Last night at the ROM Chairmen's Reception, Jack Cockwell told us that over $206 million has been raised so far, with about another $40 million to go. He said that, of the various projects going up around town, about $300 million in funding has come from government and about $900 million privately raised. The Ontario culture minister, and Olivia Chow, said nice things too. And William Thorsell said many, many things. Patricia Harris, who gets a Textile Gallery named after her, said that the last time the ROM had a textile gallery was before the renovations in the early 1980's. In fact, she said, there used to be four textile galleries at one time.
My mole indicated that the new building will take even longer to complete than we'd thought. The TSO concert in the Crystal will be in March 2007, and the ribbon-cutting is now going to be " a year from now". But I didn't get the impression that there will be much on display yet in the Crystal galleries when the ribbon is cut.
We chatted to the new Chinese ( cultural attache? ) representative. He said that the head of the Beijing Museum will be visiting the ROM next week. Also, he said that there will be exchange exhibitions between China and Canada to celebrate the 2008 Olympics.
Daniel & Daniel did the catering. Babel and his date ate like pigs!
Across the street, the Gardiner Museum was also having a fancy do.
