Toronto building boom

[adma]

And as per my point, *everyone* calls it a bean at this point.

You might as well attack labels such as "Gothic" or "Baroque" as philistine blow-offs (and, to some extent, that *was* their point of origin)

 

[Tewder]

Essentially, regardless of the actual quality of the elements, the reason why MP "resonates" with certain sorts the way that HC might not is akin to why Evita and Les Miz "resonates" with certain sorts the way that independent theatre might not. It's got "oooh". It's got "aaah". A lot of people need that "oooh" and "aaah" to feel that they got their money's worth.

Let's not fall into the trap of a false choice between MP and HC... as I've said before, many of the elements of HC can be found in Chicago in other venues. It's not like they're force fed 'Evita' 24/7.... and feck you, I love Evita! Aint nothing wrong with Webber's Tim Rice years... though I get the feeling you're commenting on the entire genre in which case 'feck you' again!!

 

[Ladies Mile]

And as per my point, *everyone* calls it a bean at this point.

You might as well attack labels such as "Gothic" or "Baroque" as philistine blow-offs (and, to some extent, that *was* their point of origin)

Oh. Does everyone call it a "23-million dollar bean?" I think I'm right to read that as dismissive.

You seem very fond of cheap dime-store psychoanalysis, BTW. I just have opinions, sorry. Agree with them or don't as you see fit, but the vest-pocket head-shrinking and social pigeonholing you indulge in seems very much the act of a smug, passive-aggressive bore.

 

[Ladies Mile]

One thing I have never understood in the inability of Toronto architectural media to realize that things we are creating from whole cloth do in fact often exist elsewhere piecemeal.

Times Square does not have space for public events...largely because Bryant Park, one block away, already does. Arguments re: Dundas Square's superiority based on such comparisons invariably fall flat (and point up the arguers as not very traveled).

 

[Urban Shocker]

That the Kapoor has been identified as a "shiny $23 million bean" is entirely a critique of Chicagoan collecting patterns - seen from the perspective of a city, Toronto, where collectors are canny enough to collect the work of the same artist early and at a lower price - rather than a critique of the artistic quality of the work, surely?

 

[freshcutgrass]

That the Kapoor has been identified as a "shiny $23 million bean" is entirely a critique of Chicagoan collecting patterns - seen from the perspective of a city, Toronto, where collectors are canny enough to collect the work of the same artist early and at a lower price - rather than a critique of the artistic quality of the work, surely?

Well, it's fairly obvious. But apparently it's more convenient for his argument for me to be labelled as "anti-art".

And yes, when your savvy collecting practices boil down to over-paying for superstar household branding to impress the masses, you're going down the wrong path. And you're really not "collecting" in the true sense. It's like Rob Ford obsessing over subways, when he has no interest or knowledge in public transit in the least.

Toronto's acquisition of public art was/is controlled mainly by the "art crowd". That's why we can look at it and see that some astute decisions have been made. When you allow it to be controlled by politicians and corporations, with the tax payer footing the bill, you're asking for trouble.

It sets a bad precedent, and makes it difficult for up-and-coming talent. To look at something similar happening in the theatre, it looks like plays on Broadway can't succeed any more mules there is a celebrity actor in it. Let's hope Toronto doesn't end up down that path either.

 

[Ladies Mile]

That the Kapoor has been identified as a "shiny $23 million bean" is entirely a critique of Chicagoan collecting patterns - seen from the perspective of a city, Toronto, where collectors are canny enough to collect the work of the same artist early and at a lower price - rather than a critique of the artistic quality of the work, surely?

You are making the assumption--untrue categorically--that Chicago's collecting pattern is entirely summed up by the acquisition of a major work by an artist at the height of his popularity. I draw your attention to the fact, for example, that American museums and public spaces routinely incorporated Modern and Impressionist work into their collections at a time when the UK and by extension Canada barely knew what such things were. This is why the Art Institute of Chicago has more significant Impressionists than the whole of London's public art collections put together. Chicago itself has a strong tradition of nurturing local talent.

