Some weeks ago, I found myself at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa, Ontario chasing up a possible job opportunity. I wasn’t hired, which gives me perfect license to have at this institution with perfect impunity, but as it happens I was largely impressed by the place. Despite being well off the beaten tracks of Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal, the RMG was showing relevant and challenging contemporary art in an honest, accessible manner - which is to say that the viewing was as enjoyable for my art-snob tendencies as it was for my non-artist brother and sister-in-law who both happened to be along for the ride. For a public gallery in Durham Region, where I had fully expected to be bombarded by the Group of Seven and their ilk, this all came as a pleasant surprise.

That is, until I happened upon The Leather Wing-back Armchairs.

Tucked into the juncture of two display corridors, we’ve got a small Edwardian oddity of a gallery space, shaped something like Pac-Man’s missing mouth-wedge, tastefully wood-panelled, painted and draped. A pedestal table and two red leather wing-back armchairs are facing off against a small, framed abstract painting so unremarkable I can’t even recall the artist or title of the work - and really, against that set-up, the wee thing didn’t stand much of a chance anyway.

I should point out that I have nothing against red leather wing-back armchairs in themselves - on the contrary, they make fantastic library furniture and the ideal place from which to plot world domination and other such sports. But they have no business propping up the expectation that a viewer needs to sit their ass in this plush ostentatiousness in order to commit to the serious business of comprehending the awe-inspiring gestamtkunstwerk that is this rather underwhelming bit of nice colour-daubing.

So, among other things, this blog is a refusal of armchair mentalities where contemporary art is concerned. That passive, enclosed and downright cushy place says nothing about an honest experience of art, but perhaps the writing that will follow can do something to fill the gap.

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