McCord Classics

Instead of one museum a week, it's been more like one a month. But that's ok, we are still getting out to see some good collections. We actually went to the McCord Museum in May, but I'm just a bit late in posting. The McCord is a classic Montreal museum. There were several exhibits that proved engaging and interesting. I admit to being very susceptible to "museum" burnout: that is, after one exhibition, I'm done, and my eyes just glaze over. But there were a couple good ones here that kept me interested.

First was 90 Treasures, 90 Stories, 90 Years, a retrospective on the museum's collection. I love how eclectic this can be. It allows me to be o.k. with dismissing certain objects, while saving my excitement for others. Here are some examples of items on display:

1) A lock of hair from James Wolfe. A lock of hair?!
2) A ticket to the 1867 international exhibition in Philadelphia. This was interesting because the ticket had the bearer's photograph on it. It was more like a modern day trade-show I.D. or something.
3) Rocket Richard's sweater. #9. Oddly, this was object #11. They couldn't have moved a couple around to make the numbers match?
4) The last wishes of Louis Riel. A bit hard to read, but I imagine they said "an NHL team for Winnipeg."
5) A bit of art from Henri Julien. The artist, not the street. He drew the Flying Bark Canoe! But this was a drawing of soldiers leaving for the Boer War.
6) Maps. Maps are always winners for me. A map of the Americas from 1579 was not that far off being right.
7) The last item was an iconic set of photos taken from an album of William Watson Ogilvie's trip to France, Italy, England, Ireland, Egypt, Malta, Lebanon and Palestine. You could say they were clichéd shots, but they were taken in 1867-8, so you could also say they were the seminal back-packer shots. Pretty sure that guy did not travel with a backpack, though.

The next exhibit, upstairs, was Montréal Panorama by André Cornellier. He was inspired by an older version of something similar from 1896. He went up on a rooftop in St. Henri, and took over 5000 photos of the city, throughout the year, and then put them together to form a panorama. The effect is epic.

Finally, we went upstairs to see the Indian Act Exhibit. We were expecting it to be a bit of a downer, but it was kind of funny. There was a funny bit about a guy getting a rock from a little girl, and because of some obscure part of the Act saying he needed the permission of the minister to destroy the rock, because it was given on Native land, he writes to the minister to find out what to do. He receives several bureaucratic responses, which are posted there, presumably to ridicule the whole idea of the Indian Act. I get it, but it also shows that the government KNOWS parts of the act are impractical. Also, just because a piece of law says "the minister's permission" does not mean you actually need the minister's permission, personally. That's true of all Acts, not just the Indian Act. So, yeah, funny, but not really as cutting a cultural criticism as it might first seem.

That's it for this one. I hope we will be able to get to another museum soon!