Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver)
Encyclopedia
The Contemporary Art Gallery (CAG) is the only independent, non-profit public art gallery in downtown Vancouver
. The CAG exhibits local, national, and international artists, primarily featuring emerging local artists producing Canadian contemporary art
. It has exhibited work by many of Vancouver's most acclaimed artists, including Stan Douglas
, Ian Wallace
, Rodney Graham
, Liz Magor, and Brian Jungen
, and it continues to feature local artists such as Damian Moppett, Shannon Oksanen, Elspeth Pratt, Myfanwy MacLeod, and many others. International artists who have had exhibitions at the CAG include Dan Graham
, Christopher Williams
, Rachel Harrison
, Hans-Peter Feldmann and Ceal Floyer. Other notable people that have curated or written for the CAG include Douglas Coupland
, Beatriz Colomina
, Roy Arden
, and John Welchman. Apart from the exhibition of visual art, the Contemporary Art Gallery produces publications, facilitates education and outreach programs, public talks, and visiting artist/curator programs, and maintains a library.
, in which Vancouver artists were hired for a six month period to produce art for exhibition at the gallery, and for inclusion in the City of Vancouver Art Collection. In 1976, the CAG was incorporated as a registered federal charity and a non-profit society under the Societies Act of British Columbia. In 1984, the Contemporary Art Gallery became an artist-run centre. It was widely recognized for providing initial solo exhibitions and catalogues for many of Vancouver's now well-known artists. By the early 1990s the exhibition program had expanded to include artists of national and international origin. In 1996, the Contemporary Art Gallery was transformed from an artist-run centre into an independent public art gallery, fulfilling the need for a contemporary visual arts institution with programming positioned between the vibrant experimentalism of Vancouver's artist-run centres and the more popular programs of large general-interest institutions. In May 2001, the Contemporary Art Gallery moved to a new purpose-built facility.
, in Vancouver
, British Columbia
, Canada
. In 2001, architects Martin Lewis and Noel Best designed the facility the CAG now occupies. The exhibition facility consists of two galleries and a series of window vitrines on the façade that provide an additional opportunity for exhibition. The B.C. Binning Gallery is 1040 square feet (96.6 m²) and the Alvin Balkind Gallery is 676 square feet (62.8 m²). A reception area adjoins the reading room, in which visitors can access information on current and past exhibitions. The Abraham Rogatnick Library
, which participates in an international catalogue exchange with other galleries and museums, is located on the second floor and is open to the public by appointment. The gallery space has "earned a Lieutenant-Governor's medal and an AIBC Award."
– Staging an antagonistic exchange between a woman and man in a cyclical, ever mutating loop, Stan Douglas' video work examined the 1970s as an historical moment of flux between internationalism
and globalism
. The DVD was accompanied by a suite of photographs of Vancouver set locations, including Douglas' 16 feet (4.9 m) depiction of the 100 Block of West Hastings Street.
Steven Shearer – November 19, 2004 to January 2, 2005 – Steven Shearer
– Working in a variety of forms, including painting and collage, Vancouver-based artist Steven Shearer often investigates the aesthetics of the 1970s as a site for looking at the energy and revolutionary potential of teens and youth. This solo exhibition assembled a wide spectrum of Shearer’s recent work with the aim of profiling its many convergent strains. The centerpiece for the show was a recent sculptural installation
: a steel garden shed inside of which a guitar P/A system played a heavy metal
guitar solo, amplified and distorted by the metal of the shed, creating a shrine to angry, cloistered youth.
For Example: Dix-Huit Leçons sur la Société Industrielle (first draft) – January 14 to March 6, 2005 – Christopher Williams
– The first North American exhibition of a new body of work by Los Angeles artist Christopher Williams, 'For Example' consisted of fourteen photographs – dye transfer and platinum prints – in an installation designed by the artist. Since the early 1980s, Williams has intentionally adopted production values associated with fine art
or straight photography
into a practice that explores sculptural ideas using photographs and installation. This exhibition would later be featured on the cover of Artforum
.
Where I Lived, and What I Lived For – January 20 to March 19, 2006 – Myfanwy MacLeod – With a wry sense of humour and layered referencing of consumer and popular culture, MacLeod used drawing and sculpture to express the self-absorbed and entertainment-saturated culture in which we live. As part of this new work MacLeod exhibited her first large-scale series of photographs, along with drawings of marijuana grow-ops and an organic sculptural installation, all while referencing such diverse sources as Thoreau's Walden
, Scottish folklore, drug culture and vernacular representations of the otherworldly.
