AGO Art Matters

A year after the transformation … our visitors speak

November 13th, 2009

Not long ago, I was walking through the Art Gallery of Ontario when a visitor stopped to talk with me. “I have never seen Canada like I have seen it today,” he said. He talked about Frank Gehry’s architecture and the use of Douglas fir. He described the “powerful statements” the gallery is making on Inuit and First Nations contributions to Canadian art. He spoke of the “absolutely glorious and simple directness” of the Lawren Harris galleries and the emotional experiences of the Tom Thomson works. He said he was at times overwhelmed by these powerful depictions of the Canadian experience.

One year and some 700,000 visitors since the AGO completed its transformation in November 2008, there have been many exchanges between the museum and its ultimate arbiters. They speak about their experience at the AGO and what it means to be Canadian, about Toronto and its place in the world, about what makes them proud.

“The Thomson collection is stunning and vitally important to all Canadians, and is a big portion of what makes us Canadian.”

The late Ken Thomson, whose extraordinary collection of Canadian and European art was the catalyst for our transformation, always wanted Canadians to be proud. Amassed over more than 50 years, his collection ranks among the finest private collections in the world, but his ambition was that it be widely shared and that it become part of a narrative about Canadian art, about art of the world through the centuries.

Architect Frank Gehry envisioned a seamless journey through the 110 gallery spaces of the transformed AGO. His design intended that visitors move forward without ever retracing their steps, encouraged onward always by options. So too, the art works were installed to encourage a continuous journey through the building, making connections between life and art throughout.

“There is a gentle flow to the space, and it invites you in, to see and feel the essence of the best of the art works.”

Frank ‘s AGO is unlike any other of his projects — his most distinctive because it’s his first in Canada, in his childhood home of Toronto, where he made his first connections between art and architecture. He shared many of our ambitions for this project – among them that Canadians and non-Canadians alike would be surprised by Canadian art. In our installations, we made the commitment that we would celebrate Canadian art, both contemporary historical, in different ways — the juxtaposition of a Lawren Harris painting next to a Pierre Bonnard; a sculpture by rising Toronto artist Shary Boyle next to Italian bronzes from the 17th century. We made no apologies for telling the stories of art from many points of view, across cultures and continents.

“By placing paintings in new contexts, you’ve made us look at them in new ways. It’s exciting. I heard two women behind me saying that they’d look at a particular painting and think it new…and then realize they’d seen it before but never really paid that much attention. They said the re-discovery was thrilling.”

Visitors to the AGO over the past year tell us they feel they are a part of a dialogue with the world, that this is a place that is not only of its community, but one that is looking out beyond regional or national borders. It’s quite intentional, and as in doing so we’re creating relationships and collaborations, projecting our Canadian artists out beyond our borders and in dialogue with our sister institutions around the world.

The flurry of construction and expansion at nearly a dozen major Toronto institutions over the last several years is city-building on the powerful shoulders of culture. The AGO, the Royal Conservatory, the ROM, the COC, the Gardiner – these and many others unite cultures and encourage dialogue through the catalyst of creativity. They send a reverberating message that culture can drive the economic and social growth of our communities. And as our visitors attest, they have put “the centre of the universe” on the world stage.

“Toronto has finally earned its colours as a player on the big scene. The city has gained some backbone. Indeed, as my own back straightened, I felt proud of Toronto. After all these years of wanting to be taken seriously, Toronto (and Ontario) can now relax.”

The brisk, consistent and admittedly gratifying dialogue about the AGO over the course of its first year post-transformation, suggests the gallery is communicating itself as part of the fabric of everyday life, more so today than at any time in its history. If we, together with Toronto’s other cultural institutions, can sustain that dialogue, we will become civic gathering places built on creativity and imagination.

Over the past year we have focused on removing the barriers to art and the AGO. Through its very design, the gallery clearly states that it’s possible to be here, that one can imagine oneself here. Foremost in our minds is ensuring that the AGO has as many free-access points as possible for communities that historically have not felt the AGO was a place where they could be, where they belonged.

“Thank you so much for facilitating our trip to the AGO. Our people loved it so much. They were really inspired by beauty and power of the art. One of our ladies said that she has been an Impressionist fan for almost 50 years but has only seen such works on postcards. Our people do not get very many opportunities to experience beauty due to the circumstances in their lives but this week they did.”

We have learned that our commitment to accessibility contributes profoundly to making art and the AGO more a part of the community. It is a clear message of welcome when you can come to the AGO for free on a Wednesday night, or borrow a family pass to the AGO as you would borrow a book at all 99 Toronto public libraries. We always have line ups on Wednesday nights, and more than 26,000 people have visited the AGO through the library pass program.

As we approach our first-year anniversary, it’s clear that that transformation from what we were to what we are today is more than physical. Architecture alone does not make a great art museum. It is also the art, and the associations that are conjured in the act of experiencing it, that bring the art museum alive. I hear it over and over again.

“I’m 82 years old and I want to spend the rest of my life here.”

