Yesterday the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) unveiled their long awaited new home. The Frank Gehry designed addition to the gallery has been met with much criticism and little awe. I on the other hand applaud the work that both Gehry and the AGO have done here. First of all, lets face the facts, NO ONE fronted the kind of cash needed to build another Bilbao. NO ONE. Second, the AGO is quite literally between a rock and a hard place. With the rock being china town, and the hard place being that it's about 3 feet away from the curb of Dundas street. Not exactly the most ideal place for Toronto's flagship gallery.

But lets look at the positive. They managed to expand the gallery space significantly, they added a much needed new face to Dundas and Toronto finally has a building designed by it's mostly favorite son, Frank Gehry.

I'm glad to see the gallery re-opened in any form. I've had several people visit me from out of country this year and its been a shame to not be able to show it off.

Toronto finally has a one-two punch with the new ROM addition and now the AGO both completed. Love them or hate them, at least we suck less.

You can visit the gallery starting tonight for free all weekend and check it out for yourself:

Starting November 14, 2008 the AGO will reopen its doors to the public and unveil its transformed design, interactive galleries and inspirational art, beginning with three days of free admission:

Friday, November 14, 4 pm to 12 midnight
Saturday, November 15, 10 am to 12 midnight
Sunday, November 16, 10 am to 5:30 pm

for more information: http://www.ago.net/whatson/reopening.cfm

Picture by Sam Javanrouh