But even it were this not the case...let's put it this way. I suppose we can pretend their Picasso means less than it would had it been bought when no one knew who he was. But that smacks of the worst kind of adolescent "I know cool bands--and you don't" snobbery to me. At the end of the day, they still have it and it stands or falls on its own merits, not the method of its acquisition.

BTW, here's an article on how we treated those early works by di Suvero. Not very well, it would seem.

http://www.livewithculture.ca/art/flower-power-blooms-again/

 

[freshcutgrass]

But that smacks of the worst kind of adolescent "I know cool bands--and you don't" snobbery to me.

Snobbery is definitely a byproduct, but the alternative isn't any better. That's how you end up spending $83 million on a Kapoor sculpture and a Gehry outdoor stage.

At the end of the day, they still have it and it stands or falls on its own merits, not the method of its acquisition.

There is truth to this, but that doesn't mean one should not draw lessons from what happened at the beginning of the day. Art is not diminished by its cost, but thinking it is enhanced by it is where things go wrong. But city-building is diminished when finite funds to do so is spent foolishly.

 

[freshcutgrass]

BTW, here's an article on how we treated those early works by di Suvero. Not very well, it would seem.

Oh, but wouldn't that be an example of "untrue summing up" that had your titties in a knot about a moment ago?

But yea, it just goes to show that public art is not maintenance free, and needs to be budgeted for. And not something our current mayor finds worthy of spending a cent of taxpayers money on (although spending tax dollars on removing public art is well within his comfort zone).

Thankfully, the mistake has been corrected in the case of the di Suvero work.

Not only has Toronto managed to amass a rather impressive public art collection in a savvy manner (and not just in the downtown core, a leftover byproduct of the two-tiered borough system and the fact that the condo boom is all over the city), things are going to get a lot better despite the anti-art installation at City Hall. Our not-so secret weapon is the Percent for Public Art Program (thanks to the previous administration). Toronto isn't the only city to have this program, but few, if any, can match Toronto's sustained development boom. Section 37 helps this area as well. The amount of public art has been exponentially increasing over the last 5 years, and looks to continue.

 

[adma]

But that smacks of the worst kind of adolescent "I know cool bands--and you don't" snobbery to me.

Funny; a lot of your schpiel smacks of the worst kind of "she loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah--pfui" snobbery to me. (Then again, your aesthetic/cultural sensibility does seem to long for an age before the Beatles--symbolically, at least--corrupted and dumbed down everything.)

 

[Tewder]

You are making the assumption--untrue categorically--that Chicago's collecting pattern is entirely summed up by the acquisition of a major work by an artist at the height of his popularity. I draw your attention to the fact, for example, that American museums and public spaces routinely incorporated Modern and Impressionist work into their collections at a time when the UK and by extension Canada barely knew what such things were. This is why the Art Institute of Chicago has more significant Impressionists than the whole of London's public art collections put together. Chicago itself has a strong tradition of nurturing local talent.

But even it were this not the case...let's put it this way. I suppose we can pretend their Picasso means less than it would had it been bought when no one knew who he was. But that smacks of the worst kind of adolescent "I know cool bands--and you don't" snobbery to me. At the end of the day, they still have it and it stands or falls on its own merits, not the method of its acquisition.

BTW, here's an article on how we treated those early works by di Suvero. Not very well, it would seem.

http://www.livewithculture.ca/art/flower-power-blooms-again/

The snobbery here is sort of a 'last bastion of defence' position; when it comes to crowing about acquisition practices you can substitue 'frugal' for 'canny' or 'savy', quite honestly.

... yet what does any of this have to do with MP? Who cares whether Kapoor was 'unknown' or not when Chicago acquired the Bean? What they should care about is how successful and engaging it is as public art, and who could deny that it is??

