In Toronto, art is almost everywhere — by the sidewalk, in galleries, in museums, as graffiti on brick walls, as spray paint on burly boundaries and as signposts outside cafes and galleries. Preeti Verma Lal finds herself awe-struck.
From my 12th floor room of Hotel Intercontinental Toronto Centre, all I could see was the colour red. Men in dazzling red tees, women in ruby spaghettis, children hoisting red flags with red scarves snaked around their blonde mane. Countless Torontians hurrying. That summer afternoon, Toronto had metamorphosed into a canvas; it seemed the gods had poured a bucket of red emulsion from the heavens. No, Torontians were not painting the town red; they were Liverpool loyals heading to a football match. But I was peering hard out of the impeccably clean window. I was looking for a mountain. A water-jet cut mountain that sits regally under the shadow of skyscrapers in Simcoe Place Park, Front Street.
This ain't an ordinary mountain in a concrete downtown. Within it is embedded a dialogue between nature and human beings. It has the contours of a natural mountain but it sits stoically on a grass bed, open to interpretations, both metaphorical and symbolic. Or, you could look at it merely as a straight aluminium structure which is fabricated from synthetic materials and dwarfed by human achievement of architecture. Yes, this ain't any ordinary mountain. It is renowned artist Anish Kapoor's 1995 Untitled (Mountain) sculpture.
In Toronto, art is outdoorsy. Call the city an outdoor art gallery. There are 22 public works of art (including Kapoor's Untitled (Mountain)), most commissioned through the Private Developer Percent for Public Art Program administered by the City of Toronto Urban Development Services. Fair Grounds by Michel Goulet (Wellington Street) is a poetic celebration of all that people share; Albert Paley's Constellation (56, John Street) coveys dynamism; Bernie Miller's The Poet, The Fever Hospital (King Street) is a complex sculpture of black granite, galvanised steel and bronze… That summer afternoon, I walked around Toronto in search of art.
Outdoor art gallery
From the outdoor gallery that the city is, I walked to Canada's largest museum. I stood at the main entrance and stared at The Crystal. The glass and aluminium canted walls were bent like burdened boughs, almost touching the pavement in angst. Behind the deconstructivist crystalline form lies the world's largest collection of fossils from the Burgess Shale; countless galleries from world cultures and iconic masterpieces.
At the new main entrance of Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), the crowd was milling. Excited children were gaggling over the colossal dinosaur fossil arched from the atrium, art lovers were gazing at historic artefacts and tired aesthetes were catching a breath on cubist chairs.
I was jostling with the crowd; in the cacophony I could barely hear the narrative of David Grafstein, the guide. I was hurrying past the dinosaurs; I was looking for Kunti (Blue Lady).
I knew she was somewhere in the Sir Christopher Ondaatjee Gallery of South Asia. The wait at the elevator was too long; I scurried up the staircase.
And then I saw her — Kunti, sitting on an empty bottle rack; her skin indigo blue, her body unclothed, her hands stretched in mudra.
This Kunti, however, is not from mythology. She is Navjot Altaf's teakwood and metal sculpture Kunti (Blue Lady), from the series, In Response To. This Kunti is real; she was conceived out of a real-life incident in Kondgaon (Chattisgarh) where a woman who possessed knowledge was declared a witch. The Blue Lady was born out of that ruthless moment where in a man's world a woman is pilloried because she possessed knowledge. Kunti, however, has found her moment of glory — she is one of the iconic masterpieces of ROM.
Altaf was not there to explain the depth of the indigo and the nuance of Kunti's closed fist. But I could hear her from a tiny square screen, explaining the birth and structure of Kunti. "In Modernism, brush strokes are always associated with the artist, but here I have done away with it. Anyone could have painted this," says Altaf who used various pieces of wood to create this larger-than-life sculpture.
Hint of India
In ROM, there is more of India than the indigo blue Kunti. There's 12-14th century bronze Nataraja from Tamil Nadu; a painted, mordant-dyed cotton tabby from Coromandel that was specifically made for the European market in early 18th century; an ancient stone Yogini; a Lady in Moonlight photograph by Pushpamala N which is heavily inspired by Ravi Varma; Jamini Roy's Untitled (dancing gopi), painted in 1950s. That is not all, though. There are artefacts that lie at the heart of the rituals of Himalayan Buddhism and 5th century head of a Bodhisattva (stucco) from Gandhara (now Pakistan).
Walk into ROM galleries and there'd be a hint of India somewhere. In 2010, ROM showcased the Ragamala: Garland of Melodies, an exhibit that explored Ragamala paintings, a South Indian style of painting that was a rage between 16th and 19th centuries. During IIFA in Toronto, ROM mounted Bollywood Cinema Showcards, a stunning array of vintage Bollywood showcards and advertisements assembled for the first time in Canada. Between June 2011 and 2012, visitors gazed at Indian painted photographs that dated from 1860s, a few decades after the invention of photography to the modern-day interpretation of painted photography.
Honestly, I hadn't flown into Toronto in search of art. But I found art by the sidewalk, in galleries, in museums, as graffiti on brick walls, as spray paint on burly boundaries and as signposts outside cafes and galleries. In Toronto, art is everywhere. Almost everywhere.