Temporary Arrangement

Endless Renovation, Corin Sworn’s solo exhibition at the Contemporary Art Gallery, incorporated a freshly cut floral bouquet which sat on the floor illuminated by an old school slide projector.   On five mirrored shelves were ten vases, spanning different decades from as early as 1880 to the late 1980s.   Once the flowers started wilting, almost weekly,  a vase was selected from one of the shelves and brought to the local florist, who was asked to design an arrangement according to the era of the vase. Here is a record.

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For images of the exhibition visit http://contemporaryartgallery.ca/#exhibitions

Thanks to Divine Vines http://www.divinevines.ca/

Goodbye for now!

Today is the last day of my six month Curatorial Internship at the CAG. Well actually, as I write this it is fast approaching the last minutes of my tenure here.

I’ve been trying for a while now to distill my experience here into a series of anecdotes or learned facts, but I keep feeling like they don’t add up into something meaningful enough to describe what this internship has given me.

Ultimately, the most valuable thing I’ve been able observe is how an institution like the Contemporary Art Gallery functions and what a curator’s role is. As a viewer of an exhibition one rarely has a sense of how much work goes into every single miniscule detail. The CAG is able to pull it off because there is an incredibly dedicated staff here that ensures that everything from the carpentry in the installation to the design of the publication is immaculate.

I already knew that all of the curator’s choices and the  judgements will be scrutinized, but I could not have anticipated the amount of personal responsibility you begin to take in making sure that ever detail is considered. There are pressures to be locally minded but not insular, to be international but not arrogant, to make your presence known but let the artist’s work shine, to be diplomatic, to be articulate, to be involved, to be discreet, to be social and to be studious. The funny thing is, all of these pressures just make me want to pursue this path more. Who wants to exist in a bubble? I want to have to answer to the highest standards possible, heck I want to eventually start setting those standards.

When I was interviewed for this position I remember Nigel asking me why I aspired to be a curator, between tangents and stuttering ‘umm’ I remember answering that one of the reasons was because I was interested in how an exhibition becomes much more than the sum of its parts. I still consider this to be a crucial element of exhibition making, but now I know that why I want to curate  goes far beyond some logistical considerations and the launch of an ‘event’. Rather, it is because I want to keep learning, I want to make connections, I want to track histories, I want to explore visual languages, I want to ask questions, and mostly I want to be sincere in these pursuits.

Meredith

CAG Offsite Project: Vibrantes

CAG Offsite Project: Vibrantes, a set on Flickr.

View screenshots made by the users of the participatory LAYAR project, Vibrantes. Subscribe to keep updated on new images as they are created.

Photos from Vibrantes: Offsite Project Launch, Dec 3

The latest participatory offsite project at the CAG, inspired by Federico Herrero’s CAG commission Vibrantes, witnessed a wonderful turnout at its project launch last Saturday, December 3rd.

The new project provides participants with the opportunity to interact with emerging colour shapes that appear through their smartphones, creating layers of abstract forms over their surroundings.  The shapes are accessible throughout the downtown Vancouver area and can be captured as far as Granville Island and some participants have even found them in Kitsilano.  For more information on how to interact with this participatory project go to http://offsite.contemporaryartgallery.ca for easy-to-follow instructions.

Again, participants are encouraged to share their digital ‘paintings’ by taking screenshots and uploading these images to Twitter under the project hashtag: #CAGOFFSITE. See a few examples below and on our Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/contemporaryartgalleryvancouver/

Photos by various participants.

Kevin Day

Online video uploaded: One Question, Corin Sworn

The latest installment in the CAG’s on-going video series One Question features Corin Sworn and her extrapolations of the question “what is your identification with materials in contemporary culture?” Sworn touches on themes of wandering attention, the unknown, and the recent past.  She sheds light on her thinking processes behind her latest project, Endless Renovation, which will be on view at the CAG until January 15, 2012.

Video production by Adrian Buitenhuis.

Kevin Day

Vibrantes: Offsite Participatory Project: Saturday Dec 3, 3 pm

Please join us on Saturday December 3rd at 3 pm at the CAG to launch the latest participatory offsite project expanding our current exhibition into the streets of Vancouver.

Federico Herrero’s vivid and dynamic new commission in the Contemporary Art Gallery’s façade, Vibrantes, is the inspiration point for our latest offsite project. Encapsulating the social nature of Herrero’s artistic practice, rooted in the display of work in the public realm, the project allows participants to generate their own compositions, blocking colour across the city’s buildings via a special program.

Through the screens of your smartphones, visitors will be able to view a potential and unfolding mural, occupying the digital space around the gallery and expanding into nearby streets. Users can then explore the surrounding area where they will be able to uncover series of coloured shapes with which to create virtual paintings in surprising locations.

Digital clusters of differing colours will shift and change dependent on the user’s position and viewpoint, allowing each person their own unique version of a mural in virtual space. Participants will be encouraged to compose and then share their digital paintings by taking screenshots and uploading these images to Twitter under the project hashtag: #CAGOFFSITE. All photographs will be credited and published on Contemporary Art Gallery affiliated media including this blog and the Facebook page, establishing an evolving community as we paint the town.

