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| - DO NOT COME HERE FOR DOORS OPEN.
Doors Open Toronto (DOT) is an annual event that gives the public access to Toronto's heritage sites, many of which have restricted access for the remainder of the year. DOT's website boasts "free and rare access to more than 155 architecturally, historically, culturally and socially significant buildings across the city." While this may be true for some locations, the Aga Khan Museum (AKM) is not one of them.
My AKM visit involved neither free nor rare access.
For starters, the emphasis on "free" assumes that it would otherwise not be free. However, our tour guide let us know that everything she was showing us is open to the public during their business hours all year round, including the small permanent exhibit on the main floor. I'm not sure if the tour was their DOT offering, but even if it was, it was a very brief description about the architect (Japanese, hence the unexpectedly modern style of building) and the rest was kind of self-explanatory or advertising, e.g. "This is the courtyard" and "We have events in the auditorium."
Top it all off with paid parking (with confusing haywire machines; the lines were full of confused people) and I'd say skip the AKM entirely during Doors Open. I mean, if you only have a few days to visit as many buildings as possible, this is not one you should be wasting your time on, especially if they offer nothing beyond what they normally do.
I would visit the AKM on a separate day because the architecture is very impressive. It's clean and modern and the surrounding garden is no different. While I struggled because of my general lack of skill, I could see this being a photographer's dream.
Onto the rest of the museum.
The rest of the AKM's exhibit lies behind closed doors and requires paid admission: $20 for adults for $15 for students, seniors, and children. Say a short prayer for the children who have to pay $15 because the exhibit is boring. I was, however, humoured by some of the vague descriptions of the artifacts. One of them said something along the lines of "perhaps Iran" when describing an aged piece of paper. Perhaps a little more research is required.
It may be my taste, but I felt like the artifacts were weak. Many had no context. It was like going to the Royal Ontario Museum dinosaur exhibit and seeing a crumpled piece of paper on display with a sign reading "Might've been South Africa, mentions dinosaurs somewhere".
The exhibition upstairs is awkward to get to because you need to leave the main floor exhibit and walk to a separate set of elevators. It's not clear and I'm sure everyone had to ask, "how do we get up there?".
"Visions of Mughal India: The Collection of Howard Hodgkin" was actually pretty cool. The artwork was so meticulous, detailed, and precise that it was hard to believe it was done by hand.
"Inspired by India: Paintings by Howard Hodgkin," on the other hand, was horrendous. It truly is a disservice to the artists of "Visions of Mughal India" because the focus is erroneously on Mr. Hodgkin instead of the true artists. Just because you collect great art doesn't mean you should be making your own, and Mr. Hodgkin's art - if you can even call it that - is a testament to that. Google it. It's definitely abstract, think blocks of colour, but somehow, his is even worse. I saw people of all ages - young, middle-aged, old - laugh his paintings, so I felt better knowing I wasn't being cynical of these paintings just because I was young.
I would definitely skip the AKM for DOT. I might visit to take pictures if I were in the area, but I definitely wouldn't drop a dime or venture there intentionally.
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