Bruce Mau Studio's "Massive Change" exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario closes this weekend. Did you see it? What did you think? I asked local designers and artists that question. Their answers fell into two general categories. Some found Massive Change inspiring and others thought it superficial and a bit too commercial for a major art gallery (often the cause of their discomfort was the shop visitors have to squeeze through to leave the exhibit).

Still, this is an exhibit that needs to be seen by as many people as possible. Mau and company - using their ability to make complex ideas understandable - combined science, the city, and sustainability to show the importance of design in an increasingly complex world. Creating an installation like this takes considerable resources. Canada does not have enough public funding to support every worthwhile project and audiences for work this important have to do their share. BMD and its partners probably had to take a major financial risk to create this exhibit. Thankfully they did.

1. The people who are critical of this exhibit are missing the point. Mau’s use of the art gallery to voice a position on sustainability takes the message to a broad range of patrons including business leaders who can make change happen.

   Posted by Bill Linwood  on  05/30  at  11:03 AM

2. I don’t think it’s fair to say ‘critics of this exhibit are missing the point.’ That’s a pretty common volley lobbed back at any critic. This is especially so when I would ask of Massive Change, what is the point, exactly? The exhibit is broken and disjointed and lacks coherency. Perhaps, as a designer, I’ve seen many of this questions (and solutions) raised many times before. I mean, really, the exhibit does not have a ‘position’ on sustainability and a lot of it’s content has little to do with sustainability (military innovations, input devices, mapping the Earth’s gravity variations, the ‘image’ room are all examples). I’m not saying Mau shouldn’t be lauded for his efforts, I’m just saying he isn’t a very good editor or curator. I hardly think the counter argument to such criticism is that “people are missing the point.” The entire reason for having an exhibit should be to help people see the point, not muddle up ideas of urbanization and personal transportation with graphic models of earth quakes without any measure of connectiveness. I think Bruce Mau might want to read a little less John Cage and a little more James Burke.

   Posted by Peter Rogers  on  06/01  at  07:09 AM

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