I went to the AGO today, mainly to see the Edward Steichen photography exhibition (I really liked the Vanity Fair exhibition at the ROM and thought this would be a good match), but turns out I enjoyed the Alexander Calder one better.
I should have known better. If I had thought about it a little longer, I probably would have realized that the Edward Steichen stuff isn't really up my alley. I appreciated it for what it was, but I preferred the stuff at the ROM much more. The fashion in the 20s and 30s isn't too interesting for me, and I didn't find the portraiture anything exciting. No matter.
The Alexander Calder stuff was really cool. With a mechanical engineering degree under his belt, he built some really cool contraptions which formed a miniature circus. The circus was complete with trapeze artists, lions, elephants, parades, and the list continues. There were pulley, rope and hinge mechanisms to make everything move and function like they were the real thing. It was pretty cool. Before realizing that I was in the Calder exhibition, I thought I was looking at Miro, and actually a little bit impressed with myself that I could make reference to one of Calder's influences. It was all Calder, and he built interesting sculptures including ones that were made from wire. It was kind of like a three dimensional line drawing. I thought the curators did a wonderful job of shining a light on them so that the sculpture's shadow would be cast on the white wall and turning the 3-D piece into a 2-D piece of art.
The AGO is a great space and I'm glad that I have admission privileges to it - teachers can get in for free with governing body ID. It makes the experience a whole lot nicer knowing that you can come back whenever you want and not feel pressure to take in as much as possible in the day that you visit.
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