Hello Everyone,

 

• I spent part of my vacation last week in Go Home Bay, Georgian Bay. I bumped into Eric and Sara Jackman who invited me to the island cottage where members of the Group of Seven visited 100 years ago (at the time owned by Dr. MacCallum). See pic attached of me, Monique, and the Jackmans standing where a great picture was painted. Ontario is beautiful!

 

• This week, I received initial lists of art works from the curators for the re-installation project. The curators have distilled their choices down to the best works from our collection. It is very exciting to see images of the works – it gives me real confidence that the re-installed galleries will surprise and delight our visitors. This project will have a big impact on our guests.

 

• One of my ongoing concerns is how sometimes it is very difficult to move things forward here at the AGO. I have heard this from many of you. We all need to focus on how to simplify decision-making and keeping meetings shorter. I am confident if we simply things and focus on helping our public have an amazing time learning and engaging with art, we will do better. In short, we need to change parts of our internal culture to better serve our public and ourselves. I encourage you to look at ways to make processes simpler – do you need 8 approvals from 3 departments before you move forward?

 

• I had lunch on Wednesday with Alexander Neef of the Canadian Opera Company. I invited him and other leaders from the Group of 8 institutions (ROM, TIFF, Soulpepper, TSO, Harbourfront, National Ballet) to come to the AGO on Monday to talk about ways we can work together and promote culture in our city

 

• Check out your calendars for next week – is there a meeting scheduled that you don’t need? Cancel it!

 

Enjoy the weekend,

 

Stephan