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Jan29

MOV: Sex Talk in the City

Posted in: Art Installation, Education, Events, Exhibitions, Inspiration, Museums, Vancouver

This Valentine’s Day, the Museum of Vancouver will open the doors to a new exhibition dedicated to Vancouver’s sexual history. Sex Talk in the City will give visitors a chance to consider how sexuality is not only biological, but also cultural and political.

Moving from the classroom to the bedroom and out to the streets, Sex Talk in the City explores how sexuality is learned and how these conversations have impacted the way people self-identify and relate to one other.

“Exploring what people in Vancouver think about sex becomes a telling way to know the city,” explains Viviane Gosselin, Sex Talk’s curatorial lead. “Looking at Vancouver’s sexual history has enabled us to see that many people in the city have challenged the sexual norms of their time — whether it is on issues of contraception, gay rights, or the ergonomics of sex toys — to create communities that are more inclusive and educated.”

The exhibition shares stories ranging from early sex education in Vancouver to the local origin of the iconic black cougar logo that for decades warned movie audiences about sexually explicit content. Sex Talk in the City will also touch on issues of sex trade work, the role of the Internet as “sex educator” to many children, and the way in which the pleasure of belonging can be as important as pleasure itself.

Using the same collaborative style that Gosselin brought to the award-winning Bhangra.me exhibition, Sex Talk in the City was created with the help of an advisory panel of 17 people, plus a team that included Propellor Design, a writer, filmmaker, and several historians.

“Working with a large advisory committee has played a crucial role in this project,” says Gosselin. “Committee members stressed the importance of featuring diverse perspectives while highlighting concerns that are often shared across age, gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation.”

Sex Talk in the City is a unique opportunity to reflect on personal ideas about sexuality (where they came from, the values that shaped them, and how they help or impede our ability to live a healthy sexual life) in a safe, fun, and interesting environment. Visitors are sure to leave wanting to share their own quirky stories about their first time, their sex ed class experience, or the awkward birds and bees conversation they had with their parents.

The creation of Sex Talk in the City involved the participation of Options for Sexual Health, the Vancouver Queer Film Festival, the Vancouver School Board, public health experts, activists, sexologists, educators, youth, and historians.

Sex Talk in the City
Dates: February 14 to September 2, 2013
Venue: Museum of Vancouver, 1100 Chestnut Street, Vancouver
Tickets: $12 adults; $10 students (valid ID required)/seniors (65+); $8 youth 5-17
Opening Reception February 13, 7 pm ($15 tickets available in advance online; members +1 free)
Available online or at the door
Jan21

Winter Wander in Vanier Park

Posted in: Art Installation, Education, Events, History, Inspiration, Museums, Music, Vancouver

The six cultural institutions of Vanier Park will once again celebrate their beautiful Kits Point location for the Second Annual Winter Wander. On Saturday, January 26, explore all six for one low admission price.
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Jan3

Vancouver I Love You But…

Posted in: Events, Museums, Vancouver

[Photo credit: Paul Krueger on Flickr]

Whether it’s the rain, the early-closing night clubs, the high cost of rent, or stricter parking regulations, we all have our beef with Vancouver. It’s a tough relationship to maintain, and as any relationship counsellor would attest: it’s just not healthy to keep those feelings inside.

In a unique two part evening, the Museum of Vancouver will help attendees process their feelings. Arrive early for a drink and some classic ‘misery loves company’ at the Ranters Lounge.

This event is inspired by Object(ing), the MOV’s exhibition of art and design work by Tobias Wong. The last piece that Wong created before his death in 2010 was a riff on the LCD Soundsystem song, “New York I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down.” Wong wove that message in Morse code into the structure of a floor-to-ceiling bead pendant. The message embodied the ambivalence that so many of us feel for the cities we love.

Rants of Vancouverites worked together with Scottish performance artist and urban therapist Adrian Howells to bring this evening to our fair city.

Ranters include:
- Stephen Quinn, host of CBC’s On the Coast
- Watermelon, nudist, comedian, and purveyor of licorice and good times
- Kevin Chong, author, horse racing fan
- Scott McIntyre, publisher of beleaguered Douglas & McIntyre
- Tami Knight, mountaineer, yogi, circus performer
- Brandon Yan, urbanist and mega-tweeter
… and more!

Together, we will achieve catharsis. For the truth may hurt, but it may also make us laugh until we hurt!

Vancouver I Love You But…
Date: January 25, 6 pm
Venue: Museum of Vancouver, 1100 Chestnut Street, Vancouver
Tickets: $15; $12 MOV members; available online
Nov8

The MOV Retail Collection

Posted in: Exhibitions, History, Museums, Product Branding, Vancouver

The Museum of Vancouver has partnered with local businesses to breathe new life into artifacts and make them available for culture lovers to take history home with them via a new retail collection. This initiative goes beyond an on-location gift shop, creating a model that works directly with local retailers to produce and sell items inspired by the MOV collection.

