Gumhead

Come to the Howe St. side of the Vancouver Art gallery and celebrate Gumhead. It’s the 7-foot steel-reinforced fiberglass sculpture of West Vancouver artist Douglas Coupland’s head. It’s meant to be an interactive installation with the public participating by sticking gum all over it. The public becomes an artist participating in a transformative experience, changing the nature of the original piece. Part of Coupland’s intent is to provide an outlet for his on-going concern over the defacement of public art. He is both annoyed and fascinated by defacement, and has expressed this in many of his works. Gumhead is also a culminating work of many of Coupland’s large-scale representations of the human head and body.

So who is Coupland? If you’ve seen Terry Fox Memorial outside BC Place, or the Digital Orca beside the waterfront Vancouver Convention Centre, these are his designs. Coupland has been described as a modern day Renaissance man, being an accomplished writer, designer and artist. His novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture won international acclaim in the early 90’s. He comments on contemporary life through his writing, painting, photography, and installations. He was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2013.

Inside the Vancouver Art Gallery, in conjunction with Gumhead, his legacy as a visual artist is being celebrated in the first museum survey of his career. His solo exhibition: Douglas Coupland: everywhere is anywhere is anything is everything is amazing. His work can be described as prolific, precise and profound. The manner in which he orders found objects to comment on Canadian life and the political, social and environmental issues in our digital age is brilliant. Although the issues he portrays are serious, there is a hopeful expectancy about his work. This is partially achieved through his use of bright colours and whimsical use of Lego in some of his designs. Originating from an interactive use of Lego with the public, one installation in the exhibition features futuristic buildings made of Lego. Vancouver architects could gain some inspiration here. Another installation uses toy missiles, old globes streaked with oil, railroad tracks and a miniature train, all surrounding an NSA building, evoking a frightful present and future. Ice Storm is a huge metallic sculpture representing a downed transmission tower during the winter ice storms of 1998 in eastern Canada. It’s a powerful message where nature has technology on its knees.

Coupland’s VAG exhibition is a must see – I have only scraped the surface of an exhibition I would describe as being delightful, inspiring and thought-provoking. It is currently on until September 1.

Link to this article: https://thelasource.com/en/?p=9277

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Gumhead

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