Robson Square – Vancouver Art Gallery

The Vancouver Art Gallery was founded in 1931 and spent its first 50 years on West Georgia Street. In 1983 it moved to the former provincial courthouse, which was renovated to the design of architect Arthur Erickson, and completed his modern three city-block Robson Square complex.

The Art Gallery connects to the rest of the complex via an underground passage below Robson Street, (below used as a skating rink) to an outdoor plaza, restaurants, the University of British Columbia’s downtown satellite campus, government offices, and the new Law Courts at the southern end.

The original 165,000-square-foot  neoclassical building was designed by Francis Rattenbury after winning a design competition in 1905. (Rattenbury also designed the British Columbia Parliament Buildings and the Empress Hotel in Victoria).

We have visited a couple of times recently. On one visit there were several interesting audio/visual shows but most notably a retrospective of the work of Haida artist Charles Edenshaw. He lived in a tumultuous but fascinating time, the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries; and he formed a bridge from the strong NW native American tribes he was born into, across the decimation of those tribes by European diseases and subjugation, into the beginnings of a resurgence of his culture in a new world. He grew up under the tutelage of an uncle who was a well-known carver; so his carving skills were both inborn and highly honed.

Coincidentally we visited a gallery that shows Bill Reid’s work, including his famous The Raven and the Birth of Men from the Museum of anthropology.

And at nearly the same time we saw a show in Seattle of Robert Davidson’s current work, which was also featured in the Seattle Times.

The fun part of this series, starting in the Vancouver area, derives from the historical connections (family and training) between the three artists that have kept alive some of the First Nations’ culture and traditions into the present.

One of the things that we enjoy the most about visits to the Vancouver Art Gallery is the adventuresome initiative the curators take in showing current work. The show we saw there, Unscrolled, Reframing Tradition in Chinese Contemporary Art was no exception. Here’s an example in which an apparently traditional mountainous landscape has been projected on a screen wall.

And then a view of how the “painting” was actually created

Another example of the same process, first from the front

And then the construction from the rear.

Obviously, a wide range of interpretation can be applied to this approach.

The MadeIn Company’s work provokes a reflection about how meaning is constructed. Physique of Consciousness is a cultural fitness routine comprised from movements from dance, gymnastics and cultural rituals. Inspired by hundreds of ceremonies, worship rites and traditions accumulated throughout the history of humanity, it combines physical and spiritual virtues with research on such global practices, lending itself to the commentary on the popular appropriation of cultural customs.

After these challenges, typical tourists need to see some artwork with conventional craftsmanship and understandable objects.

Ai WeiWei’s Bang (2011) is a large installation comprised of 886 antique stools and replicas from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) that has been installed by Chinese craftsman. Three-legged stools were often handed down through generations and could be found in every Chinese home until the 1960’s when industrial manufacturing replaced wood with plastic. They are placed in a large rhizomatic structure that suggests directions in motion with no beginning or end. Any one stool in Bang can be interpreted as symbolic of an individual to the rapidly developing and complex structures of modern society. Ai is one of the most prolific international artists practicing today.

Seen from above, a person seems small in this large matrix; but seen from within, a person feels small as a part of all this confusion.

Vancouver Art Gallery – unpredictable, but always worth a visit.

Granville Island

In 1915 the Vancouver Harbor Commission approved a project for in-close industrial land by creating an island with fill under the Granville Bridge, seen below.

The area was soon filled with timber-framed, corrugated metal-clad shed structures filled with businesses supporting forestry, mining and shipping. They managed to stay healthy through the depression and WW II; but after the war demand for their output waned and the area declined. Finally, in the 1960’s and early 1970’s the city decided that the area and its pollution had to be remediated and hired a planning and architecture team led by architect Norman Hotson to turn the area into a “people place”.

Early skepticism gave way to enthusiasm when it was decided to keep the industrial character and use it as an asset instead of seeing it as a liability.

In fact, it was decided during the design process that keeping some of the industrial uses more or less intact would also enhance the liveliness and economic viability of the overall project, as does this still active cement plant.

The current plan forms a highly evolved version of the original intentions, including shops, theaters, a farmers’ market, the noted cement plant, a hotel, a marina, and several facilities focused on children, including a day care center.

