The Gardiner rethinks the Christmas tree
The Gardiner Museum has made a break with tradition with its sensational new show 12 Trees of Christmas.
For 26 years this small jewel of a museum across Queen’s Park Cres. from the ROM — best known as the home of ceramics — had offered an annual array of decorated festiveseason trees.
This year Kelvin Browne, the Gardiner’s executive director and CEO, decided to use this occasion to advance his agenda of rebranding the museum, expanding its reach and giving it a shock-of-the-new touch.
In the past there was a different theme every year, but the constant factor was real trees.
And in the words of Dee Dee Eustace, the architect and interior designer chosen by Browne as curator of this year’s edition: “After 26 years it had lost its lustre.”
The upshot: the 2015 trees show — subtitled The Joy of Creativity — banishes all ghosts of Christmas past and presents instead a feast of contemporary art I would call (borrowing the lyrics of a Cole Porter song) delightful, delectable and de-lovely.
Instead of using actual trees, each of 12 chosen artists could create a new kind of tree.
An extreme example is a piece called LIT/TIL, in which the tree is invisible, though there is a conspicuous tree-shaped empty space between two large, bright yellow lightning bolts. The creator of this piece, multidisciplinary artist Justin Broadbent, says it’s about that eureka moment while brainstorming “when lightning finally strikes.” One such eureka moment must have occurred for abstract artist Michael Adamson, whose multicoloured Found Holidays is made out of reclaimed wood from fallen trees.
Another eureka moment prompted Nova Scotia student designer Hunter Lewis Lake to create a vision of consumerism and recycling, using discarded air conditioners as a frame for tiny trees both upsidedown and right-side up.
Or consider a piece called Crowning Glory, in which the tree is like a jewel box made of ice crystals and snowflakes — the setting for a display of many crowns and tiaras seen in Stratford productions of years past. This tree was created by Liz Geffen (Stratford’s archives director) and Andrew Mestern, technical director of the Shakespeare festival’s scene shop.
Photography artist Trevor Godin- ho offers a new take on The Nutcracker ballet with a tree-shaped mixed-media Plexiglas sculpture embedded with photography starring a dancer. It’s called Immortal Glacier, and features a rotating base that creates the illusion of movement.
Flaneur Forever, by Jennifer Carter, president of Hermes Canada, is not only corporate but light and witty. Her tree is made from a series of opened umbrellas, made (no surprise) from Hermes silk.
Dee Dee Eustace was familiar with the history of the Gardiner trees event, having created three trees in past years.
Her goal for 2015 was to attract a diverse and creative spectrum of artists, tempted by the freedom to use their imagination. The call for submissions went out in March, and the winners were chosen by a committee. The chosen artists had from June to November to create their trees.
In addition to developing the 12 Trees exhibit inside the museum, Eustace designed an outdoor tree, called the Beacon of Joy, near the museum’s entrance. Standing 40 feet tall is a white spruce, which appears through a partnership with Forests Ontario and Ontario Wood.
Visitors can purchase a handmade ceramic ornament, styled in the form of a luggage tag by Gardiner potter Ian Symons, then write a wish on the tag and hang it on the tree.
Every tree on display is sponsored by a corporation. Proceeds will go to a children’s charity, as will money raised through the Gardiner’s Dec. 1 black-tie gala. The payoff: a number of children whose families cannot afford to pay for extracurricular activities will be getting free classes at the Gardiner in how to work with clay.
The exhibition is on view through Jan. 3. mknelman@thestar.ca