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Art

‘Os Gemeos’ Converts Industrial Silos in Vancouver into Towering Giants

First a Boeing 747, and now an industrial complex on a Vancover island; it seems no canvas is too large for Brazilian graffiti artists Os Gemeos who were invited to the Vancouver Biennale to turn six multi-story silos on Granville Island into their trademark ‘Giants.’ The murals on the 70-foot towers are now the largest paintings ever attempted by the pair, an astounding feat considering Os Gemeos completely donated a month of their time to create the non-profit art project. An Indiegogo fundraising campaign to recoup costs associated with painting the silos has been extremely successful. You can see more over on Arrested Motion.

Art

Giant Suspended Net Installations by Janet Echelman

In the late 1990s artist Janet Echelman traveled to India as a Fulbright Scholar with the intention of giving painting exhibitions around the country. She shipped her painting supplies ahead of time and landed in the fishing village of Mahabalipuram to begin her exhibitions with one major hitch: the painting supplies never arrived. While walking through the village Echelman was struck by the quality and variety of nets used by the local fisherman and questioned what it might look like if such nets were hung and illuminated in the air. Could it be a new approach to sculpture? A new chapter in her artist career was born, and the artist has since dedicated her time and energy to creating these massive net sculptures in locations around the world.

Echelman is currently embarking on her largest piece ever, a 700-foot-long sculpture that will be suspended over Vancouver next month in conjunction with the 30th anniversary of the TED Conference. In collaboration with the Burrard Arts Foundation, she’s currently seeking funding via Kickstarter to make it happen. There’s all kinds of great prints, postcards, and shirts available so check it out.

Art

Calm: A Field of Liquid Construction Debris on the Streets of Vancouver by MadeIn Company

What looks like a giant pile of rubble outside the Shangri-La Hotel in downtown Vancouver is actually an art installation by Chinese art collective MadeIn Company titled Calm. All is not as it seems. Pass by in a hurry and you’ll hardly notice this giant pile of broken cement blocks, grass, and construction waste, but stand next to it for just a moment and you’ll notice something almost imperceptible: the entire pile of rubble is moving, slightly undulating atop a giant hidden reservoir of water.

The large field of debris was collected from a renovated Vancouver synagogue and installed on an exhibition space, Offsite, belonging to the Vancouver Art Gallery last April. According to various news reports people seem pretty polarized by the installation, either loving or hating it. The work was inspired by the near perpetual state of urban development currently underway in China. Via the gallery:

Calm’s ambiguity and unexpected ability to move provoke us to question ways of observing, believing and understanding facts, and remind us that the truth often differs from what it seems. In this context, Calm comments on the concerns that arise alongside urban development and the gentrification of residential neighbourhoods, whether in Vancouver or Shanghai. While the volume of construction in Vancouver might pale in comparison and scale to that of Shanghai, there are currently several retail and residential expansions underway within a five-kilometre radius of Offsite.

The installation will be on view through September 29th and you can learn a bit more over on CTV News. It should be noted that if you’re in Vancouver the installation is not actually meant to be touched or climbed on. You can see a similar installation from Benjamin Boré who created the same sort of effect with a brick sidewalk.