Art Gallery of Ontario

Our visit here was unfortunately entirely too short because we got there close to closing time, but I was happy to see David Altmejd's work again, which I'd seen at the 2007 Venice Biennale.  The goal was to get to the Galleria Italia to see Gehry's work from the inside -- but on the way, one hiccup:

A salon-style hanging seems like a good idea, seems like it works for 19th century art, seems like it transports you back to Paris, etc.  But it doesn't work well if it's not explained, contextualized and somehow labeled.  People now aren't as smart as 19th century Parisians were, but they're no less curious.

It was nice to see some of the Group of Seven's work, albeit briefly, and I plan on this being some focus during my next visit.  Didn't get to see much of the museum, but Frank Gehry omgzfangirlwatchout:

Beautiful -- and it was great at night, but I look forward to visiting it during the day.  And Giuseppe Penone - gorgeous.  And very well-trained gallery attendants: A+.  Now go play with this website.  And since in my previous post I touched upon how negative starchitects can be for a museum, here's an unbelievable positive -- because the architecture didn't compete with the objects, but added to the experience of them -- and not just here in the Galleria Italia, but in the regular, whitewalled galleries of the AGO.  


If the Galleria Italia isn't poetic enough, what about this:

photo: SH

Yes, please.  The staircases we used were oval-spiral, lovely to walk up.

Another museum to return to.