Rice is Life

Presented by ODLUM BROWN
Supported by Libra – The Rice People and The Market on Yates

Rice is Life, co-organized by the Vancouver Museum and the Canadian Society of Asian Arts, draws upon a rich variety of art and material culture from a dozen Asian countries to explore the traditional significance of rice for this region’s people….

Lot in Life

Through the Gallery’s collections spanning the 16th to 20th centuries, this exhibition explores the activities we perform to survive the labour and industry that establishes our position in the world our Lot in Life. The subject of labour has long drawn the interest of artists because of its narrative, symbolic, and expressive possibilities. Lot in…

Chinese Folk Art The Small Skills of Carving Insects

Presented by ODLUM BROWN
Supported by Libra – The Rice People and The Market on Yates

Diao chong xiao ji meaning ‘the small skills of carving insects’ is a derogatory expression first given by old China’s aristocracy to the arts and crafts produced by the peasants.  The upper classes, who liked fine arts like calligraphy and painting,…

Lab 8.1: street games (an exercise in lightness), Doug Lewis

Doug Lewis’s work investigates streets and sidewalks as sites of social exchange, finding people that play games in order to hustle, hoodwink, perform and commune for social and economic survival.? This exhibition of video, photo and sculptural installation features abstracted images of street games from his travels in England, China, USA and Victoria, and works…

WARHOL: Larger Than Life

Credited as one of the major artistic innovators of the 20th century, Warhol’s fame spread well beyond painting and printmaking. Filmmaker, sculptor, author, collector, publisher, provocateur, music producer, celebrity’Warhol understood and negotiated the ride of fame, a sophisticated arbiter and manipulator of popular culture and fashion.

Warhol: Larger than Life examines the entirety of the artist’s…

Althea Thauberger: Chelsea Girls

Using Andy Warhol’s 1966 film, Chelsea Girls as a conceptual starting point, Vancouver-based artist Althea Thauberger creates a film collaboration with the residents of a Victoria apartment building. In Warhol’s original work, episodes took place within New York’s Chelsea Hotel. Thauberger’s homage follows the original in format and construction, but also addresses urgent contemporary themes,…

Majestic Colours: Ancient Chinese Textiles

This exhibition from the Gallery’s collection showcases the rich heritage of costumes and textiles from China’s Qing dynasty (1644-1911). The five primary colours of the costumes are significant. Yellow, symbolizing the earth, was reserved for the imperial use of the Qing dynasty’s Manchu rulers. Red symbolizes fire and was associated with family celebrations such as…

Lab 8.0: Over My Dead Body, Caleb Speller

Caleb Speller’s project Over My Dead Body examines the play between art and life, explored so thoroughly by Andy Warhol during his illustrious career. On Tuesdays and Thursdays in June, Speller will be artist-in-residence, building on his project in a cumulative fashion. Beginning with photographs that scrutinize the surroundings in which death can take place…

Lab 7.5: Hedgerow Series Brian Flynn

Drawing from childhood experiences in South Armagh, Northern Ireland, Brian Flynn explores a specific event in the conflict between the IRA and the English army:  the assassination of a British undercover agent, Robert Nairac.  Using the artist?s own Super 8 film footage, and key scenes depicted in carpet underlay, a material typically hidden from view…