Boxing Day museum visit (AGO)

I do get a little stir-crazy on Boxing Day.  It's better in Toronto than it was in Cambridge, England where really everything was shut down -- including their bus service!  But of course few stores are actually open, though I guess the Eaton Centre is in a "tourist district" and can stay open.  Curiously enough, most, though not all, of the stores in Union Station were open, including the new Sephora.

At any rate, the AGO was open, and I convinced my wife and son to make an outing.  I had mostly wanted to make sure my son had a chance to see the Denyse Thomasos exhibit.  It actually runs through the end of Feb., but if he didn't see it on this trip he would miss it.

The weather wasn't too cold.  There weren't a lot of people out and about but a few.  We got to the AGO just a few minutes before noon.  There were a few people in line to get in but again not that many.  I wondered if the Yayoi Kusama Infinity Room had any availability.  (I hadn't booked ahead but there is a little kiosk to book a time slot right after you enter the AGO.)  Surprisingly, there were still a handful of slots for noon, so we signed up for that and headed straight over to the Infinity Room.  I'd been inside with my son before the pandemic, but my wife had never been, so that was cool.

After our minute inside, we went up to the 5th floor for the Thomasos exhibit.

Denyse Thomasos, Anchor, 2009

Denyse Thomasos, Untitled, 2012

The AGO now owns 5 or so of her pieces, including the truly immense Arc, though it is hard to say if any will be on regular display after this exhibit comes down.  I'll try to remember to write and ask.

Because it wasn't very crowded, I decided we would quickly go through the Leonard Cohen exhibit that just opened.  This is full of all kinds of ephemera related to Cohen.  Lots of snapshots, book covers, excepts from his notebooks and a few of his drawings or posters that he designed are on display.  

Not surprisingly there are a few video installations playing Cohen in concert.  I'm a little sorry I didn't take the opportunity to see him live, and I would have seen him if he had been able to tour one last time.  That said, I am definitely more of a casual fan, and this exhibit is aimed at the more hardcore fans.

Anyway, it was a nice change of pace to be out doing something on Boxing Day.