Italian design exhibit to open huge new ROM gallery

The Royal Ontario Museum will open its new Garfield Weston Exhibition Hall on Oct. 21 with an exhibit of Italian arts and design from the 20th century.

The Garfield Weston Exhibit Hall is the largest space inthe Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, the extensive expansion of the Toronto museum now under construction.

The ROM is calling the 17,000-square-foot exhibit hall, named after food magnate Garfield Weston, Canada's largest space for international exhibitions.

Architect Daniel Libeskind has designed the $200-million ROM project, which includes a new entrance lobby, a new fine dining restaurant with a panoramic view, and several new galleries.

Ten renovated galleries, including the Asian art galleries on the ROM's first floor and a First People's gallery, opened on Boxing Day 2005.

At the time the exhibit hall opens, renovation of the ROM's entrance hall will not yet be completed. The Crystal itself is scheduled to officially open in spring 2007.

Italian Arts & Design: The 20th Century will include more than 350 works of Italian art and design, everything from the Vespa to Italian fashion to Angelo Morbelli's 1901 painting The Rice Field.

The exhibit explores how Italy developed its regional and craft-based tradition to become a leader in industrial design.

Among the ROM's contributions to the show are a richly coloured dress by Emilio Pucci and the Delphos, a finely pleated silk evening dress by Mariano Fortuny.

The showexamines 20th-century artistic and political movements that affected Italian art and the influence ofgreat names such as Franco Albini (furniture), Gio Ponti (ceramics), Carlo Mollino and Ignazio Gardella (architecture).

The exhibit has been produced by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in co-operation with the ROM and the Museo d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento of Rovereto, Italy.

The exhibit is showingnow until August at the Montreal museum.

The Crystal, an extension of the ROM that juts over Toronto's Bloor Street, isnamed after the AIC investment house founder and philanthropist, Michael Lee-Chin, who donated $30 million to the museum.