The Gardiner Museum is open seven days a week. Explore our permanent collection, discover special exhibitions, get hands-on with clay in our studios, dine, shop, and more. We look forward to welcoming you!
Enter a world at once familiar and uncanny. The exhibition hall has been transformed into an immersive reimagining of Montreal-based artist Karine Giboulo's home. Brought to life by over 500 miniature polymer clay figures, this is no ordinary house. The figures tell stories that reflect our most urgent social issues, from the pandemic and climate crisis to food insecurity and housing instability. Get tickets!
A new season of clay classes is open for registration! Sign up for stoneware, hand building, wheel throwing, and special exhibition courses. Winter is the perfect time to stay warm in the studio and learn a new skill. Register now!
Every object in our permanent collection can be accessed through our eMuseum portal. Learn about individual collecting areas, like Italian Maiolica or Modern and Contemporary Ceramics, or search the full collection by keyword. You'll be amazed by what you discover!
Limited time offer! Purchase or renew a Gardiner Friendship before January 1, 2023 and receive a free Get Acquainted pass (valued at $30) to gift to the art lover of your choice. Become a Gardiner Friend today!
Lobby Display Part of the CONTACT
Glenn Lewis: The Poetic Process is a conceptual work that opens a space for conversation between two media: ceramics and photography. Presented for the first time at the Gardiner Museum, this installation combines a series of five pots made during a residency at the Leach Pottery in St. Ives, England, and twenty large-scale photographs of roses taken in German and English gardens. The juxtaposition reflects on the long history and symbolism of the rose and vessel form: two dominant motifs and shapes from medieval Europe when art and craft were still creatively united. The installation also comprises a series of ceramic tiles printed with Lewis’ photographs of fragrant roses.
Glenn Lewis’ work asks viewers to look closely. His photographs reveal the details of the blooms—pollen, dew drops, and petals—tempting viewers to approach and smell them. The vessels’ surfaces are also inscribed with a history. When Lewis unpacked the pieces in Vancouver, he discovered that they were damaged. Rather than discard them, he repaired them using the Japanese technique of kintsugi, an art of mending by which the breaks are not hidden but revitalized through the use of gold, encouraging the viewer to see beauty in imperfections.
About CONTACT
CONTACT is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to celebrating and fostering the art and profession of photography with an annual Festival in May and year-round programming in the CONTACT Gallery. CONTACT embraces an inclusive and accessible approach to the medium, and cultivates collaborations with and among artists, curators, institutions, and organizations.