Toronto Life

The gallery shop at the AGO offers the usual evidence for the proposition that museums exist mainly as annexes to the merchandise out front, a sort of garage of theoretical originals for the reproductions on sale in every size and price range. Like popcorn and soft drinks at the movies, this is where the real money is made. But lately, with the prominent placement of merchandise celebrating the gallery’s renovation by Frank Gehry, a new, second-order version of this familiar condition has appeared. The design is being sold, on T-shirts and cards and posters, as a horizontal scribble, presumably a reproduction of the architect’s working drawing. The looping curves and confident lines look for all the world like what they probably are, elements of a hasty sketch.