Hal jackman's a good guy - he and his family control Empire life and he was and is a good tory - sort of an arch enemy of the demarais family. the statue he paid for, not so much.

Well before the blue monster was installed over the Grange, lovely Grange Park was compromised when the hideous Ontario College of Art and Design put up the “box on stilts” thingy on McCaul, thus ruining the view to the east with it hanging over the treetops.

I guess the guys had their eyes closed when they strolled past Ontario Hydro and never walked as far south as the Zurich Insurance building.

Gumby Goes To Heaven!!

The little burgs on the Plains I inhabit have similar problems. Really ghastly modern, abstract and oversized artworks sited so the taxpayers must grimace and the rest of the world judge our lack of esthetic understanding. On the other hand, the local publisher and banker commissioned terrific overscale bronzes signifying the Oregon Trail including covered wagons, oxen, buffalo, geese that are appealing to me and sited so there is easy interaction. The artist is not an American, which I can never understand, but he's good. It would also have been preferred to model Sand Hill Cranes rather than Canadian Geese but there's no shortage of either around here.

The front of the AGO is worse than the back.
The front skeletal structure will be infested with pigeons next spring and require that cherry picker thing that's always parked out front with hazard tape and traffic pylons wrapped around it, even more than now.

Luckily the wood skeleton will not stand up to the elements and will likely have those kite like ends blown off in some storm within 10 years.

Although I do like the OCA box on stilts and the cheap sunglasses blue back wall of the AGO, a 100 MRI's would have been better.
If you want ugly go in and look at the "art" from the students at the OCA.
You won't believe it.

Yeah, and Toronto's so lovely otherwise, right?

They should have a big monument to political correctness at Queen's Park, maybe a giant stylized turd.

Who notices "art" in Toronto?

The last time I was there, I spent most of my time while walking dodging the over flowing garbage/recyling bins to take note of statues.

The Navy hauled my butt to 18 countrys and 80 different cities and towns over the years and the only city, more flithy than Toronto was Nouakchott, Mauritania.

grrr, "filthy"

i thought the art peace of the air men was kinda nice looking ....my self i don't find anything wrong with it ..the other two art peices were gross and ugly if you ask me ....buti am one of those freedom ,animail ,military, and greek and roman art loving type of guy's so yeah i thought the one dedicated to the airmen was nice ...but hwat do i know i guess .

Paul in calgary

mayor Miller hangin from a light post would be great art:-))))

A while back there was a cartoon, either in the New Yorker or the London Spectator, that I wish I'd kept. "I know absolutely *everything* about art" drawls the ultra-urbane caricature, "but I haven't the slightest notion of what I actually *like*."

I prefer Generals, Indians, Cowboys, the Queen, or anyone mounted on a horse. Of course anything's better than a crucifix submerged in the artist's urine or freeze-dried fetus dangling as earrings.