Gallery for Free!

Taking advantage of the Servus Community Access Night (free admission on the last Thursday of every month) at the new Art Gallery of Alberta, D and I were finally able to visit the gallery since it opened months ago. I'd been wanting to go for a while and I was ecstatic to finally see the exhibits.

I'm always grateful for being able to visit an art gallery or museum for free. When I was living in Zaragoza, the museum and gallery were free during the summer because of the Expo and you can be sure I went a few times! It was there that I had the chance to see Goya's exhibit Disasters of War and Los Caprichos (Goya was from Zaragoza). So when the AGA announced the new exhibits, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Goya would be one of them.

I will be honest and say that Degas' exhibit didn't impress me as much, but I will say that I fell in love with Janet Cardiff's and George Bures Miller's installations. The Murder of Crows fascinated me and thrilled me like nothing before. I was mesmerized by the imagery of the dreams being recounted and I stood rooted to the ground, tense and frightened at certain moments. I love the layering of sounds and music, the way each speaker played out a different sound. It was strange and haunting, and nothing I will forget. (Please read this article if you're interested in learning more about The Murder of Crows)

The second installation by Cardiff and Miller is called Storm Room. As soon as I entered that room I was instantly transported back to Japan. The way the rain started streaming down the windows and the sound of thunder and wind brought me back to when there were typhoons and I was cloistered in my own apartment. What is particularly haunting about Storm Room is that from time to time you can hear a man coughing in the "other" room. At a certain point the overhead lights flicker and a fan in the corner of the room starts blowing. I looked at the phone on the wall and expected it to ring, but thankfully it didn't because I would certainly have died of a heart attack it if did. It was eerie and even now I'll think about it and feel a bit disturbed that it was modeled after an abandoned dentist's office and that the man coughing was possibly dying in that room.

If you haven't been to the AGA yet, please do. I know I'm biased, but I urge you to please check out Cardiff's and Miller's work. You won't regret it!