Part of what makes the Toronto Sculpture Garden distinctive is public reveal of the process of fabricating and installing the work, which may require weeks of preparation on-site by the artist. For example, in October 1985, it took Andreas Gehr 800 hours to build his site-specific work.

Andreas Gehr, The Found Foundation, 1985; spruce; 55' L x 16' H x 3' W

Artists discovered that members of the public often stop to ask questions, make comments or observe the art-making process. As exhibits were initially mounted for two, four or six month periods, the site could be visited many times and the work experienced in daylight and in darkness and as the seasons changed.

Although the majority of artists who exhibited in the Toronto Sculpture Garden lived and worked in Ontario, the Art Advisory Board was not restricted to selecting artists from within the province. In the first 35 years, artists also hailed from Quebec, British Columbia, Russia, England, the United States and China.

Artists created site-specific or site-sensitive works that reflected the Garden’s location in the city opposite a cathedral, adjacent to a restaurant and near a thriving market and residential area. They responded to its place in the history of the development of the city and to its location in the heart of a commercial and business district, and have commented on its reality as a man-made piece of nature surrounded by buildings. The chronology in this website reflected artists’ increasing sensitivity to site and context and paralleled current practices in contemporary art.

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