My brother called me at 8:15 on Sunday morning to see if I wanted to come to the opening of the new (much anticipated) art gallery with them in 1/2 hour, as they somehow had an extra ticket. Heck yes I wanted to come. I have been waiting for this for YEARS. Ever since they posted the three designs in the Edmonton Journal and asked Edmontonians to pick a favourite. This one won out over the boring choice (think boxy bricks, without the antiquated charm) and the extra-zany choice (think neon). Ever since then I have been excited about us finally having an interesting building downtown. I work downtown, so I regularly take my lunchbreaks and wander over past the gallery (due to not having any work friends. sob story.).
Side story: I overheard an awesome conversation between a bunch of middle aged women waiting for the LRT awhile back who were mystified by the design. The question: "what are they going to do with all those curves, go sledding on it??" was thrown around a few times. A bit of "tsking" and head shaking was present as well.
Anyways, what I didn't realize was that we were part of the very first tour through the gallery. They counted down before they opened the doors to us and then everyone shouted "Welcome to the Art Gallery!". It was super cute. There was media crawling around everywhere and they had CKUA broadcasting live and doing an interview with the architect, who Francis got to meet on his way out. Scott stopped him to say hi and then said "Francis, can you say 'hi Mr. Stout'". It was pretty cute.
And, Francis was quoted on the front page of the Edmonton Journal giving his thoughts on the new gallery.
Francis Benoit, age three, enjoyed playing on the curved metal walls in the stairwell before his granola-bar meltdown on the second floor."I like it," Francis said. More specifically? "I just like it," he explained.
I would not have called it a meltdown as there was no kicking or wailing, just a bit of short-lived yelling from a little guy who wanted a granola bar, but whatever.
My verdict is that this gallery feels like the sort of gallery that they would have in a big, hip city like Sanfran. We're not quite there yet, just give us another hundred years, but in the mean time, the gallery shop was totally awesome.
And here is the media swarm. Okay well maybe not a swarm.
And the view looking up from the main floor.
