Art

The new Art Gallery of Alberta (www.youraga.ca) building opened at the end of January and since I am a bit of an art nut I was pretty excited to go and check it out. I finally made it out this afternoon with a bunch of people from my literary theory class. And it was DEFINITELY worth it. The building itself has caused a bit of controversy and I'm not really sure I like how it looks. Sometimes I think it's cool and other times I just think it's weird. But, from the inside it is pretty sweet. The stairs between level are inside the swoopy (very technical term) bits of the building so it looks pretty sweet inside. They don't have their permanent collections out yet, but the current exhibits are pretty awesome: Degas (his "Two Dancers" is probably my favorite piece of artwork), Goya, Karsh (who must have had an incredible life since he met so many famous people through his work as a portrait photographer), and a couple of installation pieces by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller ("Storm Room" and "The Murder of Crows", both of which are really cool but thouroughly creeped me out). All in all it was an absolutely lovely way to spend an afternoon.

So, since I'm thinking about art I was trying to find a picture that related to this somehow and I remembered these posters that were in a coffee shop in Toronto. Now, this is a pretty amazing coffee shop in the Distillery District of Toronto (which, by the way, is probably my dream address should I ever move to Toronto). They have all of these really old ads for coffee companies that are pretty awesome. I spent forever just staring at them. This particular image is of the wall and most of the poster that was just above the table I was sitting at the first time I went there. The space just lent itself to sepia tone photography. I love the industrial feeling of the exposed brick and metal light fixtures and (although you can't see it in this picture) exposed duct work in the ceiling. Anyway, I think that these posters qualify as art. The idea of what constitutes art intrigues me because I think it is really difficult to define. I'll spare you my ramblings on this subject for now. I'm always up for a good conversation about such topics though.