Sacred Arts of Tibet

The art of Tibet is almost exclusively devoted to the service of Buddhism and is almost never practiced for art’s sake.  Tibetan art is representative of the existential character of Mahayana Buddhism known as Tantrayana or Vajrayana (the diamond path or vehicle), which considers its art to be very sacred.  Although Tibetan art is religious…

LAB 9.1: Mike McLean, Range

Rocky Mountain National Park Photographs

In the summer of 2008 Victoria based artist Mike McLean drove to Banff, Lake Louise, and Waterton Lakes National Park. In the tradition of many before him, he documented these travels with a large format field camera on 4×5 colour negative film. As McLean describes, Historically, the Rocky Mountains have filled many roles in Western…

LAB 9.0: Marcy Adzich, A Magic Particular

A Magic Particular is a series of interpretive sculptures based on selected works from the AGGV Collection which have been accessed online by the artist. These new works, created without viewing the original work, will be displayed together with their original muse to create a dialogue about representation and perception, between the real and imagined,…

World Upside Down

The World Upside Down is one in which the symbolic order is turned on its head. It is a world visualized by artists where killer rabbits hunt humans and Superman is a hero of the Soviet Union. It is the Planet of the Apes and a planet where British aristocrats lose their heads when they…

Giant Landscape: British Columbia Landscapes

Everything in British Columbia is larger than anywhere else in Canada; the mountains, trees, flowers, the Pacific vistas. The extremes of physical scale and rugged beauty have alternately intimidated and attracted artists. In 1940 artist Jack Shadbolt made reference to British Columbia’s ‘giant landscape’ as something the artists of his time could easily accept. Earlier…

Edo: Arts of Japan’s Last Shogun Age (1603-1868)

Edo is the old name for the city of Tokyo; it is also the name for the historic period from 1603 until 1868 when Japan was ruled by military leaders, called shoguns, that came from the Tokugawa family.  They ruled Japan for a remarkable 250 years.  Edo started as a small fishers’ village, but it…

Assume Nothing: New Social Practice

This exhibition hosts 115 days of art, including sculpture, video-documentation, drawings, films, performances, actions, networks, sound works, and a theatrical performance, exploring the expanding field of socially engaged art. What unites the disparate projects in this exhibition is their ability to challenge the traditional relationship between art and society.  In the 60s, art intersected the…

Religious Arts of Asia

Asia is the world’s largest and most populous continent, with millions of different peoples.  They follow a wide variety of different religions. Asia was the birthplace of most of the world’s mainstream religions including: Shamanism, Shintoism, Confucianism, Daoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, as well as many other beliefs.

Historical backgrounds and development…

LAB 8.3: Reconstitution Nicholas and Sheila Pye

Reconstitution is an installation project incorporating a blend of experimental and narrative techniques to shape a cinematic perspective that experiments with visual language commonly used in painting. The installation will be comprised of 3 parts, with all three cinematic panels playing simultaneously. The concept for the installation is inspired by altarpiece triptychs from the Renaissance…