Last month, at the When Critics Speak panel for Nuit Blanche, I got on a bit of a jag, as I so often do, about economic barriers to gallery and museum access in Canada.
But I also appreciated the response of audience member Kim Simon, well-respected curator at Gallery TPW, who shouted out that many of the major museums and galleries are hard up for cash, which is why they have to charge what I consider to be such high admission fees.
In discussing the matter with Kim, I came to the conclusion that both things may be true, that:
(a) Many major public galleries and museums in Canada have implemented significant (sometimes internationally unusual) economic barriers to public access in the form of high admission fees and eliminated free hours
AND
(b) Many major public galleries and museums in Canada genuinely feel strapped for cash
I haven't any solutions to this conundrum, but to me the fact remains that it is in the mandate of many public galleries and museums to provide public access to their permanent (ie. public-owned) collections, and that they need to figure out how to restore levels of access to international norms—no matter how strapped they may be feeling.
In continuation of the discussion on this theme, I have a small charticle out in the current November/December issue of This Magazine. It's called "Admission Impossible" and lists data to the effect that Canada's museums are among the most expensive, least accessible in the world.
Since writing the piece, I've become more aware of some more nuanced barriers to public access in cultural institutions--things like daytime-centric hours of operation and codes of behaviour--that are explored at length by more expert sources like Nina K. Simon and Simon Brault.
However, I do believe economic access is still at a substandard level in Canada's major museums and galleries, a fact that is particularly surprising given admission fees only tend to make up a small (5-15%) portion of museum revenues.
What other things do you think are true about museum management in Canada? Both for good and for bad? Feel free to post. Also feel free to read the rest of the This article here.
(Image from This Magazine)
Monday, November 15, 2010
Admission Impossible: Museum Fees Chart now out in This Magazine
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Finally Getting It: The Cedar Tavern Singers
I've heard a little bit about Alberta's Cedar Tavern Singers in the last few years, seen their name pop up in group shows and reviews and such. So it's a testament only to my own lack of effort that it's taken me this long to actually twig to the awesomeness of some of their stuff--namely, songs and (more recently) dance numbers about art and art history.
What finally got me listening, and what I highly recommend, is actually a video I can't embed--CTS' jazz-handed tribute to the Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon. Please view it on their webpage. It's really very cute and sweet, and extra, extra, extra (!) Canadian. Like, can we have some Canadian Heritage Minutes like this please? CBC, paragon of all things extra, extra, extra (!) Canadian, are you watching?
A much earlier CTS ditty, The Relational Aesthetics Song, is embedded above. You can find more of their live gigs (including an in-the-round Bruce Nauman piece) on Youtube, and more of their polished recorded stuffs on their website.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Least Risky Critical Statement Ever: I Too Loved the Shary Boyle Show at the AGO
So the Shary Boyle show at the AGO has already gotten a ton of press. And rightly so. It's a pretty awesome show. Did I really need to add to the love-in? I'm not sure, but gosh, I just had to 'fess up too. My glowing review is now online at Posted Toronto, the National Post's Hogtown-centric webstream. An excerpt:
Boyle tackles big, unwieldy themes: birth, death, sex, crisis and renewal, crystallizing these themes in works that strike a compelling balance between delightful and disturbing. A black-booted corpse covered with butterflies, two figures barfing pretty beads, a lute player turning the amp up to 11 — Boyle crafts it all so well that what could be heavy-handed in a lesser talent’s oeuvre communicates as mature and complex.
In the review, I also wonder what Boyle's show means for the AGO. Though it's easily one of the gallery's best shows ever, it's also one that was largely coordinated by a Montreal gallery--Galerie de l'UQAM. So it's a little unclear how much credit the AGO can take for the show's success, or for, y'know, kind of giving an actual Ontario artist a fair solo-show shake. I'm posing this as an open question, with no conclusions drawn, as I'm sure the AGO did contribute efforts and funds, as no doubt did a third presenting partner, the Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver.
