The Gallery

I headed up to the National Gallery of Canada a few days ago. The collection has had a number of homes since its origin, but has been in this modern structure north of Major's Hill Park since 1988. The place was designed by architect Moshe Safde, and occupies a prime part of the city. The sculpture you see outside of the main entrance is Maman, a bronze casting of the original by Louise Bourgeois, and it is big. People with a fear of spiders must still have a problem coming in through this entrance.

This view, taken from the ramp heading up to the exhibits, looks north to the park, and takes in buildings like the American embassy, the Connaught Building, and the Chateau Laurier.

I like views of the ramp itself, both heading up and down, which follow in respective order. There are elevators, obviously, so you don't have to take this route up.

When I come here I also like getting a perspective of Parliament Hill from the glass tower. I liked the way it looked in the early evening light.

The Gallery has special exhibits going on at present, as well as the permanent galleries of world art. The Canadian collection is presently off limits until spring, undergoing a reorganization for this anniversary year. As art goes, I'm starting this series off with two installations from late in my visit. The first are a pair of camels by the American artist Nancy Graves, dating back to 1968-69. They are life sized and use a variety of materials- wool, steel, burlap, animal skin, and more. When you first walk in on them, they look very realistic.

These two are collectively called Shapeshifter, by an artist from British Columbia, Brian Jungen, done in 2000. They are a composite of what we expect out of whale skeletons- but the material itself consists of plastic chairs, cut up and reshaped.