Paterson Ewen

Went to see the exhibit of the AGOs collection of Paterson Ewen today.
What a remarkable artist.
His depth of exploration and incredible success in making artforms that pushed the boundaries for his time and culture are fantastic.
The installation of them is spacious and open, I liked that. There is a small room of his personal collection of art from his tenure living in London ON. He bought or traded for the art apparently. I'd say he was being generous at best, to the vast majority of the artists' work he 'collected'. Most of it was horrible, and if any of them received trades they should consider themselves fortunate, very fortunate.

The show had a video in a corner, which I watched a bit of. At 40 minutes , however, it would have taken up half of the time I had allocated today for my visit (and there was also a Betty Goodwin retrospective so I had to budget my time judiciously). The video portrayed a fragile man, very aged by the time it was made. He was obviously suffering from mental illness, and his communication in the form of his art was overwhemingly beautiful. Our culture does not have time for souls as sensitive as he, and the material culture he left behind was a fabulous legacy.

A room showing influence from his tenure in London displayed 3 very stinky industrial grease covered forms. I understand that they are true to the art, but who can stay in a stinky gallery? A resin copy would have been just as effective, and nobody would know the difference. Blasphemy, I know.