Toronto's ROM focuses on Canadiana

Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum turned its focus to Canadiana with the opening of its redesigned Sigmund Samuel gallery and a major exhibit that pulls in works from collections across the country.

The Sigmund Samuelgallery, devoted to the ROM's permanent collection of decorative and pictorial history, has been restored as part of the museum's ongoing renovation that included building of the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal.

It is named after a benefactor who gave generously to the ROM.

The airy new space is just part of the revamp of the museum's take on Canadiana.

A provocative interpretation of well-known Canadianpainting The Death of General Wolfe, by Benjamin West, signals a more playful, and political, approach to Canada's history.

Curator Arlene Gehmacher asked political commentator Chantal Hbert and cultural commentator Jeff Thomas to write a commentary on the painting, which datesfrom 1776.

Hbert questions whether Wolfe would recognize the Quebec of today and Thomas wonders at the Indian at Wolfe's feet. "Why does he look like Tonto?" he asks.

The ROM is taking steps to make its collections more current, adding furniture and artifacts from the 20th century to a collection that William Thorsell admits was "long steeped in the 18th and 19th century."

"The Canadian collection here is just one window into Canada," he said at a news conference Tuesday to introduce a group of Canadian-theme shows opening Saturday.

"We're going to be incorporating many varied instruments to discuss Canada."

Canada Collects, a show planned specifically for the opening, pulls together 70 objects from 50 museums across the country.

It includes Beothuk artifacts from The Rooms in St. John's, a beaded saddle from Calgary's Glenbow museum, the original handwritten manuscript of Anne of Green Gables from the Confederation Art Gallery in Charlottetown and Pierre Trudeau's birchbark canoe from the Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough, Ont.

These items appear alongside items from private collections, such as a bronze statue by Robert Tait-MacKenzie and artifacts from international cultures such asa Japanesehanging scroll from the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria.

The ROM also served notice that it would be using new technologies and recruiting fresh young minds to create a new generation of exhibits.

Pachter's work projected on huge walls

Charles Pachter's Canada is a virtual retrospective on the popular artist who created images of the moose and maple leaf.

Pachter's images are being broadcast on the huge white walls inside the new Crystal.

"It's an exhibit with no shipping, no crating, no insurance," said Pachter. "It's great to see [the images] on a wall 40 to 50 feet high."

The museumhas also asked eight young First Nations artists to present their own interpretation of Canadian history in Shapeshifters, Time Travellers and Storytellers.

This show features video, sound, sculpture, paintings and performance art by artists such as filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk and installation artist Faye HeavyShield.

It is the first of several planned shows by outside curators, Thorsell said.

The museum's permanent collection has been upgraded with restoration of paintings and new groupings of furniture and artifacts, including decorative art from churches and paintings that once were covers of early editions of theCanadian Home Journal.

The ROM is also acquiring new 20th century objects and includes in this show contemporary Canadian designs such as a 1953 Bebop chair by Jonathan Crinion and the Habitat chair and ottoman by Jerry Adamson.