ON A TOUR OF TORONTO
Public art through fresh eyes
One of the most rewarding aspects about rolling around another city is finding something that adds to your understanding of home.
I’m on a residency right now in Toronto, and had long in mind a few mosaic works by Count Alexander von Svoboda out here, given his footprint in Edmonton. The Vienna-born artist — who arrived in Toronto in 1950 with $10 — dropped a number of beautiful, if generally unknown, tile murals in our city in the 1960s. The most accessible of these are his depictions of fairy tales on the outside of the Royal Alexandra Hospital, which are well worth circling the hospital to see. Visible from a cafeteria in NAIT in a glass-walled courtyard is a much more beautiful piece dealing with trades, science and industry (go, progress!) — and of course his hidden masterpiece in the city, which currently lives in the locked ruin of the Charles Camsell Hospital.
Back here in Toronto, the two murals in North York are simply gorgeous. One, inside the highsecurity campus of Sanofi Pasteur, sits over a wide doorway in blues and whites and red, a modern piece full of recognizable symbols, including the female and male signs, a beaker and a lab rabbit and rat intertwined. Like much of his work, the tiles of the six-metre-square mural are made up of hand-cut Smalti, a type of molten glass with a well-guarded colouring process. Ernestine Tahedl’s restored mural outside our new Royal Alberta Museum has the same look and feel, down to the curves and grids.
Not far away, up on the outside of Newtonbrook Secondary School in North York, sits a more yellowand-green, spring-toned mural with human figures, one with a bow, and several animals, including an elk and a peace dove. This one went up in 1965. His work in Edmonton ranges from 1962-1969.
Meanwhile, downtown, Douglas Coupland’s Monument to the War of 1812 might be the best public art in the city. Brilliant in its simplicity, it shows a British (standing for Canadian) toy soldier in gold standing over a knocked over American.
Read what you like into the idea of these figures being gigantic toys left on a street corner. There’s a terrific humour about clinging to this victory over our southern neighbours in this war neither population was all that keen on fighting in the first place.
Coupland also has a great giant canoe down the street in a park made specifically so people could still look at Lake Ontario over the Gardiner Expressway. Lots of great ideas here, form and function and humour.
Finally, thanks to a YouTube video made by ukulele player Peter Forrest, I was able to find Canadian piano wizard Glenn Gould’s grave in Mount Pleasant Cemetery under a foot of snow. Past the gravestones of Harry Gentleman (seriously), and Elsie Coffin (also seriously), Florence Gould’s gravestone sticks up from the snow, the musician’s mother.
Guessing roughly where the pianist was buried at her feet, I started kicking and digging up snow, breaking into a bit of a sweat honestly — but uncovered a series of notes from his famous version of Goldberg Variations.
More of a fun treasure-hunt moment than some sombre moment of reflection, but his simple tombstone with a piano carved into it was understated and sweet, the 50 years of his life noted in granite.
One more humble monument — between the seemingly endless graffiti portraiture in every second alley, there’s a planter on Queen Street with Gord Downie’s smiling face that reads “Courage.”
Like all of this art and monument, it’s hard to say how often people who walk by it every day notice this stuff, but that’s the other rewarding aspect of rolling around another city.
We do notice.
But, as we say in Alberta, enough about Toronto.
Closer to home, this weekend is the Nordlys Film and Arts Festival in Camrose. The festival started unofficially 19 years ago in organizer Hans Olson’s parent’s basement, and now runs at the Bailey Theatre, 5041 50 St., Camrose.
“We’re excited to have our first international filmmaker guest this year — Dagur Kári from Iceland — with his films Virgin Mountain and The Good Heart,” said Olson.
“Virgin Mountain premiered in Berlin and won three awards at the Tribeca Film Festival. Other highlights of the weekend include an Alberta Shorts package, a concert with Colleen Brown & Major Love, and a screening of the NFB doc Birth of a Family with director Tasha Hubbard from Saskatoon in attendance.”
Full ticket, pass and schedule information is online at nordlysfestival.com — truly one of the province’s hidden treasures, warm and inviting.