This morning I read that
the Alex Colville exhibit at the National Gallery of Canada (closed on Labour
Day Monday) is the third largest in the gallery’s history.
I have some learning
to do because Colville’s best known painting is an utter mystery to me (To
Prince Edward Island, reproduced above). A print of this painting was on my
sister-in-law’s living room wall for as long as I can remember. It has graced
the side board of OC Transpo busses all summer. And, I don’t get it. I find it
utterly uninteresting. I cannot see what is interesting about this work. Before
seeing it on busses I would not have known it was Alex Colville.
I am, though, a
defender of Voice of Fire (also at the National Gallery).
Context matters.
Voice of Fire holds no
interest to me. I would not hang it on my wall even if I did own a seaside
mansion with ceilings vaulted high enough to display it. But, I have some vague
understanding of the historical significance of it (at least some of which is
the simple audacity to announce it as art and defy anyone to say it isn’t).
I am off to do some
reading and understand what place Colville occupies because I do not like To
Prince Edward Island but enough people do that I must be missing context. I must be.
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