A day in Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada

I managed to make a one-day trip to Ottawa after Boxing Day. According to plan I would first visit the Ottawa Art Gallery, then CMCP, and the final destination would be the National Gallery of Canada where it is showing a major exhibition by Christopher Pratt - one of Canada's most celebrated painters. It was a remarkable experience looking at his paintings and drawings on-site in the gallery. Paintings of landscapes, seascapes, boats and buildings were done in such miraculous details, all expressed in simple graphic forms and colours, faultless perspectives and the beautiful, mysterious depiction of light. A catalogue is published on the occasion of this exhibition but honestly the colours are quite unmatched to the real work. Unable to obtain a permission to do an ambient shot of the exhibition I continued on to the Contemporary Art Gallery section. At the entrance I met this super big baby head by Ron Mueck, and I mistook it for Evan Penny's work.

Gladstone Hotel and the phenomenon of artist-designed hotel rooms

It was about twenty years ago when I first stayed in the Carlton Arms Hotels in New York city. I read about a review of artist-painted rooms in this hotel in The Face magazine. It was my first ever visit to New York and out of curiosity I decided to give it a try. After staying for one night, I had to move to another hotel. It was the noisy heating system that kept me awake all night. Twenty years later, Carlton Arms have all of its 54 rooms painted by artists and upgraded most of the facilities. It remains a major attraction to a large clientele from Europe and Asia. In different major cities around the world, artist-designed hotel rooms have been cropping up. There is Hotel Fox in Copenhagen, Hotel Des Arts in San Francisco, Hotel Atelier sul mare in Sicily and Kunstlerheim Luise in Berlin. This weekend marked the opening of the newly renovated Gladstone Hotel in Toronto, in which all the third and fourth floors are assigned to 37 artist-designed hotel rooms. Carlton Arms came back to mind immediately, but Gladstone Hotel is two decades later, and the rooms and amenities are targeted much more with the comfort of its visitors in mind.

Bruno Billio's studio in the Gladstone Hotel

There is artist-in-residence programme on the second floor of the Gladstone Hotel. Current artists are Bruno Billio in 209 and Allyson Mitchell in 207. I remember seeing Bruno Billio's work from last TAFFI (2004), the Toronto Alternative Art Fair International taken place in both Drake and the Gladstone Hotel. Located then in the same suite 209 in the Gladstone Hotel, Bruno's installation was raw, the atmosphere and visual impact simple and powerful. The constant flux of wind pushing open the curtains, the books piling all the way up to the ceiling...all these are tamed and "blended in" today under the same artist's domesticity of the space. He has transformed the place into a loving, warm living quarter with personal and found objects, light and sound. Born in Toronto, Bruno is known for his stacked sculptures and string installations. He has worked and exhibited in Milan, London, Miami, New york and Los Angeles.