Besides, it's not an issue of whether we would do it any 'better' if we had the chance because we'd never get the chance, quite simply... and this does say great things about Chicago, imo (despite the overruns and controversy) - in the same way Stanley Park says great things about Vancouver, Central Park about NYC etc. These grand projects are never achieved without civic pain. We may parsimoniously count the false opportunity costs of improving our public realm (and just check the 'shabby realm' thread for more of that) or smugly and myopically poopoo the art acquisitions as too costly, inferior and passé but in the end when faced with an urban gesture we could never hope to achieve our only recourse is to deconstruct it and devalue it, which is sort of sad and small minded.

But let's be clear: nobody here is suggesting we should forego HC for a MP-type space (wrong); nobody here is suggesting we shouldn't invest in 'unknown' artists (wrong again); nobody here is suggesting that waifs in the streets of Toronto should go hungry as we pave the streets with gold (thanks for playing)... none of which suggesting, however, that MP remains anything short of spectacular, an enviable part of that city (which doesn't imply that Chicago is a better city than Toronto!!).

 

[Urban Shocker]

You are making the assumption--untrue categorically--that Chicago's collecting pattern is entirely summed up by the acquisition of a major work by an artist at the height of his popularity. I draw your attention to the fact, for example, that American museums and public spaces routinely incorporated Modern and Impressionist work into their collections at a time when the UK and by extension Canada barely knew what such things were.

The Impressionists shipped their paintings to American galleries in the 1870s because that's where the rich collectors were, so nothing has changed. When rich Chicago socialite Bertha Potter Palmer ( who left many Impressionist paintings to the Art Institute in 1922 ) bought 20 Monets from the artist in 1891 he was highly fashionable thanks to dealers such as Paul Durand-Ruel ( "The American public does not laugh. It buys!" ). In those days nobody went to the States except to make money - Wilde, Dickens, Dvorak, they all toured. The British aristocracy married wealthy American heiresses to stay afloat financially. The Americans are still buying culture.

 

[Tewder]

Unless I'm missing something all 'culture' is bought for a price. What would the AGO be without the gracious donations of wealthy collectors and benefactors? What would Toronto's cultural infrastructure be if not supported financially by tax payers?

 

[Urban Shocker]

Agreed, though I think what this thread's been dealing with of late, in the Chicago/Toronto waterfront discussion, is a comparison between their consistently grandiose or monumental approach, going back for more than a century of developing their open space by the lake and keeping it generally open and park-like, with big focal points like the Kapoor and the Gehry statements, and our notion of extending the street grid down to the lake, taking a finer-grained approach with such things as the "cultural village" expansion of York Quay Centre, and not so much of the grand gesture. As Americans, they're more culturally conditioned than Torontonians are to solve problems by throwing money at them. That's why we're not them and they're not us. It's like when Bernini submitted his design for the east front of the Louvre - imposing a Roman Baroque model on Paris - which Louis XIV rejected for Perrault's more regimented, severe, and fundamentally home-grown Classical approach.

 

[Ladies Mile]

The Impressionists shipped their paintings to American galleries in the 1870s because that's where the rich collectors were, so nothing has changed. When rich Chicago socialite Bertha Potter Palmer ( who left many Impressionist paintings to the Art Institute in 1922 ) bought 20 Monets from the artist in 1891 he was highly fashionable thanks to dealers such as Paul Durand-Ruel ( "The American public does not laugh. It buys!" ). In those days nobody went to the States except to make money - Wilde, Dickens, Dvorak, they all toured. The British aristocracy married wealthy American heiresses to stay afloat financially. The Americans are still buying culture.

You are being absurd. "Culture" is bad when Americans buy it and good when Canadians don't?

America produces plenty of home-grown culture at a very high level and Chicago specifically is the location of much of the development of modern architecture worldwide. If commissioning a house by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1902 was simply a matter of "throwing money" at something, then I wonder how you define progressive patronage at ANY level differently. The thought that it's all imported either then or now is frankly pig-ignorant at best.

If you think Canadian curators and collectors would have bought the Impressionists if they had more money, how would this make us any different? And I doubt we would--our public collections at that time were in the less than capable hands of English advisors who wouldn't have known a good painting if it fell on them. Little chance of that in the London galleries of the day--unless you were buying from one that represented Americans such as Whistler and Sargent.