Concrete Language – September 8 to November 5, 2006 – Fiona Banner
, Martin Creed
, Ian Wallace
, Lawrence Weiner
, Cerith Wyn Evans
and ten others – Bringing together works by 15 local and international artists, 'Concrete Language' explored the visual and spatial relations in language. Creating a contemplative moment that was outside the way we commonly use or view language, each artist built relations between text and visual material that moved beyond the typical discursive
or diagrammatic functions of language.
Please Please Please – January 30 to March 29, 2009 – Jeppe Hein
– For Jeppe Hein's first exhibition in Canada, he presented three works that physically addressed the viewer's relation to the art object. His two works for the gallery space challenge the convention of the sculpture as a static object, while outside the gallery, 'Please Do Not Touch the Artwork', a familiar museum rule, was rendered in glowing red neon
. Each work offered an opportunity for viewers to experience art outside of the traditional passive role of the art viewer.
. Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC, 2009. (ISBN 978-1-897302-33-0)
FASTWÜRMS by Jenifer Papararo
, Jenifer Fischer and Jim Drobnick. Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC, 2008. (ISBN 978-1-897302-20-0)
Birgit by Hans-Peter Feldmann and Roy Arden. Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC, 2006. (ISBN 0-920751-95-4)
Christopher Williams: Archäologie Beaux Arts Ethnography Théâtre-Vérité by Claudia Beck and John Miller. Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC, 2005. (ISBN 0-920751-96-2)
Ron Terada by Reid Shier, Kelly Wood, Jens Hoffman, and Michael Darling. Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC, 2003. (ISBN 0-920751-91-1)
ArtReach – A web-based education and outreach program, ArtReach is designed to assist teachers in classrooms across the province and country. Through the CAG's website, teachers have access to a variety of online learning tools: lesson plans, artist biographies, glossaries, exhibition guides, and multimedia resources including video interviews with artists. The CAG collaborates with BC Art Teachers' Association representatives to develop lesson plans that link the exhibitions with diverse subjects, engaging students of all ages with the experience of contemporary art.
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
. The CAG exhibits local, national, and international artists, primarily featuring emerging local artists producing Canadian contemporary art
Canadian Contemporary Art
Canadian Contemporary Art can refer simply to any visual art made in Canada currently or by living Canadian artists. However, it is a term that more accurately refers to Canadian visual, media, performance, video, and other artistic and/or conceptual practices that are critically and...
. It has exhibited work by many of Vancouver's most acclaimed artists, including Stan Douglas
Stan Douglas
Stan Douglas is an artist based in Vancouver, British Columbia. He has exhibited internationally, including Documenta IX, 1992, Documenta X, 1997, Documenta XI, 2002 and the Venice Biennale in 1990, 2001 and 2005...
, Ian Wallace
Ian Wallace (artist)
Ian Wallace in Shoreham, England, is a Canadian artist based in Vancouver. He won the 2004 Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts...
, Rodney Graham
Rodney Graham
Rodney Graham is an artist and musician born in Abbotsford, British Columbia. He is most often associated with the Vancouver School...
, Liz Magor, and Brian Jungen
Brian Jungen
Brian Jungen is a Canadian artist from British Columbia with Swiss and Dunne-za First Nations ancestry...
, and it continues to feature local artists such as Damian Moppett, Shannon Oksanen, Elspeth Pratt, Myfanwy MacLeod, and many others. International artists who have had exhibitions at the CAG include Dan Graham
Dan Graham
Dan Graham , is a conceptual artist now working out of New York City. He is an influential figure in the field of contemporary art, both a practitioner of conceptual art and an art critic and theorist. His art career began in 1964 when he moved to New York and opened the John Daniels Gallery....
, Christopher Williams
Christopher Williams (artist)
Christopher Williams is an American conceptual artist and fine art photographer. He is represented by David Zwirner, New York.-Academic career:Williams graduated from Grinnell College...
, Rachel Harrison
Rachel Harrison
Rachel Harrison is a sculptor based in New York.Harrison's work has been seen in many exhibitions including:‘Posh Floored as Ali G Tackles Beck’ at Arndt & Partner in Berlin,...
, Hans-Peter Feldmann and Ceal Floyer. Other notable people that have curated or written for the CAG include Douglas Coupland
Douglas Coupland
Douglas Coupland is a Canadian novelist. His fiction is complemented by recognized works in design and visual art arising from his early formal training. His first novel, the 1991 international bestseller Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, popularized terms such as McJob and...
