Robert Kananaj Gallery

It has been a profound experience serving the gallery’s journey here in Toronto . and my wife Roberta are thankful for everyone who visited and supported us. Closing the Toronto gallery location and moving to Tirana Albania. For the time being visit . Picture view; two sculptures, towering in transportation, moments before closing Toronto location; “Garbage Heavens” outside the “Gravity of Feeling” Looking forward to the gallery’s journey.

It has been a profound experience serving the gallery’s journey here in Toronto . and my wife Roberta are thankful for everyone who visited and supported us. Closing the Toronto gallery location and moving to Tirana Albania. For the time being visit . Picture view; wo sculptures, towering in transportation, moments before closing Toronto location; “Garbage Heavens” outside the “Gravity of Feeling” Looking forward to the gallery’s journey.

Closing the gallery , is like a burned piano last played nine years ago, with concerns of our time.

Times of Reflection, Installation view

“Global Affairs”

Installation view

Installation view
“Times of Reflection”

Eros

ABC, sculpture (detail) 8th of November 2023, about violent western civilization.

Alien Third Eye

Body & Mind, sculpture, 2023

Portrait sculpture, Roberta, resin, 2023

ONE CAN’T BOMB
AN IDEOLOGY OUT OF EXISTENCE

Cooking Pot Society installation

RKG’s north wall view; with .ca mural, and mold drying

“Renaissans des Refusés”
Over 4000 unknown artists, various media
August 2023 - ongoing

PRESS RELEASE: For immediate release

Renaissance des Refusés is about exposure to refusal as a leap of judgement, on behalf of anyone, regardless of context when it comes to the unique individual each of us is. Accessibility to the unknown and anonymity are not to be underrated, or taken for granted. Renaissance is omnipresent with the rejected individual.

The installation is maximalist, inviting touch and sale, permitting visitors to brave their way through the gallery in single file. Information overflows across the board within the disorderly art-objects; the order rises from the visitor's point of view.
This setting encourages one's experience of casual alertness, similar to walking down the streets of a city - at that same pace. The visitor becomes the minimal intake of the installation, allowing anonymity for things to pop at whatever level of experience.

The simple message for both, gallery and visitor, is getting a break from telling or guiding. A pause from being told what to do by any one including oneself, is created by the uniqueness of the experience. Subjectivity - exclusive or inclusive at once - makes us thrive, each at our own pace and place. Social refusal is anchored to the gatekeeper of our own individual Renaissance des Refusés.

Mesmerizing Salon des Refusés

Suspended House, sculpture, detail,

Planting Figure, sculpture, detail

“Times of Reflection” installation view

Gun Roze and Hui Tian -
All are welcome to see photography by Gun Roz, and drawing by Hui Tian. During the month of May Robert Kananaj Gallery is hosting these two exhibitions.
Accidental Urban Portals
Gun Roze Scotia Bank Contact Photography Festival May 3–31 Artist talk on May 6

Hui Tian
Beautiful Man
Portraits drawing, pencil on paper, exhibited during the spring of 2023

All are welcome to see photography by Gun Roze and drawing by Hui Tian. During the month of may RKG is hosting these two exhibitions:
Gun Roze has enjoyed a strong attraction to shiny objects and reflective surfaces since childhood. As a daily street-based photographer, he remains instinctively drawn to these during his walks. Gun photographs what he senses is happening within a plane of glass, a pool of water, or a piece of metal. His camera records how intricate dimensions are created by the fusion of layers occurring within the reflections; overlapping shapes, textures, and colours. This is not clear, or immediately visible at the time. The unpredictable and surreal final image results challenge one’s mind, and encourage a leap of the viewer’s imagination.

Artist talk on May 6, 3pm. Part of the contact photography festival of ScotiaBank. “Beautiful Man” , an exhibition of eight drawings by Hui Tian.
It is hard to find social and collective justice in these drawings, but we do find a contemplative artist. We are exhibiting drawings literally above of the existing installation “Tribute to Ukrainian Flag” highlighting the fragile state of an individual, a drawing, an installation, a society, or a war. These drawings have life, mundane and noble, living it all.

Drawing, pencil on paper by Hui Tian
“Depressed Man #2”, 11in by 14in, 2022

#2022 “Memory is Deaf, Memory is Blind” memory-related sculpture. Memory outlives our fragility. To show that side of memory I chose plaster as material, to identify with impermanence but rigid in unalterable state; as it sets it is fragile. But as long as memory lives in us it doesn't listen or see, not altering to any other thing; it is deaf and it is blind. It is brought as colourless, white, as a ghostly influencer and presence in one's life, and I relate the subject rendered in plaster to classical sculpture. As the memory is formed, so is the sculpture, and lives in unaltered state as we live. The difference is that the sculpture depends on different individuals' care, while memory is the property of, and under the care of, a particular individual. The sculpture in this case is the property of everyone, a metaphor of what a lasting memory in society is, and its fragile state.

Welcome all, to see “Beautiful Man” , an exhibition of eight drawings by Hui Tian.
It is hard to find social and collective justice in these drawings, but we do find a contemplative artist. We are exhibiting drawings literally above of the existing installation “Tribute to Ukrainian Flag” highlighting the fragile state of an individual, a drawing, an installation, a society, or a war. These drawings have life, mundane and noble, living it all.

“Cooking Pot Society” detail installation part of exhibition “Times of Reflection”

“Salon des Refusés” is geared to one person at a time. For the first time in our 11 years of service to the public, we stepped back from telling the visitors what to see. The visitors are not all the same. They are different. It is limiting to show to the public a few select artists and artworks, so we surrendered our say to each of the visitors. With over 3000 unknown artists and artworks, the project highlights the uniqueness each of us is meant to be. Uncompromising, unique selfs, we share our individual take to one City, or one Word, by being what we are, individually and collectively.

“Salon des Refusés” with 3000 unknown artists-artworks, ongoing project by

“XY” sculpture detail