The bridge still maintains its framework above the activities and anchors the island to downtown. The simpler viaduct section spans over a small waterway park between the island and the surrounding neighborhood of multi-family housing.

The longer truss spans carry the bridge over much of the island as well as over False Creek, the small body of water that separates Granville from downtown.

On one trip there we parked nearby and walked onto the island. On another visit we arrived by water. These small people ferries serve various tourist, cultural, and housing sites along False Creek and out into English Bay.

They run frequently, are fun to ride (in calm weather), and inexpensive. Inside, you feel as if you’re sitting on the rim of a bathtub, while the pilot sits on a barstool above you.

You can’t beat the convenience of being dropped at the dock on Granville Island from your condo across the way, though in all fairness, just walking across the bridge would also be pretty easy.

We checked out the farmers’ market – always a colorful place

The foods for sale cover the full range, from fresh meat to spices, and from fruits and vegetables to baked goods and sweets. We weren’t shopping this time so the pleasures were mostly visual – well, there may have been a treat or two.

 

We did stop at a restaurant, called Edible Canada, that featured all Canadian foods.

I thought that was somewhat sustainable until I thought of what size Canada really is (the motto is ‘from sea to shining sea’) and how NOT sustainable it is to ship things 3,500 miles just because they’re grown or raised in your country. But the food was good; and I’m counting on most of it having come from British Columbia.

The space design employs industrial chic; and we like that, being frequent visitors to our Seattle Pike Market which also takes the same approach.

As a periodic visitor I give Granville Island good marks. Its history and basic renovation intentions still come across well; and the mix of cars and people in the various spaces continues to be reasonably civilized. It remains to be see whether all this can survive the great tidal wave of tourism currently starting to wash ashore. It was obvious that there were some more expensive versions of the various shops and galleries than we had seen previously –

and some pretty expensive sailboats moored on one side.

But some of the fun and funky tourist attractions have survived as well

It’s definitely worth your time to pay a visit.

UBC Museum of Anthropology

Archeological records indicate the presence of Aboriginal people in the Vancouver area from 8,000 to 10,000 years ago; and some of their descendents, the Squamish, Musqueam and Tseil-Waututh (Burrard) peoples of the Coast Salish group had villages in various parts of present day Vancouver. The University of British Columbia’s Museum of Archeology (MOA) showcases many artifacts and works of art of these tribes. (Some of the information included here comes from Wikipedia.)

In 1971, the Museum received funds from the Government of Canada and UBC to begin construction of a new building. In 1976, the new building, designed by renowned Canadian architect Arthur Erickson, opened under new director Michael Ames, who served from 1974 to 1997. Walter and Marianne Koerner’s 1975 donation of their extensive collection of Northwest Coast First Nations art to the Museum formed a large part of the new building’s contents. From the entrance both the museum and its contents have been presented along a gradual ‘discovery’ path, as if you’ve happened upon them in the forest where a pool of spawning salmon start you on the way.

Much of this side of the building, including the gift shop below, has been woven into the trees.

This lets the natural environment dominate and the initial greeting play a more subtle role.

Even at the actual entrance, where the heroic character of the building becomes apparent, it’s only partially revealed, requiring you to approach and participate in order to understand what the place is about.

And even then, once inside the building, the land continues to slope down to the heart of the collection and a view back to the outdoors.

But before we do that it’s important to understand that this building has a powerful formal presence that mirrors both the setting and the character of the Northwest Coast First Nation’s People whose work has been collected here. Symmetrical, formal, hierarchical – the Museum of Anthropology emerges from the forest in a dramatic gesture.

Adjacent to the museum sits a native long house and totem pole – also symmetrical, formal and hierarchical. I can’t believe that this parallel is accidental.

The elements, modern and ancient, mix together to dramatically capture the vista.

Back within the building, in some contrast to the exterior, the architecture steps back to provide a strong but quiet framework for the collection.

And what a collection it is – a dramatic mix of historic, traditional, archeological and even modern objects and art. Here is a laser-cut steel interpretation of ancient drawings

Many of the artifacts are carved cedar, a wood revered by First Nation tribes and used for all manner of symbolic and practical objects.

