Including a meticulously staged photograph of a nightclub lineup, a globe-spanning contemporary art convention, a museum exhibition on the loveable side of sharks and more

|September 19, 2025

Picture This

Vancouver-born photographer Jeff Wall will be taking over three entire floors of MOCA for his first major Canadian exhibition in more than 25 years, Jeff Wall Photographs 1984–2023. Wall has long been celebrated for blurring the lines between art, cinema and photography, and the show reintroduces audiences to his trademark “near documentary” style, which challenges conventional ideas of what it means to record real life. Among the highlights is “In Front of a Nightclub,” a large-scale tableau depicting a seemingly ordinary lineup outside a bar—a scene that was, in fact, meticulously staged. Here, Wall describes how this shot came together.

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Jeff Wall, “In Front of a Nightclub,” 2006, colour transparency and light box, © Jeff Wall, collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, gift of Katherine S. Schamberg by exchange “I’d seen the activity in front of this club, and I wanted to focus on the middle-aged man selling roses in the midst of the crowd, his separation from all the others, his solitude.

“I parked my truck across the street for a few nights and used a telephoto lens to take snapshots of the action to use as reference. Then I held a public casting, and a number of the people who signed up to be in the picture had also been captured in my stealth images—some of them even wore the same outfits.

“I don’t consider my subjects actors—I think they’re behaving, not acting. Sometimes I have to instruct them carefully, sometimes not. In this case, I couldn’t do much once they were all in place, so I just took a lot of photos—probably 400—hoping for the best. It was like a party on the sidewalk for seven or eight nights. People did what they wanted, and when they did something I liked, I asked them to do it again. It was a fusion of their impulses in an almost-real situation and my preferences for certain things.”

Also On

David Blackwood, “Survivors,” 1961, etching and aquatint, image: 17.7 x 25.4 cm, Art Gallery of Ontario, gift of David and Anita Blackwood, Port Hope, Ontario, 1999, © estate of David Blackwood, 99/884 David Blackwood: Myth and Legend

This posthumous tribute to the renowned Newfoundland printmaker is a retrospective of his haunting visuals of life on the Rock. From his early work as an OCAD student to his final drawing of the midwife who delivered him, the exhibition surrounds its audience with Blackwood’s lifelong obsessions: reality versus revisionism, man versus nature and the overwhelming power of the sea. October 8 to December 19, AGO

Goblin shark © AMNH Sharks

Determined to reframe pop culture’s relationship with sharks, this exhibition reveals the many sides of a species too often reduced to the ruthless predator that helped make Steven Spielberg famous. Featuring jaw-dropping lifelike models soaring up to 10 metres tall, the show immerses visitors in the beauty and diversity of sharks, exploring their habitats, hunting techniques and the human forces endangering them. October 11 to March 22, ROM

Art Toronto

Contemporary art fans will be marking their calendars for the 26th edition of Canada’s biggest art fair. Anchoring exhibitions include Arte Sur, which highlights work from Latin America’s electrifying scene curated by Mexico City gallerist Karen Huber, and Generations, a new program for galleries showcasing multi-generational artists spearheaded by Art Toronto director Mia Nielsen. October 23 to 26, Metro Toronto Convention Centre

Jeneen Frei Njootli, “Dreaming of New Futures, Greater Empires Have Fallen,” 2024. Hot rolled steel, epoxy. 36 x 108 in. Courtesy of Macaulay and Co. and the artist. Photo by Byron Dauncey **Jeneen Frei Njootli:**The Skies Closed Themselves When We Averted Our Gaze

This Vuntut Gwich’in artist has presented their art at a glittering list of galleries, and the Power Plant has landed their first major institutional exhibition. The mix of works will span screen-printed steel, sound and the artist’s own body. A highlight will be the November 8 performance, which layers Njootli’s vocalizations with sounds from an amplified caribou bone violin. November 7 to March 22, Power Plant

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Erin Hershberg is a freelance writer with nearly two decades of experience in the lifestyle sector. She currently lives in downtown Toronto with her husband and two children.