Corey Hart exhibition opens at NMC
By Troy Hasselman, March 27 2019 —
Milestones: Corey Hart, a new exhibition by the National Music Centre (NMC), opened on March 22 to honour Hart’s recent induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. The exhibition takes a look at the life and career of the musician known for hits such as “Sunglasses at Night” and “Never Surrender.”
The exhibition is unique in its use of interactive decoder technology where visitors wear glasses like the ones used in the “Sunglasses at Night” video and can see hidden messages placed in the event by Hart himself.
“We have quite a unique team and we had some meetings with CARAS, the people that host the Junos and do the inductions. There were some discussions about, ‘How do we incorporate the glasses?’ ” says Jesse Moffatt, NMC director of collections and exhibitions. “I brought the idea back to our team and it was actually our collections manager and head of conservation that said, “What do you think of using decoder technology?’ We did a little more research on that and lo-and-behold, we were able to take that technology and give it to our designer and the designer said, ‘I think we can toss up this experience a bit and start flipping the images when you look through the glasses.’ It started with an idea and the team ran with it, so we had a lot of fun with this exhibition.”
The exhibition was put together quickly by the NMC, working closely with Hart, his wife Julie Masse and his first wife, Erika Gagnon.
“We knew in December who the artist was gonna be, so it’s been very fast for us,” says Moffatt. “We really enjoyed the experience because we worked directly with Corey and his wife Julie and they were so accommodating. A lot of the images are actually from Erika Gagnon, who is Corey’s first wife. She came forward and was very pleasant to work with. Everything came directly from the family and we probably worked closer with Julie because Corey is getting ready to go on tour.”
The exhibition uses artifacts, memorabilia, awards and even personal items like handwritten letters and high school report cards to tell Hart’s story from his childhood in Quebec to his international stardom to his close relationship with his fans. Some of the notable pieces include notes written between Hart and fans and his iconic wayfarer sunglasses from the “Sunglasses at Night” video.
“We had [the sunglasses] when we opened Studio Bell in 2016,” says Moffatt. “I have a deep respect for how, if you read some of the notes from fans to Corey, they talk about calling him at the studio when they were teenagers and he was recording and he would actually answer the phone. How many artists do you think have that connection? Those fans have stayed with him and that’s why he’s going on tour again.”
Getting the rights to use the music video from Hart’s 1985 hit “Never Surrender” in the exhibition proved to be a challenge for the NMC, with Hart personally stepping in to allow the video to be used.
“The holder of the video wanted quite a bit of money for us to use it and Corey felt it was really important to use it for the exhibition,” Moffatt says. “It was pretty amazing, we just got this email from him saying he got the rights and we emailed back to him and he sent back this image captioned ‘Never Surrender’. That’s the type of person that he is.”
The exhibition and his upcoming tour of Canada speak to the enduring appeal of Hart and his music, which Moffatt thinks is owed to a few different factors.
“He stayed true to who he is. That’s represented in the exhibition,” he says. “We have some correspondence between him and his mother in the exhibition that is quite touching. He’s an amazing songwriter, he’s writing still for Celine Dion and others and he’s very down to earth. He’s an artist that stepped away from the limelight to raise his family of four kids and he’s only coming back now because his kids are at the age now where they’re pushing him like, ‘Dad, get out there and do this again.’ He’s a family person and a huge inspiration to a lot of us.”
The exhibition comes as Hart is gearing up for his first tour in 21 years with stops in major cities across Canada. Hart is also finishing recording Dreaming Time Again, his first album since 1998’s Jade. The album is produced by fellow Canadian music hall-of-famer Bob Ezrin and is set for release on May 3.
Milestones: Corey Hart runs at Studio Bell until October 2019. Information on the exhibition and entrance into the NMC can be found on their website.
Hart will play at the Scotiabank Saddledome on June 20. Tickets for the concert are available through Ticketmaster.