Woodwards 3: Stan Douglas’s “Abbott and Cordova”

Is this “the most extraordinary piece of public art in Canada”?

Extraordinary, no doubt – in size, in subject, in its effect on space.  Stan Douglas’s photo reinactment of the Gastown riot of 1971 dominates the public spaces of the Woodward’s complex, inside and out.

So skilfully done is this work that an uninformed viewer needs to know that what seems to be a random moment captured at the northeast corner of Woodward’s during the melee was entirely re-created on a parking lot at the PNE in 2008 by the artist, shot in segments and then merged into one dramatic image.   (More here in a backgrounder by the Straight.)

Douglas wanted to capture a moment that represented a ‘rupture’ – in this case, the transition of the Downtown East Side.   “Skid road,” as it was known, was home to loggers, fishers, longshoremen who lived in the single-room occupancy hotels prior to the arrival of the hippies and drug-dealers in the 70s.   When the the City under Mayor Tom Campbell cracked down, sending in the police to break up a ‘smoke-in’ at Maple Tree Square, the riot ensued.

“The police were reprimanded for getting out of control,” Douglas says.  But perhaps a more significant outcome of the riot was that the city subsequently zoned Gastown as a strictly commercial district, banning residential use there. “If this neighbourhood had been allowed to have a mixed-use designation, with people living there, I believe it would have a very different character,” he says. Instead, it has been in decline for more than three decades.

So now, with the mounting of Abbott and Cordova as the centrepiece of a revitalized Woodward’s – another rupture, another transition. 

I’m not so sure that Douglas’s chronology or rationale is correct – that the City rezoned Gastown to prevent residential use.  All it needed to do was enforce fire and seismic standards to prevent any economically viable transition of the upper floors.  Indeed, even commercial spaces were left unchanged – often as T-shirt and gewgaw shops – to avoid upgrading. 

Nor would the few hundred units developed in Gastown have made much of a difference to the Downtown East Side along the Hastings corridor even if they had proceeded.  (And many advocates for the poor would have argued against such grentrification in any event.)   The closing of Woodward’s itself had a far more traumatic impact – something that would not likely have been deferred by mixed-use zoning in 1971 unless it completely transformed the neighbourhood with thousands of units.

Ironically, Douglas referred to a similar proposal for the rebuilding of Strathcona with public-housing projects, fortunately prevented by the residents who lived there.  Putting the poor in towers would not have been good public policy, he suggested – though failing to note that Woodward’s now does exactly that.

As amazing as the content of the work is that it was chosen by the architect, Greg Henriquez, and the developer, Ian Gillespie, for this space.  I haven’t heard a word of protest by the police or politicians on its appropriateness – which says volumes about the culture of this city.  (Imagine the consequences if it had gone up in an American city, with the possible exception of San Francisco.)  Douglas, at the opening, said he expected that at any moment the project would be called off.

Gillespie, a sophisticated art collector, felt the work added authenticity – and believes it to be the most important piece of public art in the country.

UPDATE: Mike Howell of the Courier did inquire as to what the City’s leaders thought of Douglas’s work:

So what’s Police Chief Jim Chu think about the installation?

“It’s a piece of art, and I don’t consider it anything else than a piece of art,” he said. “Art is in the eye of the beholder and I’m not an art critic.”

But displaying a huge photograph of police beating people with batons isn’t exactly good PR for the VPD?

“Well I think a lot of people can look at what is happening today—the reality versus what may have happened 40 years ago—and hopefully they’re not attributing things from the ’60s that are the practice or the beliefs of the VPD today.”

Added Chu: “That’s the past. There’s things in the history of the VPD that certainly wouldn’t be something we’d cherish and move forward with today.”

Mayor Gregor Robertson, who is chairperson of the Vancouver Police Board, acknowledged the controversy tied to Douglas’ piece, called Abbot & Cordova.

“It was a moment in time and I know some people are upset about it but it tells a story about a piece of Vancouver history,” the mayor said. “But I think we’ve come a long way since then. You wouldn’t see that in this day and age. So it’s an interesting contrast to what’s happening in these times where there’s a ton of community support work done by the police.”