I was at the museum late yesterday afternoon for the collection’s launch. Murchie’s has released a limited edition Smilin’ Buddha Tea, both a nod to Chinese culture as well as inspiration drawn from the Neon Vancouver exhibition. Harvey Burritt’s 2nd Century Rug Company features streetcar scrolls listing destinations along the number 18 route in Vancouver.

The original scroll itself dates from the mid 1950′s and is on display at MOV. Each rug is individually hand-knotted in Nepal and rugs can be customized to fit your living space.

“When the MOV approached us to be part of the program, we jumped at the opportunity,” says Harvey Burritt. “We are known for our ability to create high quality, custom area rugs from items that are meaningful to our clients. We have applied this ability to the treasure trove of MOV’s collection. I can’t think of a better way for my family to support one of our city’s cultural institutions.”

In addition to Harvey Burritt and Murchie’s Teas, MOV is working with several local businesses, including Country Furniture, Cascade Room Restaurant & Bar, Walrus (one of my favourite shops!), Make Vancouver, Vancouver Special, Bookmark at the Vancouver Public Library, and London Drugs.

“This new model is a great way to take the MOV brand and our array of historical artifacts out to the city,” says Kate Follington, Director of Development at the MOV. “Given that we can only ever display a fraction of our collection, it is a way for us to breathe new life into artifacts and raise funds to continue our work.”

Each product in the MOV Collection comes with a history of the original artifact and a catalogue number so that buyers can look the artifact up on openMOV. Products and locations can be found online. Click here to view the MOV products on Flickr.

[Home Collection rugs: Bus Scroll, Corporate Seals, Riot Board - Love, No. 18 Scroll. MOV photo]

The retail line is part of a project supported by the Vancity Social Enterprise Portfolio and is being developed as an alternative line of revenue for the MOV. Funds raised through the retail initiative will benefit MOV’s special exhibitions and its school programs that reach 10,000 elementary school students annually. Think holiday shopping needs for any art or culture lover on your list!
Oct3

McSwain’s Homage to Tobias Wong

Posted in: Art Installation, Events, Exhibitions, Museums, Vancouver

There are few better ways to pay homage to an artist/designer than to create a portrait made of the same number of dice as the days they lived. Frederick McSwain, a friend of Tobias Wong’s, did just that, creating one of the world’s largest dice portraits using 13,138 die.

Now accompanying the exhibition Object(ing): The Art/Design of Tobias Wong at the Museum of Vancouver, McSwain’s piece “DIE” is a tribute to Wong, a Vancouver/New York artist who passed away unexpectedly at the age of 35 in early 2010.

“The idea of a die itself was appropriate—the randomness of life,” explains Frederick McSwain, who produced the dice portrait for NY Design Week, 2011. “It felt like a medium he would use. The idea of every decision you make and everything you’ve done in your life defines who you are. All of those days symbolically make up the image of Tobi.”

The medium was chosen from an exchange McSwain once witnessed: a stranger approached Wong to ask for a cigarette, and Wong accepted a cheap six-sided die in exchange.

The portrait also pays homage to Wong’s own style of conceptual art and design. Wong was well known in New York as a provocative artist, re-designing every-day objects and making poignant statements about the world around him.

The dice were organized into individual sheets of 361 pieces and then laid to rest free on the floor without adhesive. A time-lapse YouTube video of the piece being assembled can be viewed below.

American furniture giant Bernhardt Designs bought McSwain’s piece in 2011 and is currently touring it across North America. The portrait will be on display at the Museum of Vancouver until the end of October.

The exhibition Object(ing) at the Museum of Vancouver is the first major showing of Tobias Wong’s body of work. Since opening on September 19, it has received public accolades from the likes of Douglas Coupland and Jason Heard (IDS West’s show director).

I was amazed at this show’s thought-provoking objects and had the privilege to view it ahead of its public opening a couple of weeks ago.

Object(ing) will continue through February 24, 2013.
Sep19

Museum of Van: Tobias Wong Preview

Posted in: Art Installation, Events, Exhibitions, Inspiration, Museums, Recycling, Vancouver

[Fur Lighter]

From repurposed coke spoons with a Golden Arches logo at one end to a Philippe Starck chair crafted into a lamp, Tobias Wong’s “paraconceptual” works (as he liked to call them) will be available to the public starting tonight at the Museum of Vancouver.