Matthew Teitelbaum
Director and CEO
Art Gallery of Ontario
416-979-6660 x613

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The AGO’s secret vertical passageway

November 23rd, 2008

By: Shawn Micallef

A subtle design detail in the new AGO are the removable panels in the floor (and ceilings), allowing for large works of art to be hoisted from the main floor all the way up to the fifth floor in the tower. Placing the contemporary galleries in upper floors has some obvious challenges as the work can potentially come in just about any shape or size. These vertical slots almost turn the the building into a sort of theatrical fly tower. I anticipate that at some some point an artist will approach the AGO and want to use the slots as part of an entire-building installation or even a performance piece. Of course, AGO liability lawyers will likely have to create a litigious performance themselves if such an event ever happened. Perhaps other parts of the transformed building will become muse to artists as well — ask any OCAD instructor how many of their students have come up with “things on colourful stilts” since the Alsop addition went up.

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Sailing the seas of ship cases

November 21st, 2008

By: Shawn Micallef

Last week during the press preview AGO employees were still installing art in parts of the gallery. The most interesting scene I stumbled upon was of a gallery worker pulling one of the larger ship models through a second floor hallway — as if they were a human tugboat — surrounded by 4 or 5 very nervous looking AGOers protecting the precious and fragile ship as if they were presidential secret service agents ready to body block anybody that came too close. The ship was headed for the large Thomson ship model exhibit found just underneath the main entrance (in fact, oculus-like holes look down onto the exhibit from the main lobby).

The ships are part of Ken Thomson’s collection of these rare artifacts, but the ship cases themselves also have a GTA connection as a local firm built them. When large building projects like Transformation AGO are associated with a Starchitect like Gehry it’s easy to forget that they rely on locals to make their vision happen. The ship cases were built by Mississaga’s kubkik along with Click Netherfield in Scotland, both specialists in museum and gallery displays.

“The concept came from Gehry,” says Sam Kohn, kubik principal. “But all
the development came from us. They sent us the sketches, and we worked
with them to realize that dream.” Kohn says there were indeed some
challenges with the ship cases because of their unique geometry.
“Lighting was also most important,” says Kohn. “It can’t deteriorate
the sails.” Kohn reports that gentle fiber optic lighting was used in
some of the cases.

When you’re in the room it does have a cool dark feeling (like being
underwater?) and the flowing cases do evoke the idea of flowing
movement. It’s nice to be able to see all around and even underneath
some of the models. Particularly interesting are the ones that are
hanging in mid-air like flying pirate ships from a children’s book.
Like the dinosaur bones at the ROM, this will likely be the first place
kids will what to go when visiting the AGO. There are over 130 historic ship models at the AGO spanning some 350 years, from 17th and 18th century British dockyard models to steamers from the 19th and 20th centuries.

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Can’t Walk ‘Em? Then Count ‘Em: Guess the number of stairs.

November 20th, 2008

By: Shawn Micallef

The iconic staircase on the north side of AGO tower that wiggles its way up from the Walker Court up to the fifth contemporary gallery floor (officially named the “Allan Slaight & Emmanuelle Gussuso Staircase”) is just about open to public use. Until then, the AGO is inviting the public to guess how many steps there are. It’s a challenge, as the stairs are hidden behind all that polished wood and metal. The five closest guesses win the contestant a prize from ShopAGO. Email your guess to howmanysteps@ago.net. No entries accepted after the staircase opens!

Photo by OCAD123.

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AGO Transformation transforms our views of Toronto

November 18th, 2008

By: Shawn Micallef

The AGO is not just for looking at. One of the things I like best about the new gallery is the way it makes Toronto — the city — as much a part of the gallery experience as the art inside. The Gehry addition (or “intervention” as I’ve been hearing it called) has opened new views to the north and south, and we’re getting to see the city in a way never seen before. To the north, the timber beams of the Galleria Italia frame the quintessential old Toronto homes along Dundas as if they are works of art themselves (perhaps they are). Apart from the occasional view stolen from somebody’s lucky second or third floor apartment, we usually don’t get to see a Toronto street from this angle.

Try this the next time you go to the AGO — walk along the south side of Dundas like you normally might do, looking at those houses along the north side. Then go into the gallery and up to the second floor and do the same thing. It’s remarkable to walk (nearly) an entire dense city block along the second floor of another building.

It’s like seeing Toronto for the first time, and simply altering the angle by a half dozen metres or so can radically change the perception of the city: I often forget to pay attention to the upper floors of these kinds of common buildings, but now I think I should do just that a lot more. So far I’ve been in this magnificent room about 5 times and have had the art pointed out and explained to me a few times but I can’t remember much about it because the city is so overwhelming (sorry, artists who made the art in Gallery Italia, I’ll pay attention to you next time for sure, it isn’t your fault).

From the back Toronto appears all around us, like we’re in the middle of the skyline rather than looking at it from afar. The concrete apartment slab directly south suddenly has a few thousand eyes a day peeping into their fishbowl lives — but as my art-companion said one day last week, “close enough to be interesting, but far enough away not to be explicit.” Looking west, the Victorian homes along Beverly facing the Grange look like the Toronto doppelganger of the famous Alamo Square view found in San Francisco (our “painted ladies” are brick and the skyline isn’t of downtown like in SF but of Etobicoke, somewhere off in the haze, rising above this wonderful stretch of Toronto urbanism).

As well, the new OCAD addition suddenly looks even more audacious (and weird and great) this close. The folks living in the apartments in the Village on the Grange on the east side of McCaul probably already know this, but now the rest of us do too. Looking out at the Grange, and Toronto, from the back Barnacle Staircase earlier today, the extent of Toronto’s development over the last few years was evident and not a little hometown pride welled up.

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