MOCA Toronto Announces a Vibrant Spring 2025 Season of Material-Centric Art and Multi-Layered Exhibitions

The Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto (MOCA) unveils its Spring 2025 season on April 17 with a dynamic combination of exhibitions and projects by Jessica Stockholder, Sondra Perry, Justin Ming Yong, and Margaux Williamson. This season highlights thought-provoking works and new commissions that traverse painting, sculpture, installation, moving image, animation, digital technology, textile, and sound. Rooted in complex explorations of material and form, each presentation invites us to reflect on the mysteries of the spaces we inhabit and the quiet significance of the objects that describe our lives. Rich with diverse forms of expression, each project confronts the unease of the present, drawing from colour, material, shape, movement, sound, and light as potent sources of energy and understanding.

Jessica Stockholder
The Squared Circle: Ringing
April 17–August 3, 2025
Floor 1, Price Family Community Gallery
and the Lindy Green Forum

Jessica Stockholder presents The Squared Circle: Ringing, her first major commission in Canada in twenty-five years. This site-specific, all-encompassing work reimagines Floor 1 as an environment that embraces friction and play alongside a series of text-based interventions. Celebrated for her “paintings in space,” Stockholder has held a pivotal role in expanding the dialogue between painting and sculpture, blending colours with architecture and unassuming everyday objects in sensational ways.

Her works resist quick observation; their depth and scale invite gradual exploration and continuously reveal new elements. Executed with a balance of planning and on-site intuition, Stockholder enters into various thinking processes, embracing unpredictability. As a result, her work exists at the intersection of abstract expressionism, colour field painting, minimalism, and theatre.

Sondra Perry
April 17–August 3, 2025
Digital Futures Residency
Floor 1, North End Gallery

Justin Ming Yong 
Blur
April 17–August 3, 2025
Floor 1, MOCA Elevators

MOCA will expand its offerings this season with Blur, a new site-specific project by textile artist Justin Ming Yong, whose handmade quilts will transform the museum’s elevators into art spaces.

In recent years, Yong has developed a textile practice that reinterprets traditional quilt-making—a craft passed down to him by his mother. This practice, rooted in centuries-old cultural traditions, explores the interplay of colour, pattern, texture, and geometry.

Margaux Williamson 
Shoes, books, hands, buildings, and cars
April 17–August 3, 2025
Floor 3

Margaux Williamson’s cinematic compositions, which bridge elements of still-life and surrealism, will hold Floor 3 of the museum. Williamson’s paintings draw from the intimate views and objects of her surroundings, as well as a personal archive of gathered materials. Though familiar, these source materials are reimagined, and drift freely across her canvases. Her muted colour palette and ethereal brushwork, combined with contrasting perspectives, evoke the sensation of memories and dreams.

This exhibition includes a selection of recent and newly commissioned paintings that reflect the tones and architecture of the museum while centering her subtle yet evocative use of shadow and light. Shoes, books, hands, buildings, and cars highlights the evolution of Williamson’s painting practice, which has grown in both complexity and scale. While rooted in figuration, her style embraces an abstract, gestural quality that invites multiple interpretations, creating a sense of both intimacy and distance.

Alex Da Corte
Ear Worm
January 26, 2024–August 3, 2025
Floor 2, Karen Green Gallery

Due to overwhelming demand, Alex Da Corte’s acclaimed exhibition Ear Worm will remain open on MOCA’s Floor 2 throughout the spring season, offering visitors another chance to explore what has been described as a “surreal… tender… bewildering” experience.

“We’re incredibly excited about the year ahead as MOCA continues to build on the momentum of our rigorous programmes in recent years,” said Kathleen Bartels, Executive Director and CEO. “The Spring 2025 exhibitions involve collaborations with artists on new commissions while highlighting key thematic connections across the museum. The thoughtfully curated and unique exhibitions will deepen our engagement with visitors and enhance our public and learning initiatives.” 

Spring 2025 Programming 
MOCA’s spring exhibition season will feature a dynamic lineup of public programmes that includes artist talks, workshops, and live performances. Stay updated by visiting our website, following us on social media, or subscribing to our email newsletter.

Spring 2025 Hours and First Free Friday Night
Starting April 17, 2025, MOCA’s updated hours of operation will be:

Additionally, beginning in April, Free Friday Nights will be held on the first Friday of each month. While we will still be open late every Friday, only the first Friday will offer free admission. We look forward to seeing you for this special monthly event!

About MOCA Toronto 
The Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto (MOCA) is a non-profit independent museum dedicated to fostering access to the arts in an inclusive cultural hub. The museum presents rotating exhibitions that prioritize twenty-first-century artistic production, primarily through commissioning of new work. Artists, partnerships, experimentation, and reciprocal initiatives are at the centre of MOCA’s mission as a locally rooted and internationally connected organization. Focused on core values promoting equity, inclusion and access, MOCA fosters active participation and engagement to serve as a welcoming gathering place in the hyper-diverse city of Toronto. MOCA offers unparalleled access to contemporary art, making it the ultimate art destination in the GTA. For more information on MOCA Toronto visit moca.ca.

2025 Support
Visionary Support for MOCA in 2025 is generously provided by Gilles and Julia Ouellette and The Price Family, with Visionary Corporate Support contributed by Castlepoint Numa.

MOCA is grateful for ongoing operating and project support from the City of Toronto, the Government of Ontario, the Ontario Arts Council, The Government of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts, as well as generous contributions from public-sector funders, private donors, MOCA Members, sponsors and a network of cross-sectoral partners.

Image Credits

1. Jessica Stockholder, Rose’s Inclination, 2015-16, paint, carpet, fragment of Judy Ledgerwood’s painting, branches, rope, Plexiglas, light fixtures, hardware, extension cord, mulch, Smart Museum foyer, courtyard, sidewalks, and beyond. Commissioned by the Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago. © Jessica Stockholder. (Detail image)
2. Sondra Perry, FOIL MANE: HANDSHAKES AND HEARTBREAKS, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 1913. Courtesy of the artist and Bridget Donahue, New York.
3. Sondra Perry, FOIL MANE: HANDSHAKES AND HEARTBREAKS, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 1913 (detail). Courtesy of the artist and Bridget Donahue, New York.
4. Justin Ming Yong, Untitled Blues, 2021. Courtesy of the artist.
5. Margaux Williamson, Window Front, 2025. Courtesy of the artist. 
6. Alex Da Corte, A Snake, 2024, and Rubber Pencil Devil, 2018. Ear Worm, installation view, MOCA Toronto, 2024. Photo: LF Documentation.