Get there at 3pm and be one of the first forty participants who will receive a coloured vinyl shape inspired by Herrero’s mural. With only one piece per person available, bring friends and family to create a cluster you can install on your walls at home.

www.contemporaryartgallery.ca.
Hours: Wed. – Sun. 12 – 6 pm. FREE ENTRY

‘Cause Saturday night’s the night I like, Saturday night’s alright, alright, alright…for the CAG’s Annual Art Auction and Gala!

We wish to extend a sincere and heartfelt thank you to everyone for their generous support of the Contemporary Art Gallery’s 40^th Anniversary Gala Dinner and Auction this past Saturday night at the new Rosewood Hotel Georgia.This was the 23rd edition of the event and in our 40^th year we are exceptionally grateful for the overwhelming support from members, friends, supporters and artists, locally, nationally and internationally.  We had forty nine exceptional works this year and the nod to our founding year of 1971 created a fun evening that raised an amount in excess of $230,000 (the most the CAG has ever raised at any fundraising event to date) THANK YOU!

It was a fantastic evening full of great artwork, fabulously dressed guests, a blasting birthday guitar solo by artist Kevin Schmidt and birthday cake delivery and dance routine by sequin bedazzled artist Germaine Koh and the roller derby girls, the Faster Pussycats. Each lucky guest also received a beautiful handmade sculpture piece by artist Natalie Purchswitz as their take home gift.

The significance of this kind of fundraising benefit cannot be overstated. The money raised on Saturday evening directly supports the programme at the Contemporary Art Gallery as we grow in scope and ambition, and allows us to continue our crucial role, since 1971, as the longest standing free public art gallery dedicated exclusively to presenting contemporary visual art in Vancouver.

The CAG is honoured to continue this role and with Nigel Prince, our new Executive Director, we look forward to an expansion and diversification in our programming, striving to introduce new audiences, increasing accessibility and supporting visitors in their interaction with and interpretation of contemporary art.  With this unequivocally successful evening we can proudly move forward in presenting the very best in contemporary visual art from Vancouver, Canada and abroad.

Thank you again to the artists, guests, members, volunteers Board and staff who made this special evening a memorable and successful one. We can’t wait to see you next year at further events and benefits for the CAG.

So close you can almost touch it!

The days are getting shorter, the nights are getting colder, the meals heartier, and the urge to stay in bed more persistant. Luckily there’s a great reason to get dolled up and hit the town! The CAG Annual Gala Dinner and Art Auction is less than a week away, and what better way to spend an otherwise dull November Saturday than supporting the Contemporary Art Gallery and the artists they exhibit!

The date is November 5th, and the festivities begin at 6:30pm at the new Hotel Georgia.
Tickets are still availble, $250 ($225 for members), $2250 for a table of ten.

You can check out the great artworks here.

Happy bidding!

49 Artworks for CAG 40th Art Auction: Website Launch

The CAG has launched a new website to announce our Annual Gala and Art Auction, www.cagauction.com.

This year’s event will be held at the NEW Rosewood Hotel Georgia on Saturday, November 5^th at 6.30pm.

The website showcases the artists and the exceptional works they have generously donated in honour of our 40^th year.

Some of the artists include Jeff Wall, Ian Wallace, Dexter Sinister, FASTWÜRMS, Germaine Koh and Hadley + Maxwell, just to name a few.

The evening is an important benefit event for the CAG which allows the CAG to continue its crucial role as the only FREE independent public art gallery dedicated exclusively to presenting the very best in contemporary art from Vancouver, Canada and abroad.

Tickets are on sale now and selling quickly!

To book your seat or to find out more please contact Sue Lavitt at 604.681.2700 or s.lavitt@contemporaryartgallery.ca.

Thank you for your generous support and we hope to see you there!

Corin Sworn selected for the Jerwood/Film and Video Umbrella Awards

We are pleased to announce that Corin Sworn, whose work will be featured in the upcoming exhibition Endless Renovation, is one of the recipients of the Jerwood/Film and Video Umbrella Awards. This award is presented in partner with Jerwood Visual Art (JVA) and Film and Video Umbrella Awards. It provides a £4,000 bursary for the artists to develop pre-production proposals for significant new works, that will be showcased in the exhibition  Tomorrow Never Knows to be held at the The Jerwood Space, London from March 14 to April 22, 2012.

Here’s what the award’s website has to say about their exhibition:

“Tomorrow Never Knows, will consider the artists’ own individual ‘projects for the future’ against the larger theme of ‘futures past’, offering reminders of the fleeting nature or the untapped potential of earlier manifestations of the future, whilst also reflecting on the uncertainties of futurology.”

During the exhibition, Corin Sworn will once again be under review, this time for the opportunity to recieve one of two £20,000 commissions to develop her proposal into a finished work to appear at The Jerwood Space in 2013.

Congratulations to Corin and the other award recipients Ed Atkins, Emma Hart, and Naheed Raza!

Meredith Carr, CAG Curatorial Intern