The donation led the institution to cite her as one who “has brought a distinctive Canadian perspective to the world stage while setting a standard for art philanthropy.” [5] Ydessa Hendeles was born in the university town of Marburg, Germany.

In October 1987, Hendeles purchased a two-storey former uniforms factory at 778 King Street West in downtown Toronto as the headquarters and exhibition site for a new art foundation.

[10] Hendeles launched her new exhibition program in December 1987 with Katharina Fritsch: Our Lady of Lourdes, presented at the Toronto Eaton Centre (the city's most popular downtown shopping mall).

When she buys something, we look at her and say, ‘Oh, why is she doing so?’” Her bold aesthetic vision led ARTnews, a respected U.S. journal, to twice include her in its list of “the art world’s 50 most influential people” in 1993 and 1995—the only Canadian and one of just a handful of women.

[17][18] The Foundation, however, continues to function as a not-for-profit organization in Toronto, and in 2015 it established a studio/office in the upper west side of Manhattan in the former studio of the photographer Philippe Halsman at the historic Atelier building.

In 2003, Hendeles guest-curated Partners, an exhibition for the Haus der Kunst, Munich, at the invitation of then-incoming director Chris Dercon and the new chief curator, Thomas Weski.

Presented in three passages, spread over 16 museum galleries, Hendeles positioned work by Diane Arbus, Maurizio Cattelan, James Coleman, Hanne Darboven, Walker Evans, Luciano Fabro, On Kawara, Paul McCarthy, Bruce Nauman, Giulio Paolini, Jeff Wall and Lawrence Weiner, together with photojournalistic images, anonymous vernacular photographs and antique objects.

at the Marburger Kunstverein (de), Germany (2010);[26] The Wedding (The Walker Evans Polaroid Project) at Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York (2011);[27] and THE BIRD THAT MADE THE BREEZE TO BLOW at Galerie Johann König, Berlin (2012).

[28] Hendeles's work From her wooden sleep... (2013) was shown at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London, UK in 2015, curated by Philip Larratt-Smith (see external link below).

[33] In 2018, the Kunsthalle Wien mounted Death to Pigs, the first institutional retrospective of Hendeles’s work in Europe, taking as its title the name of her installation first shown in Toronto in 2016.

Curated by Wayne Baerwaldt in collaboration with Project Producer Barbara Edwards, Grand Hotel was mounted at Spazio Berlendis on the Rio dei Mendicanti in the Cannaregio district of Venice.