Skip-the-line tickets now on sale for SOLAR, The Bentway’s new commission by acclaimed Italian artist Quayola
From October 16-19, The Bentway transforms the Gardiner into a glowing horizon with SOLAR, an expansive light installation by Italian artist Quayola. Over four nights only, audiences can experience a city sunset reimagined through cutting-edge technology and contemporary art.
Inspired by the shifting colours and patterns that emerge when day meets night, SOLAR uses a mesmerizing robotic arm to direct hundreds of precisely choreographed beams of light shining across the space. The work transforms the sun’s journey into sweeping arcs of light and shadow, blending astronomy with coding to create a living and charged environment accompanied by Quayola’s powerful audio score.
“SOLAR will offer an unforgettable, immersive experience, holding audiences between nature and technology. The robotics used in the piece are truly spellbinding, conducting a beautiful dance of light and shadow. You won’t want to miss this!”
– Alex Rand, Programming Manager at The Bentway
The experience debuted earlier this summer as the headlining artwork of Rome’s Videocittà festival (who co-commissioned the project with The Bentway), and the Toronto presentation has been tailored for the Gardiner Expressway’s distinctive concrete canopy. Responding to the site’s constant shade, SOLAR invites audiences to explore the looping performance from multiple vantage points, encouraging visitors to linger and watch the spectacle unfold again and again.
With thousands of people expected to attend, exclusive Skip-The-Line tickets are now available for purchase for $25. SOLAR will run October 16 to 19, 7:30pm to 11:00pm each night. Regular admission can be purchased onsite at entry, on a pay-what-you-choose basis (either $10, $15, or $20).
“It’s a privilege to bring my work to Toronto for the first time, thanks to this co-commission with The Bentway. By sculpting with light and code, my intention is to transform the public space under the Gardiner Expressway. We’re turning this urban structure into a shared space for contemplation and discovery for the whole city.”
– Quayola, Artist
SOLAR will serve as the closing chapter of The Bentway’s 2025 Sun/Shade program, which reconsiders the city’s relationship and sun and shade in response to a changing climate.
About the artist
Quayola is an Italian artist whose practice uses technology to explore the tensions between the real and the artificial, the figurative and the abstract, the ancient and the contemporary. Through immersive installations and generative systems, he reinterprets classical subjects such as landscape painting, sculpture, and iconography using software and robotics. His work has been featured at leading institutions and festivals around the world, including the V&A Museum, Palais de Tokyo, Ars Electronica, and the Sundance Film Festival. In 2024, Quayola was invited to create a new immersive work in New York for the Times Square Midnight Moment.
