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Art & Books

Making of a AGO member

I feel like the last person to finally go to the redesigned Art Gallery of Ontario (not counting the blur that was the Massive fundraiser). I mostly blame fear of crowds and that awful feeling that I need to get my money’s worth by standing around at the expense of my aching back.

Why did it never occur to me to get a membership? Maybe it’s because bad experiences tend to follow my choice of signing onto something. I stopped going to Blockbuster as soon as I got a “passport”. I only needed to use my Wonderland pass twice to get some value. I’ve used it once. Sign in at a political fundraiser and you’re a member of mail spam for life. And, of course, there’s the gym.

So I’m shocked to say what was going to be a $20 trip to the AGO turned into a $90 trip and I couldn’t be happier.

And it’s the coat check that got me. Free coat check made me commit.

But more importantly, in one swoop it completely changed the way I think about visiting the gallery. Thanks largely to proximity, the AGO is no longer a place that pops into my head because someone’s visiting from out of town. Now it’s the place I stop by on my way from work. You know, to sit and stare at some medieval painting of a bunch of drunken peasants at a wedding (I can’t get enough of the guy in the lower right corner).

The pass is actually a two-person deal called a Contributing Membership. I split the $180 with a friend and we can go independently of each other and take two friends in for free. Instead of considering the gallery as a place to take someone, it’s become a 100 per cent social destination. Example: “Hey _____, _____, how about I take you guys to the AGO, you know, because I love you. No, don’t worry about it – my treat.”

I’m living the membership honeymoon right now. The deal, being sweetened further by access to many North American galleries stirs dreams of visiting The Guggenheim in New York, or having the Albright-Knox dethrone cheap shopping as the number one reason to cross into Buffalo.

In all likelihood I won’t get much travel use from the pass, but that money is spent now in the hopes of finding myself standing in front of a listed gallery without an excuse for not going in. I really hope I didn’t just try to buy my way into an untenable fantasy.[rssbreak]

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