The classes are done and the houses have been assembled. Tomorrow we begin the installation. Below is our invitation to you.

To come : documentation of opening and installation, and of classes and process.

Last Sunday Ruth Sheuing and I drove out to the Evergreen Art Centre in Coquitlam, to see local artist, Bettina Matzkuhn’s very wonderful Mappa exhibition. This is REALLY worth the drive.

Bettina creates painted, embroidered and collaged maps of life’s events. One piece documents a lengthy,  impressive and, no doubt, grueling bike trip between Vancouver and the southern Yukon border. Another, “The Romantic Archipelago” details a journey most of us have reluctantly made at one time or another. The craft is impeccable, concept, dense and layered, and the wit dry. Decorative touches, embroidered denizens of the deep that traditionally indicate the edge of the known world or uncharted waters, are charming. “Here there be monsters” the old maps read; Bettina greets and transforms them.

"The Romantic Archipelago"

Meanwhile, in another part of town, artist Konstantin Dimopoulos has painted the trunks and branches of Coquitlam City Hall’s cherry trees a rather fluorescent blue, or more specifically, an Yves Klein blue (thank you, Robin…)  as part of the Vancouver International Sculpture Biennale/Biennale Internationale de la Sculpture de Vancouver 2011 exhibition.

The dozen or so flowering pink cherry trees, blossoms supported by brilliant blue “struts” were rather fun, and like Bettina’s work, whimsical, transformative and labour-intensive. It’s easy to imagine how charmed children might be by this rather Disney-esque installation. But, although the Australian artist intended to “highlight worldwide social and environmental issues, specifically global deforestation,” the synthetic quality of that particular blue somewhat undermined the concept. I wondered if the colour was just wrong for our overcast, cyan-tinged skies. How might that palette resonate under the  brilliant, dry, yellow light of the Australian environment?

blue trees

Haruko Okano photo

two porcelain tigers from Boston Museum of Fine Art’s Japanese collection

All’s Quiet On The Western Front

560 Seymour Street

Curated by Sean George

March 5th – 9th May, 2010

Opening :  Thursday, March 4th from 7:00pm – 9:00pm

One of the really delightful things about the Culture Crawl is that you never know who will walk through the door.

This year I met and had a wonderful conversation with Sean George. Sean is curating the VIP lounge at 560 Seymour, the old A&B Sound space, which, at this very moment, is being turned into an interesting club space.  The image below, “persephone rising (sea to sky)” is in this exhibition.

Mark Mushet, Aaron Blake Evan, Nadia Thibault, Sean Panarden, the dark and Carl Meadows Sr. are also exhibiting works.

The image was made at the end of a week-long mediation retreat, and shot on an old SX-70 camera, when this gorgeous film, with all its flaws and wonky colour, was still available. Below is the work installed… the image was grabbed from the Vancouver Sun site, and am uncertain who to credit.

and here is the shot.