[I Want to Change the World Book]

Whether the Vancouver-born artist’s pieces evoke Marcel Duchamp or Rene Magritte, the works on display are definitely thought-provoking. I was invited to a media preview yesterday morning to learn about MOV’s newest exhibit, Object(ing): The Art of Tobias Wong and as much as I could about the man behind the work. Largely portrayed in the media, he died young; art historians are still scrambling to put the pieces of his life and work together.

[Gift Wrapping]

In fact, many pieces in the collection had been disassembled in Wong’s New York City apartment, or had missing pieces that needed to be reconstructed for this show.

[Coke Spoons]

As I’d written earlier this month, Wong is considered a provocateur of contemporary design, his works manipulated to create secondary meaning. He often utilized mass-produced products in his works, showing society’s excesses (the McDonald’s coke spoon, for example) while twisting the meaning of the item’s original use. Fellow artist Douglas Coupland was friends with Tobi; this 2005 work’s story is introduced in the show by Coupland. The infamous golden spoon has a legend attached to it: McDonald’s supposedly stopped using this model of stir stick because Wong had made it look too cocaine-y.

[This is a Lamp]

MOV curator Viviane Gosselin took a small group of us around the exhibit, pointing out some of the key works, including this Philippe Starck Bubble chair that Wong convinced leading Italian design company Kartell to sell to him before the chair actually premiered to the public. One day before the official showing of the Starck chair, Wong debuted his own version, complete with a built-in lamp! Cheeky.

Wong subsequently gained a huge following of movie stars, luminaries, and high-profile artists who came to appreciate his work. Each of the pieces contains a story behind it, whether from an actual collaborator or friend of Tobi’s, or someone who was inspired by the piece enough to add to the conversation by having their story included here.

[The Scent of the NY Times candle]

The exhibition starts tonight with an opening night party. Tickets are available online for both the party and the exhibition that runs through February 24, 2013.
Aug30

Object(ing): The Art of Tobias Wong

Posted in: Art Installation, Events, Exhibitions, Inspiration, Museums, Recycling, Vancouver

[Tobias Wong. Photo credit: Dean Kaufman]

Next month, the Museum of Vancouver will present an extensive solo exhibition of internationally acclaimed Vancouver artist Tobias Wong in Object(ing): The Art/Design of Tobias Wong.

[Tobias Wong: Shitting Gold]

Wong is considered to be “contemporary design’s most nimble provocateur”, according to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, as well as a conceptual design pioneer. The artist appropriates, manipulates, manufactures, mass-produces, and re-issues everyday objects — from candies and dollar bills to box cutters and neon signs — in the process pouring new meanings into them.

“Tobias’ work and artistic trajectory are fascinating,” explains Viviane Gosselin, MOV curator and project lead. “I view Tobias as a poet who didn’t play with words but with objects; most of the time, familiar ones. He took the mundane, the utilitarian, and turned it into incredible sculptures. People ‘get it’ because it’s funny or it connects to popular culture and current events. However, more deeply considered, you can see all these clever references to the history of art/design.”

[Tobias Wong: Money Pad]

Although Wong calls Vancouver home, his work is better known internationally. At the age of 20, Wong left Vancity to study architecture in Toronto, eventually relocating to New York City to attend Cooper Union School of Art’s prestigious sculpture program. His career soon took off in a big way, provoking responses from globally recognized designers such Alessi, Philippe Starck, Karim Rashid (my top three industrial designers right there), and brands including Burberry. Wong kept close ties with his friends, family, and collaborators in Vancouver.

[Tobias Wong: Box Cutter]

Object(ing) will feature over 50 pieces, including well known works Bulletproof Quilted Duvet, the Ottoman, the “I Want to Change the World” book, and This is a Lamp. Some items have been re-issued specifically for this project (based on documentation and assistance of original collaborators). Reissuing works will allow new audiences to see pieces like Room Partition, the Anus sign that hung in the window of his New York East Village apartment, Chocolate Wood produced in collaboration with Chocolate Arts, and a series of candies created for Papabubble, a high end candy store based in NYC.

“I no longer worry about what title people give me,
I’m happy being whatever fits the context.
I don’t draft or create models/prototypes,
I don’t problem solve,
and I definitely don’t make things to make life easier.”
— Tobias Wong

In 2010, Wong died suddenly at the age of 35 in his New York City home. The MOV has been incredibly fortunate to be able to work with Wong’s close friends, collaborators, family and guest curator and project instigator Todd Falkowsky in bringing this exhibition to the museum. The exhibition has mobilized the participation of over 50 collectors, curators, and artists from Vancouver, NYC, San Francisco, UK, and elsewhere, including pop culture commentator and artist Douglas Coupland and senior curator of design from the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Paola Antonelli.

