Whoo-hoo! Art-blogger Tyler Green has visited Toronto and deemed, thanks to a show the AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario), of all places, that "Canadians are not prudes." Read all about it here.
LOL, I hope that sounds better in context! :-P
hah no worries, Tyler. I also liked your tour of Albright-Knox, since I grew up going there on yearly art-class bus trips all through high school. The Matisse you mention used to be a big favourite of mine, cause for many years its was the only decent painting I'd ever seen in the flesh. Of course the Lucas Samaras Mirrored Room" (scroll down) was a big hit back then too.
Two words: Istvan Kantor?
One thing we can say about Istvan (New Canadian Governor General's Award winner for Visual and Media Arts) is that he's not a prude! I recently posted something about this on Michelle Kasprzak's new blog.
I just got the press materials from the "non-prudish" show. The materials are considerably tamer than the show. No images included. Someone at the AGO is, er, careful. ;-)
BTW, your Gehry will be wonderful. I know that's not a universal opinion in TO, but I'm quite excited about it.
I'm sceptical of the Gehry AGO project for a couple of reasons. One of them I posted at the bottom of an earlier thread about the new OCAD building by Will Alsop. The other is that in recent days the contemporary galleries at AGO have been closed, including their supposedly ongoing, responsive-and-timely, project-room-style Present Tense series. Staff relations seem very bad, with a recent rash of lay-offs and rumours of a strike pending. I was invited to a sort-of-lady's-afternoon-tea thing (except guys were invited) a few months ago to serve, as far as I can tell, as one of several token local contemporary art blow-hards to "consult" about what we'd like to see them do with contemporary art in the new building. It became pretty clear that contemporary art budgets are pretty much non-existent, and the strategy is chaotic, juvenile and messy, if not completely zilch-i-fied. A major impetus behind the new design is a bequest from billionaire art collector Ken Thomson who, according to AGO's website, "has earmarked $50 million in capital funding for the Transformation building expansion, and has committed $20 million in endowment funding." Thomson's collection, which does contain Rubens' The Massacre of the Innocents is anything but contemporary. So even if the building is fabulous, if the museum itself doesn't formulate a sense of direction, and can't step up to the plate to collect important contemporary Canadian works, who cares? Nice, pretty art building, shame about the art. Not only that, but the news today is that a big-time AGO supporter, philanthropist Joey Tanenbaum, has quit the board and withdrawn his financial support in a hissy fit about the new design. (Is it a pissing contest between theTenenbaums and the Thomsons?) He's mad cause they're gonna re-do the Tenenbaum Atrium, as reported today in the Toronto Star: "It's only 16 years since we put up the money for that. And Walker Court is going to be wrecked with that terrible new staircase." It would be kind of funny if it all weren't all so petty and sad.
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Whoo-hoo! Art-blogger Tyler Green has visited Toronto and deemed, thanks to a show the AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario), of all places, that "Canadians are not prudes." Read all about it here.
- sally mckay 3-04-2004 7:53 am
LOL, I hope that sounds better in context! :-P
- TylerGreen 3-04-2004 8:05 pm
hah no worries, Tyler. I also liked your tour of Albright-Knox, since I grew up going there on yearly art-class bus trips all through high school. The Matisse you mention used to be a big favourite of mine, cause for many years its was the only decent painting I'd ever seen in the flesh. Of course the Lucas Samaras Mirrored Room" (scroll down) was a big hit back then too.
- sally mckay 3-05-2004 10:44 am
Two words: Istvan Kantor?
- bunnie 3-05-2004 7:36 pm
One thing we can say about Istvan (New Canadian Governor General's Award winner for Visual and Media Arts) is that he's not a prude! I recently posted something about this on Michelle Kasprzak's new blog.
- sally mckay 3-05-2004 8:44 pm
I just got the press materials from the "non-prudish" show. The materials are considerably tamer than the show. No images included. Someone at the AGO is, er, careful. ;-)
BTW, your Gehry will be wonderful. I know that's not a universal opinion in TO, but I'm quite excited about it.
- TylerGreen (guest) 3-10-2004 5:47 am
I'm sceptical of the Gehry AGO project for a couple of reasons. One of them I posted at the bottom of an earlier thread about the new OCAD building by Will Alsop. The other is that in recent days the contemporary galleries at AGO have been closed, including their supposedly ongoing, responsive-and-timely, project-room-style Present Tense series. Staff relations seem very bad, with a recent rash of lay-offs and rumours of a strike pending. I was invited to a sort-of-lady's-afternoon-tea thing (except guys were invited) a few months ago to serve, as far as I can tell, as one of several token local contemporary art blow-hards to "consult" about what we'd like to see them do with contemporary art in the new building. It became pretty clear that contemporary art budgets are pretty much non-existent, and the strategy is chaotic, juvenile and messy, if not completely zilch-i-fied. A major impetus behind the new design is a bequest from billionaire art collector Ken Thomson who, according to AGO's website, "has earmarked $50 million in capital funding for the Transformation building expansion, and has committed $20 million in endowment funding." Thomson's collection, which does contain Rubens' The Massacre of the Innocents is anything but contemporary. So even if the building is fabulous, if the museum itself doesn't formulate a sense of direction, and can't step up to the plate to collect important contemporary Canadian works, who cares? Nice, pretty art building, shame about the art. Not only that, but the news today is that a big-time AGO supporter, philanthropist Joey Tanenbaum, has quit the board and withdrawn his financial support in a hissy fit about the new design. (Is it a pissing contest between theTenenbaums and the Thomsons?) He's mad cause they're gonna re-do the Tenenbaum Atrium, as reported today in the Toronto Star: "It's only 16 years since we put up the money for that. And Walker Court is going to be wrecked with that terrible new staircase." It would be kind of funny if it all weren't all so petty and sad.
- sally mckay 3-10-2004 6:55 am