Melissa Auf der Maur: My '90s Rock Photographs

A decade before the selfie, Melissa Auf der Maur was photographing herself every day: dressed to go on stage, with bandmates, in the bath with a bloody nose. She shot on point-and-shoot 35mm cameras, had the film developed at one-hour labs between tour stops, and sorted the prints into puffy plastic albums as she went.

Just over 200 of those pictures, out of roughly 15,000, fill three rooms on Level 1. They run loosely in order from her Montreal art-school years through her time as bassist in Hole and the Smashing Pumpkins: motel rooms, tour buses, crowds seen from the stage, and Courtney Love, again and again. The show ends by putting you inside the Bass Womb Room, a mirrored pyramid of video set to her own 4-track demos.

The free Bloomberg Connects guide has Auf der Maur narrating the stories behind the photographs. AGO entry is free for Ontarians under 25, and on 15 January 2027 she plays a live set in Walker Court inspired by the installation.