Did you know that Leonard Cohen only got 77 in Grade 9 Literature? Did you want to know that? Did L. Cohen want us to know that? Vicky and I went on an Artist’s Date to the Art Gallery of Ontario, where we took in the Leonard Cohen exhibit. How do you mount an exhibit of a song-writer/poet who was only incidentally a visual artist? Why, you scour his shelves and drawers, sort through and frame his scribblings, much as one’s mother might celebrate her child’s finger-paintings. It is a) creative b) unfortunate c) exploitative d) all of the above, that he is being used to get folks into the Art Gallery. DO GO to the AGO to see David Ruben Piqtoukun’s exhibit, Radical Remembrance. Then go home and listen to Leonard Cohen. And wonder at how they each in their own beautiful way made the universal particular.