A large collection of ceremonial masks showcase the ways in which the tribes appealed to their animal-spirit ancestors (Raven, Eagle, Bear) and interacted with each other in elaborate dances and celebrations.

But then, surprise !  The native technique of bending thin slabs of cedar into decorated boxes for storing blankets and other goods has been reinterpreted into seating for 21st century tourists needing a break from all the visual drama.

( We discovered at the end of our tour that you can buy these chairs; but you’ll need considerably more than wampum or beads to take a set home)

Whole cedar logs were hollowed and shaped into canoes. This one is of modest size, probably used in rivers and bays; but some very large ones were used in rougher waters for long distance travel and hunting whales.

In an adjacent gallery we came upon the star of the collection, the yellow cedar sculpture The Raven and the First Men by Bill Reid, an artist with an unusual multi-cultural heritage.

Reid was born in Victoria, British Columbia to an American father William Ronald Reid, Sr. of Scottish-German descent and a mother, Sophie Gladstone Reid, from the Kaadaas gaah Kiiguwaay, Raven/Wolf Clan of T’anuu, or more commonly known as the Haida, one of the First Nations of the Pacific coast. He developed a keen interest in Haida art while working as a radio announcer in Toronto for CBC Radio, where he also studied jewelry making at the Ryerson Institute of Technology, having first learnt about his heritage from his maternal grandfather, who had himself been trained by Charles Edenshaw, a Haida artist of great renown who made this bracelet.

In 1951, Reid returned to Vancouver where he eventually established a studio on Granville Island, and became greatly interested in the works of Edenshaw, working to understand the symbolism of his work, much of which had been lost along with the many Haida traditions. During this time he also worked on salvaging artifacts, including many intricately carved totem poles which were then moldering in abandoned village sites, and aided in the partial reconstruction of a village in the UBC Museum of Anthropology.

The Raven and the First Men also reveals an interesting story about the museum.

It turns out that the site on which the museum sits had been used to guard the entrance to English Bay during WW II by installing large guns on concrete structures on the edge of the bluff. At some point in the process it was decided to locate The Raven and The First Men on the concrete base from one of the gun emplacements; and Reid and Arthur Erickson worked together to frame the space and locate a skylight over it. It clearly achieves its purpose; but it also creates an anomoly in the museum collection by being so separated from the rest of the objects.

For me the archeological nature of the museum was best reflected in this partially recreated Tsimshian cedar longhouse wall panel. As part of a museum ‘Image Recovery Project’ and using found fragments, comparisons with other panels, and chemical analysis of paint chips, curator Bill McLennon created an outline of what he believed to be the full 15′ x 50′ panel.

Then Haisla artist Lyle Wilson created his interpretation of the full wall, including reproductions of the found fragment areas.

It was refreshing, a bit later in the tour, to be able to see into the lab where a lot of the analysis work happens – a different sort of artistic endeavor.

After all this, it was a bit daunting to work through some of the ‘collections’ area. As we were to discover, there are excellent holdings from the Northwest Coast, Oceania, Africa, and South America. The Museum has an extensive collection from the South Pacific. There are about 6000 textiles in the collection; about half of these come from Asia. Of particular note are the Cantonese Opera costumes that are considered some of the world’s finest. And the Audrey & Harry Hawthorn Library and Archives contain approximately 90,000 photographs that cover a wide range of cultures, ethnographic subjects, and historical events.

Many of the ceremonial masks involve moving parts that permit the performer to dramatically change character.

 

Baskets are found in many cultures; and MoA’s collection is extensive.

And another surprise ! – my first look an a First Nation’s chess set (is that an oxymoron?)

Toward the rear of the museum, the mood changes signficantly, becoming in a way more like the initial entry experience. First, a quiet auditorium offers a place for relatively intimate presentations about the museum.

Then the intimacy increases with this small sitting area where a few people can take in a small presentation of the cultural background of the First Nations peoples whose work makes up much of the museum’s collections.

Some of the presentation dealt with current cultural and artistic struggles and put a contemporary face on to the abstract nature of much of the work.

A small seating area focused on a view of the reflecting pond, partially screened and softened by evergreens.

Leading back to the rear of the museum and the origins of the project.

A very complete museum-going experience.