John Tory
born Toronto, Ontario, 1954

Installation
(2022)

This quiet residential neighbourhood appears to be unremarkable on first glance, but it is exceptional in two important ways. This pocket of Toronto between Yonge and Bathurst Streets, north of Lawrence Ave, contains the greatest concentration of high income earners, according to Statistics Canada. Simultaneously, the City of Toronto as a whole has the lowest rate of property taxes anywhere in the province of Ontario. The artist invites you to contemplate the leafy streets, the spacious single-family dwellings and the abundance of parked cars — on the streets and in driveways. This cherished space, and the artist’s single-minded commitment to keeping their taxes low, is what makes everything else about Austere Toronto possible. The artist himself grew up not far from here many years ago — but east of Yonge Street, which is only the fifth-highest concentration of high income earners.