It all began with an email from Gallery Guide Coordinator Melissa Smith, says Antonia Krajina, one of the AGO’s Saturday Gallery Guides. “She explained that performance artist Basil AlZeri needed five volunteers for a performance he was planning for the May First Thursday.”
Discussing “To Colonize the Moon”
Antonia and four of her colleagues — Maya Kotlarenko, Amanda Riccio, Adam Pham and Karen Chen — agreed to take part. With Basil, they would carry out a performance called “It’s Not Guided, Nor Is It a Tour.” Very intriguing, for Gallery Guides!
The idea: During First Thursday, the six people would station themselves, for some 20-30 minutes, near each of five selected works of art, one after another. All were by female artists: Georgia O’Keeffe’s Eggplant, in Shift; Rosa Bonheur’s Oxen, in the European salon-hung room; Daphne Odjig’s Mother and Child – Playtime, in the Canadian collection; Suzy Lake’s Maquette for Suzy Lake as Bill Vazan, in Light My Fire; and Shary Boyle’s To Colonize the Moon, in Gallery 122.
“Basil wanted us to wait until some people stopped by the selected work, and then engage them in conversation about it, touching on some themes he had in mind — but without telling them we were Gallery Guides,” says Antonia. “We were not to hide that we were engaged in performance art, but we didn’t have to announce it, either.”
She laughs. “It’s good that Basil wanted the ‘performance’ to be very organic, because it allowed us to adapt to circumstances. For example, the Georgia O’Keeffe painting is small, and people often don’t notice it.”
Discussing “Eggplant”
She continues, “So we’d start talking about it among ourselves, and then when other people stopped and started looking at it too, we’d turn to them, and pull them into our conversation.”
Antonia says it was a really interesting experience for the five volunteers. “In ways, it was what we do when we give tours — except that the people didn’t know we were Gallery Guides. They seem to talk more easily and freely if they don’t know that. Perhaps they feel a little intimidated when they know our title, no matter how encouraging and friendly we are.”
The other discovery was what a broad range of people do like to talk about art — “They don’t have to work in the arts, to be interested” — and how much the Gallery Guides and the artist gained from talking about the works with each other.
“We each had ideas about each piece of work, and had a lot to contribute to the discussion. All this added up to a really stimulating conversation.”