, Beatriz Colomina
Beatriz Colomina
Beatriz Colomina is an architecture historian. She came to Columbia University from Spain in 1982. She then moved on to Princeton University's School of Architecture in 1988, later to become its director of graduate studies...
, Roy Arden
Roy Arden
Roy Arden is a Vancouver artist.Arden has had solo exhibitions at the Ikon Gallery, Galerie Tanit and Vancouver Art Gallery. Other exhibitions at the Kunstmuseum Basel, and the Museum of Modern Art, Antwerp . His work is included in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art - was featured in...
, and John Welchman. Apart from the exhibition of visual art, the Contemporary Art Gallery produces publications, facilitates education and outreach programs, public talks, and visiting artist/curator programs, and maintains a library.
History
Established in 1971, the Contemporary Art Gallery (originally called the Greater Vancouver Artist's Gallery) began as an outgrowth of the Social Planning Department of the City of VancouverVancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
, in which Vancouver artists were hired for a six month period to produce art for exhibition at the gallery, and for inclusion in the City of Vancouver Art Collection. In 1976, the CAG was incorporated as a registered federal charity and a non-profit society under the Societies Act of British Columbia. In 1984, the Contemporary Art Gallery became an artist-run centre. It was widely recognized for providing initial solo exhibitions and catalogues for many of Vancouver's now well-known artists. By the early 1990s the exhibition program had expanded to include artists of national and international origin. In 1996, the Contemporary Art Gallery was transformed from an artist-run centre into an independent public art gallery, fulfilling the need for a contemporary visual arts institution with programming positioned between the vibrant experimentalism of Vancouver's artist-run centres and the more popular programs of large general-interest institutions. In May 2001, the Contemporary Art Gallery moved to a new purpose-built facility.
Gallery
The Contemporary Art Gallery is located in the ground floor and mezzanine of a residential condominium building at 555 Nelson Street, at the corner of Nelson and Richards, just on the edge of YaletownYaletown
Yaletown is an area of Downtown Vancouver approximately bordered by False Creek, Robson, and Homer Streets. Formerly a heavy industrial area dominated by warehouses and rail yards, since the Expo 86, it has been transformed into one of the most densely populated neighbourhoods in the city...
, in Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
, British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. In 2001, architects Martin Lewis and Noel Best designed the facility the CAG now occupies. The exhibition facility consists of two galleries and a series of window vitrines on the façade that provide an additional opportunity for exhibition. The B.C. Binning Gallery is 1040 square feet (96.6 m²) and the Alvin Balkind Gallery is 676 square feet (62.8 m²). A reception area adjoins the reading room, in which visitors can access information on current and past exhibitions. The Abraham Rogatnick Library
Library
In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...
, which participates in an international catalogue exchange with other galleries and museums, is located on the second floor and is open to the public by appointment. The gallery space has "earned a Lieutenant-Governor's medal and an AIBC Award."
Exhibition highlights
Journey into Fear – September 12 to November 3, 2002 – Stan DouglasStan Douglas
Stan Douglas is an artist based in Vancouver, British Columbia. He has exhibited internationally, including Documenta IX, 1992, Documenta X, 1997, Documenta XI, 2002 and the Venice Biennale in 1990, 2001 and 2005...
– Staging an antagonistic exchange between a woman and man in a cyclical, ever mutating loop, Stan Douglas' video work examined the 1970s as an historical moment of flux between internationalism
Internationalism (politics)
Internationalism is a political movement which advocates a greater economic and political cooperation among nations for the theoretical benefit of all...
and globalism
Globalism
Globalism can have at least two different and opposing meanings. One meaning is the attitude or policy of placing the interests of the entire world above those of individual nations...
. The DVD was accompanied by a suite of photographs of Vancouver set locations, including Douglas' 16 feet (4.9 m) depiction of the 100 Block of West Hastings Street.
Steven Shearer – November 19, 2004 to January 2, 2005 – Steven Shearer
Steven Shearer
Steven Shearer is a contemporary artist based in Vancouver, British Columbia. He has exhibited internationally, including the Tate Modern in London, The New Museum, the Barbara Gladstone Gallery in New York, the Galerie Eva Presenhuber in Zurich, and the Renaissance Society in Chicago...
– Working in a variety of forms, including painting and collage, Vancouver-based artist Steven Shearer often investigates the aesthetics of the 1970s as a site for looking at the energy and revolutionary potential of teens and youth. This solo exhibition assembled a wide spectrum of Shearer’s recent work with the aim of profiling its many convergent strains. The centerpiece for the show was a recent sculptural installation
Installation art
Installation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...
