Core Dump 2.0

Before it was to be demolished, the Massachusetts Mental Health Center was filled with flowers, 28,000 of them, as part of a commissioned artwork by artist Anna Schuleit called BLOOM. It looks quite eerie and oddly beautiful. I have to wonder if the patients would have benefitted from more flowers while the institution was active.

The reactions to Bloom ranged from expressions of delight to raw and renewed sorrow. It was a strange duality: at its core this project was intended to allow people free access to a building that had always been locked and mysterious, while opening its doors also (and especially) to those who had been there for years. The building meant many things to many people, as a workplace, a refuge, a place of confinement. The installation of live flowers and audio (a collage of the sounds of the building before it closed being played over the old PA system) elicited as many reactions as there are stories. I met many hundreds of people who had worked and been at MMHC for years and decades. It was for them that I created this work

Last night, Rose and I went to see the Abstract Impressionist New York show at the Art Gallery of Ontario. This is the AGO’s big summer blockbuster show and I guess they’ve done pretty well with it, as it was packed. It was an impressive show, collecting many major works by Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Joan Mitchell, Robert Motherwell, Lee Krasner and others.

Abstract impressionism isn’t my favourite category of art, but I still enjoyed the show. These works have a very different character when you see them live and up close, and there’s no denying their impact. I didn’t find an emotional connection with them they way I do with say, Lawren Harris or Tom Thomson. Out of all the pieces, my favourite was probably Ladybug by Joan Mitchell.

The show ends Sunday so if you want to see it, your time is limited.

I’d also recommend checking out the General Idea show in the contemporary gallery up on the 4th and 5th floors – take the staircase – it’s amazing. The day-glo fucking poodles are worth the climb.

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