Object(ing): The Art/Design of Tobias Wong
Dates: September 20, 2012 to February 24, 2013
A limited number of $15 opening night (September 19) tickets are available to the public online.
Venue: Museum of Vancouver, 1100 Chestnut Street, Vanier Park, Vancouver
Tickets: Adults, $12; Seniors, students with ID, $10; Kids 5-17, $8; available at the museum or online

All photos (except where noted) courtesy of Rebecca Blissett.
Jun6

2011 Hockey Riot Boards at MOV

Posted in: Art Installation, Education, Events, Exhibitions, History, Vancouver

[Photo credit: nickytu.com on Flickr]

A year after the June 15, 2011 Stanley Cup Riots, the Museum of Vancouver will open Reading the Riot Boards, a hyper-local exhibition displaying 15 of the plywood panels used to board up broken windows in downtown Vancouver. Boards will include sections from the windows of The Bay. The exhibition will run from June 15 to September 23.

For the opening of this small MOV Studio exhibition, the MOV invites the public to join in dialogue with Vancouver playwright Kevin Loring, City Councillor Andrea Reimer, and photographer Maurice Li in a multi-faceted examination of how the riots altered our collective conscience, spurred new civic conversations, and changed how Vancouverites see themselves and each other.

Pause, reflect, and share in a discussion that asks: “Is this Vancouver?”

The roundtable will also include a visual street-view storytelling of events by Maurice Li, excerpts from “The Thin Veneer” (a play written as Loring’s response to the riots), and policy insights from Councillor Reimer. A moderated Q&A and closer look at selected boards installed in the MOV Studio will follow.

Is This Vancouver? Reflections on the 2011 Hockey Riot Boards
Date: Friday, June 15, 6:30 pm
Venue: Museum of Vancouver, 1100 Chestnut Street, Vancouver
Tickets: By donation (suggested $5-10, none turned away for lack of funds); MOV Members free. RSVP online.
Apr17

Mother’s Day High Tea at MOV

Posted in: Art Installation, Events, Fashion, History, Holidays, Museums, Vancouver

This upcoming Mother’s Day weekend, the Museum of Vancouver mixes learning, fashion, and tea for its “High Tea @ MOV” museum fundraiser. Whether guests attend with friends or together with their mum, it’s sure to be a delightful afternoon spent at this special sit-down tea service.

Guest speaker Brendan Waye, accredited tea specialist (aka “The Tea Guy”) as well as a Vancouver Community College tea sommelier program instructor will provide insight on both the traditions and rituals of high tea culture over time.

Guests will enjoy a variety of teas and a delicious assortment of petite sandwiches and cakes. A guided tour of the Art Deco Chic exhibition will provide a base for conversation, and tea demonstrations will give guests an opportunity to discover new tastes while learning about teas from around the world.

High Tea @ MOV
Date: Saturday, May 12, 2 to 5 pm
Venue: Museum of Vancouver, 1100 Chestnut Street, Vancouver
Tickets: $40; $60 for two; order tickets online

All proceeds will benefit the Museum of Vancouver’s programs for conserving Vancouver’s history and material items.

The Museum is grateful to sponsors Herbal Republic, Bernardin, Salt Spring Coffee, and Angela James.
Mar22

Songs of the False Creek Flats

Posted in: Architecture, Education, Environment, Museums, Music, Vancouver

Vancouver’s False Creek contains a fascinating history, and its most recent development is explored in a Museum of Vancouver studio exhibition now on display called the Maraya Project: Waterfronts of Vancouver and Dubai. On Friday, March 30, False Creek mythology and history will be further explored in an intimate performance featuring local folk musician and city singer Veda Hille, and accompanied by a visual narrative by architect and city thinker Annabel Vaughan.

[Veda Hille at Smorgasbord: An Evening with Dan Mangan and Friends]

Through Songs of the False Creek Flats: Reflections, both Veda and Annabel will utilize music, talk, and pictures to animate an area of the city that currently lies primarily dormant. Audience members will be given a hand drawn artist map in order to take themselves on a local walk through the flats at their leisure.

Songs of False Creek Flats: Reflections
Date: Friday, March 30; Doors 6:30 pm, Performance 7:30 pm
Venue: Museum of Vancouver, 1100 Chestnut Street, Vancouver
Tickets: MOV Members $15; General Admission $17; Students $10 (*with valid ID); available online
Includes admission to Maraya; Art Deco Chic & Neon Vancouver | Ugly Vancouver exhibits; music and reception to follow

Through photography, video, public art, public programs and an interactive online platform, the Maraya Project explores new forms of urban living pioneered in both countries, showing how we are connected in ways that are both familiar and surprising. Maraya — from the Arabic m’raya for “mirror” or “reflection” — connects the glass and steel residential towers that line the seawall walkways of Emaar’s Dubai Marina and Concord Pacific Place along False Creek. The project explores these two cities as leaders of 21st century urbanism.