: a steel garden shed inside of which a guitar P/A system played a heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
guitar solo, amplified and distorted by the metal of the shed, creating a shrine to angry, cloistered youth.
For Example: Dix-Huit Leçons sur la Société Industrielle (first draft) – January 14 to March 6, 2005 – Christopher Williams
Christopher Williams (artist)
Christopher Williams is an American conceptual artist and fine art photographer. He is represented by David Zwirner, New York.-Academic career:Williams graduated from Grinnell College...
– The first North American exhibition of a new body of work by Los Angeles artist Christopher Williams, 'For Example' consisted of fourteen photographs – dye transfer and platinum prints – in an installation designed by the artist. Since the early 1980s, Williams has intentionally adopted production values associated with fine art
Fine art
Fine art or the fine arts encompass art forms developed primarily for aesthetics and/or concept rather than practical application. Art is often a synonym for fine art, as employed in the term "art gallery"....
or straight photography
Straight photography
Pure photography or straight photography refers to photography that attempts to depict a scene as realistically and objectively as permitted by the medium, renouncing the use of manipulation....
into a practice that explores sculptural ideas using photographs and installation. This exhibition would later be featured on the cover of Artforum
Artforum
Artforum is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art.-Publication:The magazine is published ten times a year, September through May, along with an annual summer issue...
.
Where I Lived, and What I Lived For – January 20 to March 19, 2006 – Myfanwy MacLeod – With a wry sense of humour and layered referencing of consumer and popular culture, MacLeod used drawing and sculpture to express the self-absorbed and entertainment-saturated culture in which we live. As part of this new work MacLeod exhibited her first large-scale series of photographs, along with drawings of marijuana grow-ops and an organic sculptural installation, all while referencing such diverse sources as Thoreau's Walden
Walden
Walden is an American book written by noted Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau...
, Scottish folklore, drug culture and vernacular representations of the otherworldly.
Concrete Language – September 8 to November 5, 2006 – Fiona Banner
Fiona Banner
Fiona Banner is an English artist, who was short-listed for the Turner Prize in 2002. In 2010, she produced new work for a Duveen Hall commission at Tate Britain. She is one of the Young British Artists.-Life and work:...
, Martin Creed
Martin Creed
Martin Creed is an artist and musician. He won the Turner Prize in 2001 for Work No. 227: the lights going on and off, which was an empty room in which the lights went on and off.-Life and work :...
, Ian Wallace
Ian Wallace (artist)
Ian Wallace in Shoreham, England, is a Canadian artist based in Vancouver. He won the 2004 Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts...
, Lawrence Weiner
Lawrence Weiner
Lawrence Weiner was a central figure in the formation of conceptual art in the 1960s His work often takes the form of typographic texts.- Life and career :...
, Cerith Wyn Evans
Cerith Wyn Evans
Cerith Wyn Evans is a Welsh conceptual artist, sculptor and film-maker.After studying at Saint Martin's School of Art and the Royal College of Art Wyn Evans worked as an assistant to Derek Jarman and his early experimental film work in the 1980s often concentrated on dancers including...
and ten others – Bringing together works by 15 local and international artists, 'Concrete Language' explored the visual and spatial relations in language. Creating a contemplative moment that was outside the way we commonly use or view language, each artist built relations between text and visual material that moved beyond the typical discursive
Discourse
Discourse generally refers to "written or spoken communication". The following are three more specific definitions:...
or diagrammatic functions of language.
Please Please Please – January 30 to March 29, 2009 – Jeppe Hein
Jeppe Hein
Jeppe Hein is an artist based in Berlin and Copenhagen. Hein is widely known for his production of experiential and interactive artworks that can be positioned at the junction where art, architecture, and technical inventions intersect...
– For Jeppe Hein's first exhibition in Canada, he presented three works that physically addressed the viewer's relation to the art object. His two works for the gallery space challenge the convention of the sculpture as a static object, while outside the gallery, 'Please Do Not Touch the Artwork', a familiar museum rule, was rendered in glowing red neon
Neon
Neon is the chemical element that has the symbol Ne and an atomic number of 10. Although a very common element in the universe, it is rare on Earth. A colorless, inert noble gas under standard conditions, neon gives a distinct reddish-orange glow when used in either low-voltage neon glow lamps or...
. Each work offered an opportunity for viewers to experience art outside of the traditional passive role of the art viewer.
Publication highlights
Landscape by Jenifer PapararoJenifer Papararo
Jenifer Papararo is a curator and writer of contemporary art and founding member of curatorial/design/service collective Instant Coffee. She currently holds the position of curator at the Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver, Canada, and was previously the director of Mercer Union, Toronto...
. Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC, 2009. (ISBN 978-1-897302-33-0)
FASTWÜRMS by Jenifer Papararo
Jenifer Papararo
Jenifer Papararo is a curator and writer of contemporary art and founding member of curatorial/design/service collective Instant Coffee. She currently holds the position of curator at the Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver, Canada, and was previously the director of Mercer Union, Toronto...
, Jenifer Fischer and Jim Drobnick. Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC, 2008. (ISBN 978-1-897302-20-0)
Birgit by Hans-Peter Feldmann and Roy Arden. Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC, 2006. (ISBN 0-920751-95-4)
Christopher Williams: Archäologie Beaux Arts Ethnography Théâtre-Vérité by Claudia Beck and John Miller. Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC, 2005. (ISBN 0-920751-96-2)
Ron Terada by Reid Shier, Kelly Wood, Jens Hoffman, and Michael Darling. Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC, 2003. (ISBN 0-920751-91-1)
Programs
ARTS101 – A partnership between the CAG and Watarai Youth, Family and Community Services, ARTS101 is an independent one-to-one mentorship program that pairs established professional artists with youth between the ages of 16 to 24 years. Weekly workshop sessions culminate in a public display of the works produced. The aim of the program is "to develop their identity as an artist, expand their skills in their chosen medium, increase exposure to other ways of artistic expression, gain an understanding of the arts community, and explore the realities of choosing the arts as a career."ArtReach – A web-based education and outreach program, ArtReach is designed to assist teachers in classrooms across the province and country. Through the CAG's website, teachers have access to a variety of online learning tools: lesson plans, artist biographies, glossaries, exhibition guides, and multimedia resources including video interviews with artists. The CAG collaborates with BC Art Teachers' Association representatives to develop lesson plans that link the exhibitions with diverse subjects, engaging students of all ages with the experience of contemporary art.
Controversy
In 2006, Vancouver artist Christian Kliegel's exhibit, "Production Postings," featured hundreds of signs that film and television production units had used to direct their casts and crews to filming locales; "the general design and style of these brightly coloured signs are formulaic and a ubiquitous part of Vancouver's urban landscape," reads the exhibit description. Film production companies claimed these signs as stolen property, the Vancouver police were contacted, and gallery officials were forced to take down some of the signs and replace them with photocopies. "If anything," Kliegel claimed, "the movie companies themselves practice location theft by setting a film in Vancouver and making it look like another city." Christina Ritchie, the gallery’s Director, posted a letter addressed to Off-Set Rentals on the gallery's front door, telling the company's officials that she found it "sad and disappointing" that they could not appreciate Kliegel's "unique and insightful image of Vancouver."See also
- Canadian contemporary artCanadian Contemporary ArtCanadian Contemporary Art can refer simply to any visual art made in Canada currently or by living Canadian artists. However, it is a term that more accurately refers to Canadian visual, media, performance, video, and other artistic and/or conceptual practices that are critically and...
- Contemporary art galleryContemporary art galleryA contemporary art gallery is a place where contemporary art is shown for exhibition and/or for sale. The term "art gallery" is commonly used to mean art museum , the rooms displaying art in any museum, or in the original sense, of any large or long room.-Identity, function and locality:A...
- Vancouver SchoolVancouver SchoolThe Vancouver School of conceptual or post-conceptual photography is a loose term applied to a grouping of artists from Vancouver starting in the 1980s...
- Vancouver Art GalleryVancouver Art GalleryThe Vancouver Art Gallery is the fifth-largest art gallery in Canada and the largest in Western Canada. It is located at 750 Hornby Street in Vancouver, British Columbia...
- Morris and Helen Belkin Art GalleryMorris and Helen Belkin Art GalleryThe Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery is a contemporary art gallery located in Vancouver, British Columbia, on the campus of the University of British Columbia....
- Or GalleryOr GalleryThe Or Gallery is a non-profit artist run centre based in Vancouver, Canada. The gallery is run by a paid Director/Curator and a voluntary Board of Directors. The Director/Curator of the Or is an appointed working artist who is hired for a limited time...
- Centre ACentre ACentre A, the Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, is a non-profit art gallery committed to the research, production, presentation and interpretation of contemporary Asian art. It is located at 2 West Hastings Street, in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside....
- Western Front SocietyWestern Front SocietyThe Western Front is an artist-run centre located in Vancouver, Canada. It was founded in 1973 by a multidisciplinary group of artists who purchased the former Knights of Pythias lodge hall in which the centre still resides....