Public Art in Vancouver

Depending on where you live, you’ve probably noticed large sculptures and other forms of public art popping up around your neighbourhood.

I was at Spanish Banks as part of a tour by the Musqueam last Saturday and was delighted to discover these enormous pieces of furniture sculpted by Brazilian artist Hugo Franca from fallen trees.

Franco was a computer programmer in Sao Paulo before he went feral in 1982, moved to a remote village in the Bahia jungle and began working with salvaged wood.

The art is part of an open museum brought to the city by the Vancouver Biennale. The exhibition runs until 2016, features 20 international artists in Vancouver, New Westminster, Squamish and North Vancouver.

There is “The Meeting,” six large red figures squatting in a park off North Van’s upper Lonsdale  Avenue by Chinese artist Wang Shugang.

Ammar Mahimwalla, project coordinator, tells me that once they figure out the logistics, expect to see nine eight-foot-tall figures by Polish artist Magdalena Abakanowicz start appearing on Lonsdale between 13 and 21^st.

I’m planning to use the Biennale’s website map to plot a course and bike around all of the public art this summer.

The theme for the exhibition is Open Borders/Crossroads. “Vancouver is a city that’s very international and vibrant,” says Mahimwalla. “It’s a very  diverse city and we celebrate freedom of expression and multiculturalism, so we wanted artists to respond to that in terms of their own artistic practices or political history or identities and what this means to them.”

When the exhibition finishes in 2016 most of the public art will either sell to private collectors or return to the artist’s home country. Sometimes, a benefactor will come along—as with Lululemon’s Chip Wilson—who paid $1.5 million to keep the fabulous A-maze-ing Laughter in the West End as a permanent exhibit.

Mahimwalla says the most controversial sculpture was the upside down church created by American artist Dennis Oppenheim in 2005. It was rejected by the Parks Board, went off to the Glenbow Museum in Calgary for five years, and now sits in storage. I reckon it’s time to bring it back.

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