Also, I tried to point out in the review that the placement of the show in the museum's historical-art section has a double-edged effect, at least for me. This consideration was driven in part by thinking about how different the show might look at Galerie de l'UQAM and the CAG, which are more standard "white cube" environments for contemporary art—-for better or for worse.
(Image of Shary Boyle's White Light from Canadianart.ca - photo by Ian Lefebvre)
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Enjoyed: The Toughest Show on Earth
Posting has been skimpy lately here at Unedit My Heart, for which I blame illness, overwork and, oh yes, my new tendency to jump from elitism to elitism—ie. from art to opera. Yeeeeehawwwww!
To this latter point, I've just finished reading The Toughest Show on Earth: My Rise and Reign at the Metropolitan Opera by Joseph Volpe. And y'know what? I really enjoyed it. Volpe--a longtime manager of the Met who retired in 2006, just as the book was being published--has a reputation as an outspoken figure in a genteel field, and he does a super job of slicing and dicing the behind-the-scenes tensions in a large arts organization. (Granted, having a co-author like Charles Michener couldn't have hurt on the expository front.)
There's also some great quotes Volpe includes from other opera figures. This one, from the diary of past Met director John Dexter, seemed particularly worth repeating. It starts out as a rant prompted by a request to keep production expenses low, and ends with some interesting inversions of the art/cash equation:
Economy is not a policy, it is a fact. Imagination/Simplicity is a policy. It is an approach to opera for the twentieth century. When the theatre began to remove elaborate "realistic" effects, it became free so that from Schiffbauerdam to Sloane Square, any physical and emotional demand a playwright could make was capable of fulfillment. Time and place could flow freely in the audience's imagination (which, according to Coleridge, is where the excitement lies).
Only at the Metropolitan has time stood still. The curtain can sitll rise on a performance and the audience can be transported back to the nineteenth century and sit and wallow in an imaginary world. Unfortunately drama is reality given meaning and form. Opera and drama are not a drug for the feeble-minded, they are an essential enhancement of our lives from which we can enrich ourselves and from which we can learn.
Only when the operatic stage can share the freedom of the dramatic stage can the medium exist in the twentieth century and maybe help us understand the world and ourselves, instead of remaining a morphine of the overprivileged.
Economy is a watchword is meaningless. Imagination costs more in the mind but less in the purse. But the imagination must swing out from the stage to embrace the audience and the audience must be trained to join in an act of imagination.
To hell with economy, spend imagination.
That last line's a good one.
Also of interest to me in the book were Volpe's stories about board trustees and donors--some huge, some small--who fell in love with opera in their youth due to free nationwide broadcasts of Met performances. It's a little lesson on the value (and possible returns) on free programming that I hope isn't lost on other other cultural institutions.
Now I'm on to Renee Fleming's The Inner Voice: The Making of a Singer. Also good so far, and also containing some interesting laments for the demise of regular arts education in public schools. I'll keep you posted!
(Image from Bookapex)
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Of Art & Money: Q&A on RBC Painting Prize out in today's Post
Oscar Wilde once quipped, "When bankers get together for dinner, they discuss art. When artists get together for dinner, they discuss money." Such were the thoughts that came up for me when I talked to RBC art curator Robin Anthony last week about the RBC Canadian Painting Competition, whose finalists and winners are currently on tour.
Our condensed chat was published in today's Post along with pictures of the winning paintings (first place received $25,000, each of two runners-up $15,000). Here's an excerpt:
Q: Many banks sponsor art awards and maintain corporate art collections. Why?
A: I’m not sure about other banks, but the RBC collection started in the late 1800s — primarily as historical and landscape prints from Halifax and Montreal. As RBC expanded, so did the art collection. Over the years, depending on who’s been chair of the board and what buildings have been built, the collection has grown. Today, there are over 4,000 works spread in reception areas and meeting rooms across the country. The winning paintings in this competition will also become part of the collection: Alexis Lavoie’s first-place painting will hang in our Montreal office, while runners-up Mark Stebbins’ and Jon Reed’s works will probably go in this new RBC centre at Simcoe and Wellington in Toronto.
