While the public waits for Gehry's Transformed AGO to open its doors a few years from now, the gallery's curators decided to launch a series of "experiments" on better engaging gallery visitors. The first of these experiments, The Future Now: Exploring Tomorrow's Collection Today, opens June 14th.

David Wistow, the show's curator, says that, "We have a whole year to study the experiences of our audiences and work with them to better understand how they find meaning in art." "How will visitors respond to the the four major themes of this show - gender, spirituality, community, and food?"

The laboratory for the experimental show is the second-floor gallery once dedicated to the AGO's permanent collection and more recently given over to blockbuster shows. It is also one of the few gallery spaces not closed for the Gehry transformation. Laboratory might be too strong a description though. The gallery looks like a traditional gallery. Nothing too edgy or experimental intrudes on what is an otherwise normal gallery visit.

The gallery's permanent collection is the basis for the show. It is surprising to see how blending familiar works of art based on theme rather than period can be so refreshing. That alone is worth a visit.

The AGO's curatorial staff is serious about the idea of using this transitional period as an opportunity to experiment. They want to know how to fill the 110 galleries that will open in 2008. That makes sense. But experimentation suggests the possibility of failure and the curators will have to push the boundaries of their craft further than this show does to really benefit from experimentation.

What are experimental alternatives? Recently the science publication "Nature" threw itself open to a kind of open-source editorial policy when they invited peer reviews of submissions. Maybe the AGO can try something similar. How about putting on an "inside-out" salon show. Rather than having hundreds of works from different artists, get hundreds of artists to use online technologies like wiki's to put together a cohesive show around a major theme. That would be experimental.

Any other ideas out there?

2. Eli Singer and Susan Bloch-Nevitte, Executive Director Public Affairs of the AGO, did a case study presentation at this evening's innaugural CaseCamp. It was really interesting to hear about how the AGO has been using this downtime as an opportunity to experiment not just with their building but with their approach to running the gallery and to their relations with the public. Eli has been championing a movement to become more aware and embracing of things like blogging by getting Toronto bloggers invited to the AGO's media events, which is remarkably forward thinking for an institution who just recently turned 106. I think Robert's idea of wiki-based curation is really interesting and maybe something that fits into their "new media" experimentation. There are a number of ways to bring the exciting world of the participatory web into the gallery space - David Crow and I were chatting just this evening about making the audio from the self-paced guided tour "wands" available as podcasts in iTunes so that you could load them on your iPod before you went to visit, providing a preview of the show and a more intimate (and stereo!) guide without the need to hold a box up to your head. Susan made a great point this evening about needing to attract a younger audience and focusing on the 18-30 market in an attempt to make art more approachable - what about allowing gallery visitors to tag artwork with audio tags like Murmur or with comments on a "virtual" gallery viewable online and displayed in the physical gallery? How about an exhibition similar to the old Connections TV series by James Burke, which would follow the influences of an older piece (either in the gallery's collection or borrowed from elsewhere) up through various media and into current pop culture? It could be presented in a similar manner to the Massive Change exhibit's human computer interaction room, with its on-the-wall timelines from Bill Buxton's collection of input devices. I think the limit of what they can do is capped only the willingness of the AGO to open its mind to the possibilities. Posts like this are a great start!
   
   Posted by Jay Goldman  on  {comment_date format=’%m/%d’}  at  {comment_date format=’%h:%i %A’}
Posted by Jay Goldman  on  06/13  at  11:27 PM

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