A child and adult visitor take in the AGO's new exhibition for kids, “Just Like Me.” The exhibition features art about children from various eras, with all the artworks hung at a child's height rather than an adult's. / photo courtesy Art Gallery of Ontario
Just ahead of the holiday school break, two major Canadian art galleries have announced new programs for children.
On December 21, the Art Gallery of Ontario is launching a special exhibition series, The Kids’ Gallery, geared towards children and their families. “Just Like Me: Explore, Imagine, Create” is the first installation in the series and features a selection of 23 paintings, sculptures and photographs.
“Kids are often fascinated by images of other kids,” said exhibition curator Lloyd DeWitt said in a release. “We’re gathering the greatest works from the AGO collection that feature children as subjects in order to offer our youngest visitors both a mirror to see themselves in the art, and a window to peer into other eras and cultures.”
Works in the show—which will be hung at a child’s height, rather than an adult’s—include Godfried Schalcken’s painting Boy Holding a Torch (1692) and Michel Lambeth’s black and white photograph Baldwin Street, Toronto (ca. 1958).
On January 5, the Vancouver Art Gallery will also begin offering free Sunday gallery admission for children aged 12 or under. This allows access to all of the gallery’s exhibitions as well as to child-friendly exhibition tours and artmaking activities.
The Sunday program is the newest aspect of a multi-year initiative supported by the Diamond Foundation to provide subsidized community access to the Vancouver Art Gallery for the residents of British Columbia.
