One of the legacies of the Games will be the public art that has animated our public spaces – and our skies. In the case of Vectorial Elevation (below), we’ll at least have memories and images. (Already I’ve heard suggestions that we try to raise the funds to keep the spotlights intact, to be used, like the Olympic cauldron, on special occasions.)
But not all of the works deserve a space on the podium. Here are two works, fortunately temporary, that I think deserve recognition for being not just provocative – that’s art’s role if not responsibility – but for being off-key and, worse, badly placed. Two of them were on the Vancouver Art Gallery.
A Modest Veil, on the Georgia Street side, covering the north face of the gallery, is Michael Lin’s gigantic floral, meant to reflect “domestic comfort and warmth.”
I assumed, when I first saw it, that it was actually the wrapping that would be dropped at an auspicious moment to reveal a far more interesting work behind. The Art Gallery plaza needs all the help it can get, and it doesn’t get any from this.
Worse, though, is Cue – “an outdoor screen illuminated for more than 20 hours at a time, with 89 different video works from 79 artists, adding up to 667 minutes.”
Can’t say that I’ve spent five of those 667 minutes watching anything on the screen that justified much more of my time. But what really annoys me is that the screen and hoarding appropriate one of the great public spaces of this city – the gallery steps, the best people-watching place in Vancouver and usually the stone bleachers for the spontaneous performances in front.
Now that this part of Robson was closed, there was enough room to accommodate both passers-by and audiences , or would have been if the screen had been placed somewhere more appropriate – like on the north-side of the gallery!
The winner, if that’s the right word, of the lead medal is regrettably a permanent installation at the entrance to Stanley Park. Rodney Graham’s Aerodynamic Forms in Space is “a nod to the location’s nearby seaplanes as well as the toy model planes seen with children and adults on the park’s grounds.”
I find it trivial and awkward – but that’s my opinion; your take may be different. But again, this is a work that’s badly placed, a lost opportunity for a singular site. And unfortunately permanent.
Not to end on a negative note, this is just one of eight city-c0mmissioned projects,
not all yet installed but one of which has already achieved iconic status. I saw Ken Lum’s Van East Monument last night when whizzing by on SkyTrain – and knew right away that it was aptly titled. It’s a landmark with a great backstory.
Here’s a Courier story on this and other works in this series.
Another ugly art piece is the installtion on the north plaza of Libarary Square. There is a wooden deck with haphazard chairs, tables and benches embeddied into it (i.e. so as to be unuseable) and a screen playing content worse than the one at the Art Gallery steps.
Hopefully that one isn’t permanent (the workmanship on the construction is higher quality than you see for other installations, such as the “words… Picture” sign on the south plaza).
As for the veil on the north side of the Art gallery – it looks like a vinyl table cloth. I can’t help but think that the “domestic comfort and warth” and the pink colour were intended to act as a calming influence on the massive protests that were expected to form on the north [lawn] of the Art Gallery. (Note that pink is supposed to be a calming colour (I think it’s used in some prisons for that purpose)).
BTW – love the East Van sign – highly visible from the SkyTrain (although it does have a front and a back). It would have been nie if there were LEDs (at least for the cross) on the back side.
You may have indirectly hit on the nub of the problem, in your statement that it’s the role and responsibility of art to be provocative. In much contemporary public art this seems to be the primary imperative – take an ironical or aggressive poke at any and all taken for granted positive values and call it art. The fun of the joke is usually short lived leaving behind an empty sense of lost possibility, and an unsatisfied yearning for beauty, contemplative wonder, or simply the sensuous pleasure in objects well-made. Is it completely regressive to hope for more?
Just the other day I was walking down Georgia from the Canada Line station to an office near Burrard. Someone, a local who doesn’t get downtown much, was walking behind me, and when the Art Gallery appeared she started laughing to her friend: “They wallpapered the art gallery? Why would they wallpaper it? It looks like my grandmothers bathroom”.
A lot can be done to the square, but I actually find the “Old Courthouse” building, designed by none other than legendary Francis Rattenbury, to be a very amazing piece of architecture.
In fact, I find it quite insulting that someone hid a building from the turn of the century (one of our oldest) built by a local legend behind some tacky wallpaper. This is the Olympics, we should be promoting our BC heritage, not selling wall coverings like this is Home Depot.
“In fact, I find it quite insulting that someone hid a building from the turn of the century (one of our oldest) built by a local legend behind some tacky wallpaper. This is the Olympics, we should be promoting our BC heritage, not selling wall coverings like this is Home Depot.”
And to think that a member of the Rattenbury family actually works for BC Buildings Corporation and condones this.
The building is not a family heirloom. And what does a Taiwan artist and a flowery veil have to do with Canada, Vancouver or the Olympics? If it was a local artist who did this, if it was First Nations art, it would be fine. But why are we hiding a BC building that’s the centerpiece of the city with foreign art during our Olympics. We’ve spent all this money and we are supposed to be showcasing Vancouver to the world. How does some temporary flower wallpaper do any of that?
I know art is in the eye of the beholder, but I haven’t heard anyone go “wow”. I’ve heard plenty of people laugh.
It’s like the wrap they had on the fence at the Convention center. That plaza between Canada Place and Convention Center West is one of the most unique vantage points in the city to enjoy the view, and they put up a fence curtain for no point. At least someone had the common sense to rip a small section down after the first few days so you could see the north shore mountains and the rings.
Re: Monument to East Vancouver: I am curious to know the origin of the photo you’ve posted — it looks like a rendering of the sign in a different location (Commercial Skytrain Station perhaps?).