Guy Cogeval's replacement, part 2

Howdy!

On Saturday I wrote about a couple of local people who might be able to replace M. Cogeval come this July. One thing that I did not focus on was the need and ability of the new person to raise money in order to get something built at the Erskine & American church. But I will be getting back to that later.

Here are some of the people in the rest of Canada who I think could do the job rather well.

Dave Liss, director of the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art. First and foremost I'd love to see him get the job, because he is a good friend, and I can't think of anything better than for him (and Nathalie and the kids) to come back to Montreal. But personal stuff aside, he successfully moved his museum, pulled it up from worse than dead and has given it a very seriously high profile within Canada. I don't think his strong suit is older and non-Canadian art, but what he lacks there he more than makes up for with his ability to handle deal and massage politicians.

Kathleen Bartels, Director Vancouver Art Gallery. This past summer I remarked as to how Montreal had become over run by things artistic from Vancouver. There was a show in each of the three museums downtown from there. Ms. Bartels, I assume had an awful lot to do with that. On top of that she has specific experience in raising funds for a new building (although I am not entirely clear as to where they are in that project). And, can't forget, I always like having a babe run a museum.

Beyond that, I'm drawing a blank. I tried really hard to think of one other museum administrator anywhere in Canada who was doing enough cool stuff that I'd want them running the Musee des beaux arts, and couldn't think of a single one. For the folk at the AGO it would be a sideways move. Since the current director of the National Gallery used to be director at the MBAM I don't think he'd be interested in coming back, and I have not really been terribly impressed with any of the curators working there.

The Museum of Civilization? Who? University of Toronto? What? (Although it got me thinking about UQAM and Concordia here in town, both of which have been building like it is going out of style, I obviously need to do some research as to who are the people who did the grunt work.) Mendel? While Terry Graff is a really nice guy, Montreal is just slightly larger than Saskatoon. Glenbow? Nah!

Although if I stop looking solely at museums and look at other cultural organizations, I probably could find some reasonable candidates, but I'd best leave that for another time.