Hello Everyone,
- Tomorrow is Art Bash and I am excited! Our annual fundraising gala is a huge museum-wide effort that involves months of planning by a volunteer committee and weeks of on-site preparation by many staff members. It is led by the Advancement team and raises a million dollars every year in support of exhibitions and programs and other priorities. I love this year’s theme of “Casa Casati”, inspired by one of the AGO’s most beloved works, The Marchesa Casati by Augustus Edwin John.
- Yesterday I joined a group of trustees on a trip to Montreal for the day. We visited the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal and the Muséed’art contemporain de Montréal. The directors of both museums spoke to the trustees at length about their approaches to engaging audiences through art and public programs. The main goal of board trips is to hear and see what museums are doing and to bring back great ideas to the the AGO.
- Mickalene Thomas is at the museum this week working with Julie Crooks and others on the 5th floor installation of the exhibition Mickalene Thomas: Femmes Noires. It is the first large-scale solo exhibition by this African-American contemporary artist in Canada.
- I was in Anthropocene today – it was packed with school kids! The number of school visits to this show is very high, which is great to see.
Enjoy the weekend,
Stephan