Q: Don’t Canadian businesses also get tax write-offs for buying Canadian art?
A: That’s not our reason for collecting. RBC collects to support artists and give exposure to artists in our facilities — and then, obviously, to enhance our spaces. RBC Wealth Management is a sponsor of the Toronto International Art Fair this weekend and will be giving exposure at its fair booth to past winners and jury members. So we continue to follow through.
Q: You mentioned wealth management. What advice do you give to investors who hope to make money in the art market?
A: I say that art is an asset that you get to enjoy looking at and living with, and that no one can guarantee whether the investment value will increase. It’s the same thing as the stock market — there are no guarantees. If you do your research, there are artists who have a potential for their work to go up in value. But the main reason for acquiring art should be to live with it, to enjoy it, and to look at it.
Later, Anthony speculates on how the market crash might have been good for art—a POV that's common in the art-crit realm, but less so, I might imagine, in the banking world. You can read on here.
Image of Alexis Lavoie's winning painting for RBC 2010, Restants, from the National Post
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Election Over, Lots to Learn
From the looks of things on Twitter and Facebook, it seems like many, many (many!) people in Toronto are trying to figure out how the Toronto election results ended up being what they were last night.
As I proved in my own Twitter stream last night, I'm no political expert. Far from it. I know I have lots to learn in this field. That said, as a total political layperson, the thing that struck me most about the results--and reaction to it--was how divided Toronto seemed to be. I was also struck by how much anger there was--whether it was anger directed at the "gravy train" concept or anger directed at "those who are angered by the "gravy train" concept." From an emotional (and again, totally *not* politically savvy) standpoint, it was this divisiveness that I found most disconcerting. Also, the 50% voter turnout, which I'm told is high for a municipal election. Glad it improved from 30-40%, but still a sad statistic overall.
So today, I'm trying to learn from the following:
ArtsVote's assessment's of the arts-friendly councillors who were elected.
David Meslin's presentation on how we live in a world that actively discourages civic engagement (thanks to Torontoist for the link):
Naheed Nenshi's presentation on how Calgary got to the verge of becoming a different kind of divided city:
Gerald Hannon's Toronto Life profile (October 2010 issue) on Rob Ford and his appeal and Shawn Micallef's report for Eye Weekly on his visit to a Ford Fest
So that's where I'm starting. If there's any links you've found helpful while dealing with the election results or Toronto political situation, feel free to post.
(Image of Toronto wards from the CBC)
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Out today: Reviews of Three Distillery-District Shows
In today's National Post, I review three shows in the Distillery District: Bill Vorn at Le Labo (which closes today), Scott McFarland at Clark & Faria and Iain Baxter& at Jane Corkin. An excerpt:
Iain Baxter& at Jane Corkin
55 Mill St., Bldg. 61., to Nov. 7
This exhibition seems especially appropriate for back to school, as two large installations evoke education and its systems. Fahrenheit 450 (Homage to Bradbury and Orwell) is a large figure eight made out of shoe-wearing books; The Lecture is a stripped-down classroom where each stacking chair is nestled into boots or shoes. This use of footwear (which ranges from office-ready pumps to rubber galoshes) is playful but unclear, feeling glib sometimes. Nonetheless, the brogues and ballet flats lend individuality to identical objects. Similarly, the books reflect a range of interests, from neurology to entertaining -- though again Baxter& forces that diversity into a big uniform structure. As a result, it feels like the renowned professor has grown weary of the forced march of our educational institutions-- or is at least willing to question their merits. That figure eight, for instance, could be the infinite cycle of lifelong learning or an inward-looking, tuition-fee-grabbing parade. Likewise, his podium notes list that a lecture can be both "instruction" and "reprimand" -- the opening of doors and the closing of them, too. An older Baxter& photo showing a painted mountain backdrop in front of real mountains echoes these concerns: What stands between us and the real world? Does it introduce us to the latter's grandeur or offer only a pale copy? Interestingly, these questions are as relevant to art as they are to education.
Read on here for the other two reviews.
(Image of the Distillery District from Toronto Tours)