John Tory
born Toronto, Ontario, 1954

Performance
(2022)

The artist cleverly plays with ideas of corporate control, affordability and power through his ongoing performance as a trustee on a private board of trustees with a controlling interest in the Rogers telecommunications corporation. Many Toronto residents need more than one job to make ends meet in an increasingly unaffordable city, but through his performance, the artist elevates this idea to absurdity and farce. He takes time away from his main role, — as architect of the city’s affordability crisis — in order to serve on an obscure and secretive board which pays him $100,000. Viewers are forced to grapple with the nature of corporate power when even the city’s chief executive cannot escape hustle culture.