explorations in toronto art.

My most anticipated activity for my visit to Ottawa during the holidays, other than eating Christmas cookies with my friends and decorating the tree with my family, was visiting the National Gallery of Canada.

After a few unsuccessful attempts, I went early on a quiet Wednesday and walked through from top to bottom. That is to say, I actually looked at the permanent collection, which I haven’t done in years. Growing up in the capital, the National Gallery of Canada was always just “the gallery” in my house and in my head. In fact, I didn’t really know there were such things as artist-run centres, until I moved to Toronto.

I spent most of my visit looking at the early 20th-century Canadian art. I was surprised at how much it excited me, in part because I often forget how spectacular  the Group of Seven paintings can be, in person. The Group of Seven area is rounded out with nice little sidenotes: a wall of 8×10 sketch paintings, and panel paintings that once adorned the walls of a cabin in the Georgian Bay area. This pseudo-installation led me nicely into the Rideau Chapel.

I remembered this area from childhood visits to the gallery, having routinely dismissed it as a boring religious thing that I could lump in with the Quebecois sacred art displayed in the surrounding halls. But I actually spent some time in here this visit, and read about its origin, demolition, and how the chapel was saved and reconstructed inside the gallery. Although it seems to tread the line of what actually belongs in an art gallery, I’ve seen it integrated into more contemporary applications, such as when it housed Janet Cardiff’s Forty-Part Motet sound installation.

The temporary exhibitions can be on the fusty side: last year’s Bernini show, endless repetitive Impressionism shows, American Modernist photography– but when they choose to focus on Canadian art (!) the exhibitions shine. The current ones are all good examples of this. David Hoffos takes the cake, with a breathtaking diorama/video installation that inspired simultaneous uneasiness and wonder. Gabor Szilasi‘s aptly-titled Eloquence of the Everyday was nice too; I’d seen it before in Joliette but the breadth and cohesiveness of the exhibition were what  incited me to look again. Even the Cape Dorset Inuit printmaking show, made up of things that usually bore me, was interesting and quietly elegant.

All this to say, the National Gallery of Canada is a place I wish I could go more often. It treads carefully, sometimes too plodding for my taste (I too often demand the cutting edge); but it reminds me of the traditions that existed in earlier Canadian art, which I see more lovingly lampooned than in their original form. This visit was refreshing.

My brief visit to Ottawa over Thanksgiving weekend happily included one of the greatest pleasures of my neighbourhood: walking to the bagel shop on a crisp day, and bringing home a steaming warm bag of delicious baked goodness; cradling it sideways like a baby so the ones at the bottom don’t get squished, and taking a peek and a whiff every so often.

bagels.

Bagels have a special place in my heart for a few reasons (not the least of which is that they are delicious!), and a bite of a fresh bagel brings me back to a few fond experiences. The first time I recall going to the bagel shop with my dad on a weekend morning, it was when I must have been seven, around the time we moved to the neighbourhood where my parents still live (and which I firmly believe is the best neighbourhood in Ottawa, but that’s another story.)

When I was a kid, my dad took my brother and I out somewhere every Saturday morning without fail, to get us out of the house so my mom could have some peace and quiet in which to sleep late. I recall many of those times involving walks to the bagel shop, and the best part was getting to eat a hot bagel on the walk home.

I could hardly write about bagels without mentioning Montréal. I’m not going to get into the Fairmount vs St-Viateur debate, because obviously both are delicious, wood-fired worlds away from what I’ve found in Toronto so far. Maybe I’m just not looking in the right places, but after four years here, I have yet to eat a satisfactory bagel. Which makes my trips to Montréal that much more satisfying.

A year or so ago, I visited my friend who lived in Mile-End at the time, and after a fun night at the pub, we tromped our way home through the snow at 3am. Our walk wouldn’t be complete without stopping at St-Viateur, conveniently on the way home, to pick up hot bagels. Back at the house, we toasted them and dipped them in cream cheese, not even bothering to slice or spread. Between us we devoured half the bag, giggling drunkenly and chatting about everything. It was a huge contrast to my childhood bagel memories, but no less heavenly.