotating selection of Dean’s drawings, with a new body of work introduced each month until the end of 2025. Small publications produced by the RMG will be released and distributed throughout the exhibition’s run. Many of these drawings, most of which have never been exhibited, were uncovered during the archival research leading up to his exhibition at the RMG.

Together with GOOD-BYE, this exhibition offers a layered exploration of Dean’s evolving thought processes and artistic methods.

Where: the plumb, 1655 Dufferin St, basement, Toronto, ON

When: April 25, 2025 – ongoing

Hours: Saturday & Sunday, 2-5pm

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Tom Dean (b. 1947) is a conceptual artist, known for his work in a diverse range of media including sculpture, installation art, performance, drawing, and printmaking. Playing on tensions between the ordinary and mythical, his works reference both everyday objects and classical icons, alluding to the dream world of the psyche and matters of the soul, while always residing in the intensely material world of desire and the body. He received the Governor General’s Award for Visual and Media Arts (2001), was selected to represent Canada at the 1999 Venice Biennale, and was honoured with the Toronto Arts Award for Visual Arts in 1996. His work can be found in major collections including the National Gallery of Canada, Art Gallery of Ontario, Musée d’Art Contemporain, and Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

Yan Wu is a curator, writer, and translator whose work explores the intersections of contemporary art, architecture, and public space. She is currently the Public Art Curator for the City of Markham and is pursuing a PhD at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto. Wu has co-translated Passages in Modern Sculpture by Rosalind Krauss, Six Years by Lucy Lippard, Rock My Religion by Dan Graham, and Formless by Yve-Alain Bois and Rosalind Krauss into Chinese. Commissioned by M+ in Hong Kong, she co-translated John Cage’s Not Wanting to Say Anything About Marcel (2020) into Chinese and contributed the Chinese text for the online exhibition Marcel Duchamp: Lessons for a Creative Life from Boîte-en-valise.

Leila Timmins is the Senior Curator at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery.