Toronto, Wednesday, 20-Jul-2022
/Another split day. Melody went to her conference and went on an art walk near the University of Toronto, while I went to the Art Gallery of Ontario. It was still hot.
Our mornings have been pretty much the same, and today was no different. Other than adding the heat management, that is; windows and shades were open for the night, then were shut in the morning when the outside temperature started rising. It was going to be another hot day.
Art Gallery of Ontario
The night before, I had purchased a ticket for the Art Gallery of Ontario. I had decided to hot go to the AGO on Tuesday on purpose. A new room by Yayoi Kusama had just opened that day, and I figured there would be many people wanting to see it. Because we would only be here through the week, I figured interest would wane as the week went on, and decided to take a chance on day two. Museum tickets are for the whole day, so I decided to go early before they opened to wait in any possible line. You need to reserve your time in person inside the museum.
I arrived even earlier than I expected, and there was no line. No people lingering outside, even. I did see one or two people go in, but they made a turn and went elsewhere (later I would figure out they were either going to the member's lounge or to the seats near coat check).
Since I had a little bit of extra time, I wandered around a bit. Even though we had gone around the AGO building on the walking tour we did on Friday, I lingered more to take a closer look around the block.
Even fifteen minutes before the 10:30 opening, no people were waiting outside. A few minutes later, a couple of people started standing just outside the door. Eventually, some of them went inside, and the guard didn't seem to be stopping them. I went in too, and we all formed an informal line before the ticket desk (other people started queueing up in that line).
The opening time came, and we all went to scan our tickets. To my surprise, only a pair of women went to the sign-up kiosk before me. Unfortunately, it was stuck on a screen asking for a password. One of the women said she didn't remember hers, and the other mused whether she should type hers in. I discouraged them from that and asked one of the employees about it. They cleared up that kiosk, but the other one had another problem (it wasn't running the right application). No mind, I got to the kiosk and reserved the third of 32 slots for 10:45. Since it wasn't too long, I figured I should find where the room was.
Once I get to the Kusama room, there were a couple of staff, but no one else in sight. I mentioned I was a bit early, but they said no problem, and let me in. After my one minute was up, I was off to explore more of the museum. But before I describe that, I have to say I was extremely surprised that I had such an easy time getting into the exhibit. I feel like I could have gone several times during the day if I signed up. That was such a different experience than at the Seattle Art Museum, where we went during a member-only period. Even then, lines were long, and we had to wait a while for each room (it was a whole exhibit with several rooms, not just one room). If I had known there would be so little demand, I wouldn't have worried about whether I would get in.
When I'm at a museum with Melody, we usually try to find a curated list of highlights and find those, wandering to see what else sounds interesting. By myself, I often try to do full sweeps of all the rooms. I blaze through some but spend a lot of time in others. That's what I did at Casa Loma, and what I planned to do at AGO. I took a quick look at the map for the floor's layout, then started on the second floor since I was already there.
The first room had miniature ivory carvings, and I was confused. You would normally see some sort of explanation of the items, but there was nothing, not even small numbers referenced somewhere on the wall. I then noticed the sign describing the room had a small note with a URL that would let you look things up. Seems like quite a bit of friction to see what the items were. I noted down the URL and figured I would look things up later.
I then saw a room with historical frames with no artwork in them. It was interesting to see the various styles. The next room was artwork by Lawren Harris, the unofficial leader of the Group of Seven, a group of Canadian landscape painters from the 1920s to the early 1930s. Again, there were no plaques, just a URL for the whole room. This wasn't a great sign.
After several rooms, I did begin to see plaques next to work. It must have been just that one wing that used URLs. Relief.
One exhibit I was looking forward to seeing was a collection of Henry Moore sculptures. We had seen his sculptures in other places (including in the park behind the AGO), and he's an artist that we can recognize. He was so happy that Toronto put one of his sculptures in front of New City Hall that he gifted several pieces to the Art Gallery of Ontario. Several of the pieces were working models of pieces that are installed elsewhere. These are interesting, especially if you're familiar with (or look up) the final pieces since you can see what parts he wanted to workshop in more detail. Other parts of the working models were left rough as if he already had a vision of what he wanted to do.
Next to the Moore gallery were a few Rodin sculptures. I was a little surprised that they didn't have a copy of The Thinker, probably Rodin's most famous piece.
After I finished the second floor, I walked up the undulating wooden staircase, part of the redesign by Frank Gehry. The upper floors had a more informal feel than the rest of the museum. One of the exhibits, I Am Here, featured what would be considered ordinary objects which were the favorite items of different people. For example, the Air Jordan high-top sneakers on display were worn by Nils Lofgren of the E Street Band. Another display showed 80 postcards sent in 1968 by On Kawara, each stamped with "I GOT UP AT" followed by the time of day.
Having finished the upper floors, I took the outside stairs (the ones which stick out of the back of the building) back down to the 4th floor, then the Moore staircase to the main floor. Time for lunch.
The bistro wasn't full but was busier than they expected (probably due to staffing issues). I wasn't in a rush, so I didn't mind the leisurely pace.
After I was done, I started looking at the first floor. I ran into a room with a lot of miniature busts, and another with perfume bottles, but could find no descriptions, even a URL.
Continuing to other parts of the floor, I looked up and one piece unmistakably looked like a Picasso. Yep, it was. There was also a Matisse nearby.
Another set of rooms had an installation that involved furniture. One piece was a set of couches on end. Another was couches facing each other, with side tables and lamps in each corner.
The last floor to visit was the basement, and there I found all sorts of model ships. Military, passenger, and ferry ships were all represented.
Having finished looking through the ships, I headed back to the room for the rest of the day.
Art walk
About the time I returned to the room, Melody started on an art walk which was part of her convention. It was around Yorkville, a section north of the University of Toronto which seems to be an upscale shopping district (most of the major high-end retailers are there).
The walk went into one of the galleries which we had walked by a few days before, and the shoe museum was also mentioned. What's funny is the guide tried to make sure people didn't just pass on the shoe museum because it's just shoes, and someone we were talking with the next day said the same thing.
I had picked up items for dinner from the store (having walked past the gallery Melody went in on her walk), and we stayed in that evening.