John Tory
born Toronto, Ontario, 1954

Performance
(2022)

In a landmark building, adorned with a chain of office, being addressed as ‘your worship’ and issuing proclamations to his city’s residents, the artist embodies leadership and power, but his performance belies a deeper and more complicated truth. He revels in viewers perceiving him as a strong leader, but shrewd observers will note the paradox: his strength is not his own, it is something given to him by somebody else with greater power. The law that makes him a “strong mayor” permits him to veto bylaws that conflict with priorities set by his masters at the provincial government. And as viewers come to understand that the mayor’s strength only exists insofar as he does what he is directed to do by his master, we are forced to grapple with the complexity of political power, strength and weakness.