I have been going to the Art Gallery of Ontario for as long as I can remember – but my return visit on July 5th was unlike any other visit I had experienced before. There were no funky modern seating options in any exhibition spaces, no children in the AGO summer camp, and no "Pop Up On the Dot" tours. What there was, however, was a plentiful number of masked visitors. Before the City of Toronto implemented a mandatory mask bylaw, the AGO had already announced that masks would be mandatory for all visitors upon the reopening. And I can confirm, I did not see even one person without a mask – or even wearing a mask improperly – for my entire visit. Every visitor services associate, security personnel, child (over the age of two), and adult, was wearing a mask of some kind. All the new rules are outlined by a unique ad campaign, featuring modified versions of some of their most famous art works.
To visit the AGO, you now must book a timed entry ticket online through
their website in advance, then download it to a device, or print out the ticket to
bring with you. Upon arrival, visitors are greeted at the Dundas Street entrance
with the banners bearing some incredible “AGO From Home” recreations of famous artworks. Behind the banner posts is a
spotted line of 6-foot spaced, social-distancing stickers – the same ones that
we see in every store, sidewalk, and public indoor space. The line leads to one
opened doorway, monitored by a staff member wearing a face shield. Inside, you
follow the stickers to a staff member behind plexiglass, scan your own ticket
under the machine, and enter the gallery.
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| Photograph courtesy of Jessica Lanziner. |
Once inside, you are barraged by a floor covered in directional stickers, with hand sanitization stations at every turn. The stairs are one way up, one way down, the elevators speckled with
social distance stickers and hand sanitizer stations, and every single gallery
has a panel sticker at the entrance that informs visitors of how many people are
permitted in that gallery space. The special exhibitions, Diane Arbus:Photographs 1956-1971 and Illusions: The Art of Magic, are monitored by a staff
member, who counts and limits the total number of visitors in the space. The
magic shows in the Illusions exhibit are cancelled, leaving a hauntingly empty curtain where the magic shows used to run. Yayoi
Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Room is likewise closed, which while understandable, seems like
a missed opportunity for an addition of masked-selfies to the visitors’ camera
rolls.
While odd, it was a welcome glimpse back to what I have been missing for
months. Familiar faces and scenes looked out from frames across the galleries,
remaining exactly where I remembered them to be. They remain unchanged, continuing to exist in a completely normal state, despite the lack of
normalcy in the world beyond their frames. The whole experience was a breath of fresh (but mask-filtered) air.
It was quiet, calm, and exactly as I remember the AGO being on a quiet day – a
small number of visitors, soaking in text panels and a diverse range of art in
almost complete silence.
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| Photograph courtesy of Jessica Lanziner. |
Once in a while, though, I couldn’t help but snap back
into reality – remembering my masked self, in a room full of masked visitors, in
the AGO – in the current era, perfectly normal. In my life overall, incredibly
out of the ordinary. If you want to visit yourself, you can book your tickets through the AGO’s website. Or if you want a more distanced, yet still rather different
experience of it, you can watch their video that they made with the Toronto Zoo,
where two tortoises demonstrate how to navigate the renovated space. I can
attest, it is quite accurate to the real experience – slow and weird, yet
somehow, familiar.
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| Snapshot from the AGO's walk through video. |
