My friend Luka and I went to the brand new AGO designed by Frank Gehry.  All in all it was a fun trip and it gave me a better understanding and appreciation for Canadian art either contemporary or classic.

The first thing that you notice is the sheer beauty of the place.  A lovely mix of new and old, all wooden and just stunning.  The starcase in particular is, weirdly enough, one of the great centerpieces of the building.  It goes a long way up and is just beautiful to see at night since the lights are dim and the stairs are lit up.

The exhibits themselves were pretty good.  A lot of very beautiful installations.  Some amazing pieces of Canadian (Native and otherwise) works just completely moved me. And it was pretty awesome to see some Andy Warhol paintings up close.  Well…just the Elvis one at any rate.

Although…the gallery did have it’s pretty crappy parts.  Luka and I both weren’t particularly fond of there only being one tiny tiny room dedicated to feminist art, for instance.  And there were entire halls dedicated to really really crappy pieces that people have the audacity to call “art”.  We both ended up feeling confident in our “artistic abilities” by the end of it.  I’m sure if I…i don’t know, take a picture of a peeled orange and pear and write about it in an “artistic” way (The peeled orange and pair represent the openness towards interracial couples and challenging the conservative laws of old) and I can get some of my work in the AGO.

And that’s the problem I have with some of the art that’s out there nowadays.  Waaaaaaay too much wankery.  A single orange strip on canvas or a neon knot with just the right explanation, you can have a masterpiece.  Hell, I saw a video piece that was just recordings of old nintendo games in fast forward and that was a fucking centerpiece.  This just annoyed me but, as I said earlier, it gave me hope that maybe I could be a fine artiste.

All in all, I had a wonderful time at the AGO and would most definitely go back to check out more of what I missed.  I saw many wonderful piece of art and even found myself inspired a couple of times.  But there was a LOT of wankery there.  Oodles, even.

And with that little moment, I’m going to end this with a song by R. Crumb and His Cheap Suit Serenaders titled “Fine Artiste Blues”