Operating outside of its historic Bell Mansion home for nearly seven months now due to structural safety issues with the building, the Art Gallery of Sudbury (AGS) has been finding ways to adapt to this latest twist in what’s become a series of unfortunate events for the gallery.
“I struggle to think of another situation like this affecting public art galleries in Canada,” said Demetra Christakos, the art gallery’s director and curator, referring to the venue’s now extended closure.
“It's been a matter of daily recalibration, and figuring out alternatives to making our work available and to providing public access to the work of the Art Gallery of Sudbury.”
Hard times for Sudbury art gallery
Life has actually “been quite challenging” for the Art Gallery of Sudbury since February 2021, when Laurentian University, which owns the gallery building, declared insolvency, Christakos said.
A legal agreement that came out of Laurentian’s 2021-2022 insolvency means the gallery is now only entitled to inhabit the Bell Mansion until May 30, 2025, although before the structural issues of last fall cropped up, they had been floating the idea of possibly extending that occupancy date.
The Art Gallery of Sudbury is also currently exploring its relocation to the yet-to-be-realized Cultural Hub, which is to be located in City of Greater Sudbury-owned property at Tom Davies Square and 199 Larch St., with the latest projected opening date at the end of 2026.
The gallery has also had some issues with vandalism, with its HVAC system targeted in the summer of 2023.
Then, last October, came the news that the more than 100-year-old Bell Mansion was no longer safe in its current state of repair.
The issue with the Bell Mansion is with the south-facing wall and chimney, and doesn’t impact the gallery’s collection. The gallery’s art collection is safe, split between storage spaces in the Bell Mansion and at Laurentian University.
Exhibiting in the meantime
Following the Bell Mansion’s closure last fall, the gallery has since rented space at 172 and 174 Elgin St., on the same strip as Sudbury Custom Paint and Framing, to house its gallery shop and some exhibitions.
An exhibition called Emergence, featuring the work of Sudbury high schoolers, opens at the Elgin Street space April 4, and runs through until May 4.
The gallery also exhibits at spaces including Pinchman’s and the Laughing Buddha, and has a digital exhibition of regional artists Mary Green and Doug Donley.
Laurentian University has been providing the Art Gallery of Sudbury with space for its education programs.
However, with the recent cyber attack at the university interfering with LU being able to confirm the space’s continued availability, the art gallery had to look elsewhere for education space. It will confirm the new location in the near future.
While the art gallery has adapted its operations, the problem comes in with works that must be exhibited in certain conditions.
The Bell Mansion is the only “Category A” designated gallery facility in Sudbury, meaning the gallery has demonstrated its ability to meet proper control standards for environmental conditions for exhibiting art in that venue.
This spring, the AGS was supposed to be exhibiting a McMichael Canadian Art Collection show called “Cobalt: A Mining Town and the Canadian Imagination,” which includes works by Group of 7 member Franklin Carmichael.
But because it has to be exhibited in a Category A facility, the art gallery has put off the exhibition until this fall.
Christakos said if the gallery isn’t able to present the Cobalt exhibition this fall, they’ll be forced to pay penalty costs, “so that’s a pretty significant thing for us.” It would also mean going back on the gallery’s word, which is something she doesn’t want to do.
“We still have our fingers crossed that something's going to work out,” she said.
Status of Bell Mansion repairs
To get an update on the status of the Bell Mansion repairs, Sudbury.com reached out last month to Laurentian University, the historic building’s owner. Although we requested an interview on the topic, we were instead provided with a written statement.
"We continue collaborative conversations with the Art Gallery of Sudbury with respect to the Bell Mansion,” said the written statement, attributed to Sylvie Lafontaine, Laurentian’s vice-president, finance and administration.
“We are reviewing recommendations made in the engineering report and are evaluating next steps. At the moment, the building cannot be occupied and we are providing the Art Gallery with temporary space on campus at no cost."
(In terms of the temporary space on campus, Christakos clarifies this information is now outdated. As stated above, the art gallery plans to locate its education programs elsewhere this spring).
Sudbury.com was also able to confirm with Laurentian that an engineering report on the Bell Mansion building by the firm J.L. Richards & Associates Limited was received by Laurentian in December 2023.
Asked if we could receive a copy, Laurentian said the engineering report is “not publicly available.”
The Bell Mansion was not on the agenda at the Feb. 16 meeting of Laurentian’s board of governors, the university confirmed. In terms of the upcoming April 26 board of governors meeting, university communications staff said last month the agenda had not yet been determined.
Christakos said she was told by the university in December that a draft engineering report on the state of the Bell Mansion had been received by LU, but it needed to be finalized and presented to senior Laurentian leadership.
She was later told that the report was expected to be presented to Laurentian’s board in February. However, when February rolled around, Christakos was informed the board wouldn’t see the Bell Mansion information until April.
Christakos said she has not seen a copy of the engineering report on the state of Bell Mansion’s repair.
However, she said Laurentian staff did give her some ideas on timelines late last year. Once a decision is made to proceed with the repair work, it would need to go to tender, which would take two months.
Laurentian told Christakos last year the repair work would take five weeks. All told, these processes add up to about three-and-a-half months. “We would be lucky to be back in September,” she said.
She said the gallery would like to be back in the Bell Mansion building for a number of reasons, including missing out on potential donations of artwork and ensuring care of the historic building, which requires constant vigilance to prevent deterioration.
If the Art Gallery of Sudbury had to move its art collections from the Bell Mansion, that could cost the gallery up to $200,000 to have it stored in an appropriate facility.
‘The Frank’ and the future of Art Gallery of Sudbury
There is a bright spot ahead for the Art Gallery of Sudbury, and that is its possible future relocation to the city’s proposed Cultural Hub, which would also house the city’s main library and the Sudbury Multicultural and Folk Arts Association.
The Cultural Hub project recently received eight bids for engineering work. “It's a pretty exciting moment,” said Christakos.
An earlier incarnation of the project, which would have seen a building constructed near Sudbury Theatre Centre, was scrapped by Greater Sudbury city council last year.
Christakos clarifies that the art gallery’s Cultural Hub participation is not necessarily a done deal at this moment. “We’re in to explore it,” she said.
The gallery has made an agreement with the City of Greater Sudbury to spend $1.5 million toward construction costs, and they’ve reached around 30 per cent of their capital fundraising goal. Christakos said the art gallery component of the project could cost around $25 million, but this is a guess based on the previous iteration of the project.
To be renamed the Franklin Carmichael Art Gallery of Sudbury (or “The Frank” for short), in honour of a donation of Carmichael works to the organization, the gallery would occupy the bottom two storeys of 199 Larch St.
While the project isn’t expected to come to fruition until at least late 2026 at the earliest, Christakos said she always knew it was going to take around three years to build a new art gallery.
“We haven't been able to move forward as quickly as we want, and we've been hijacked by the pandemic and by the CCAA (referring to Laurentian’s insolvency), and now this (Bell Mansion repair issues), but the Art Gallery of Sudbury will persist and prevail,” Christakos said.
Heidi Ulrichsen is Sudbury.com’s assistant editor. She also covers education and the arts scene.
