AT THE GALLERY
What: Denyse Thomasos: Odyssey
Where: Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, 1040 Moss St.
When: Dec. 11-March 13
Admission: $13 (adults), $11 (students and seniors)
An art exhibit with the size and scope of Denyse Thomasos: Odyssey, which contains more than 50 pieces, some nearly 20 feet long, was never going to go unnoticed. But the showcase of work from the celebrated Trinidadian-Canadian painter made its way to the Art Gallery of Victoria with considerably more drama than was expected.
“There’s always something different with every show,” said Stephen Topfer, manager of collections and exhibits at the AGGV. “I’ve been in the business 30 years, and just when you think you’ve seen it all, something new will happen.”
The original start date for Denyse Thomasos: Odyssey was Nov. 27, but that was bumped at the last minute (more on that later) to Dec. 4. Further delays (more on that later, too) pre-empted that opening until Dec. 11. The first traveling show to arrive at the AGGV during the pandemic finally opens today, and will remain in place until March 13, 2022.
Forces working against organizers made for several stressful weeks of preparation. From a staffing shortage at the Victoria gallery and layers of strict COVID-19 protocols delaying procedure, to a broken freight elevator inside the main building on Moss Street, nothing about the installation of this exhibit went as expected. Add to that list several bouts of extreme weather in November, which crippled many parts of the province, resulting in a perfect storm of problems for the AGGV.
“It would have otherwise been a normal travelling exhibit,” Topfer said. “But at some point, you start to think this was meant to be a challenge from the beginning.”
Denyse Thomasos: Odyssey is on loan from the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, which co-curated the show with The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto. Work from Thomasos, who died unexpectedly in 2012 at the age of 47 following a routine medical exam, is rarely presented on this scale, which necessitated special transport via trucks outfitted with safety measures, including climate control, to protect the multi-million dollar contents inside.
Heavy rain and its after-effects blocked the path of the cargo truck carrying the art to Victoria last month, leaving the driver stuck with the truck in Golden, B.C., for several days. The truck was eventually driven back to Calgary, where the driver reassessed his situation. He eventually charted a course through the U.S., in order to avoid the fallout from floods around the province. When he arrived in Vancouver, he was met with ferry cancellations.
AGGV chief preparator Ali Khan, who would have been a key part of the installation, was off work with a newly arrived baby when the paintings arrived. An additional problem: The gallery’s freight elevator was out of commission, so the art could not be unloaded using the loading dock. Through the main public entrance it went — that is, until the largest crate in the cargo got stuck as it came through the gallery’s front doors. “We had four or five staff trying to dislodge it,” Topfer said.
”There are a number of very big, spectacular pieces in the show, and they required equally big, spectacular crates.”
The 600 pound crate was shimmied through the doors on a specially cut piece of coroplast, until it could be placed on a dolly and rolled into the gallery space. Being down a few key staff members in the COVID-19 era didn’t help matters. “We were using our administrative assistant and building manager, all sorts of people to help us,” Topfer said with a laugh.
The exhibit’s biggest piece was easier to manoeuvre, but more labour-intensive. The canvas, nine feet wide and more than 17 feet long, had been taken out of its frame and rolled up for transport; it came with a “stretcher” that allowed Topfer to re-frame and hang it once the painting was inside the building. The process took two days, Topfer said. “That’s the biggest painting I’ve ever hung in this building. It could only come in rolled up.”
Denyse Thomasos: Odyssey is certainly worth all this effort. The artist’s work — sociopolitical in nature, as it explores racism, slavery and the industrial influence of both — is gaining new momentum across the country, and has been appreciating both critically and at auction since her death (the catalogue that acompanies the exhibit features a 1,300-word essay on Thomasos by Victoria writer Esi Edugyan, a two-time Giller Prize winner.) The legacy of Thomasos, who studied at the University of Toronto and Yale School of Art, and later taught at Rutgers University in New Jersey, is furthering conversations about race and reconciliation long after her death.
Now that it has opened to the public, Topfer can rest easy until March, when the exhibit comes off the gallery walls and goes back into transport trucks headed for Toronto. Hopefully, there’s less stress associated with the departure than its arrival, he said.
“All of this activity threw off our finely tuned schedule. But we are nothing if not resilient in this business.”
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