
It took me a long time and several visits to take in the newly renovated Art Gallery of Ontario. Unlike my initial visits to the renovated Royal Ontario Museum--it should be apparent now that the do-a-bit-have-an-opening-do-a-bit-have-an-opening approach frittered away any sense of the magic of the place--it was a process of discovery, as each turned unveiled something surprising and usually delightful. There's already been volumes of commentary written, but here's my two-cents:
- The grand glass front and the Via Italia are great, but they are misleading in their architectural claims to be the main lure, which is actually the new contemporary galleries in the blue box hidden in the back. Only by approaching from Grange Park do you realize that it's the star attraction.
- With all the new floor spaces, they succumbed to the temptation to throw too much Cornelius Krieghoff on the floor. Habitant overkill.
- The themed exhibits find an ideal balance with chronologically arranged work--I think to organize things by pure theme would be too disorienting, but I can tell you that the work that was more contextualized held my attention for much longer. It's a much harder gallery to sweep through now.
- The new contemporary galleries remind me a little of the Whitney and it's a fun playing the "I remember where this was before" game in there.
- The new audio info devices look cool but the OS is not so intuitive as it should be.
- I want to host a party on one of the upper spiral staircases. This is one public building where the elevators will be seriously underused.
- The miniature boat collection in the basement seems random but, strangely, is a weirdly refreshing break from art history, per se.
It's already clear that in the tortoise-hare race between the AGO and the ROM that the tortoise has won the race.
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