JANUARY FEBRUARY AND A BIT OF MARCH...

We have had a busy couple of months, and there's no slowing down! Spring is in full blossom, so is the CASV!

If you missed out on the last few events, do not worry, we have some great tours, talks, and events coming up in the next few weeks.

Here is what we got up to at the start of 2015

We started the year off with a tour of Tom Burrow's exhibition at the Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery.

The exhibition by Vancouver/Hornby Island artist Tom Burrows presents work by the artist from his early career to the present. The exhibition is a timely refocusing of attention on an artist who has made an immense contribution to the development of art in Vancouver, not only as an artist but as an educator and activist as well—in 1975 he received a United Nations commission to document squatters communities in Europe, Africa and Asia, a work that is now in the Belkin’s collection.  If you missed the tour, the exhibition is on until April 12, 2015, we recommend it!

Tom Burrows talking about his exhibition at the Belkin.

The CASV was lucky to have an Artist talk with Tiziana La Melia, winner of the 2014 RBC Painting Prize.

Images courtesy of CASV



In February, the CASV China Town Tour was a huge success. The group visited four galleries: Gam Gallery, Unit/Pitt Projects, Gallery Gachet, and The Apartment.  At each space the directors/curators gave a brief talk on the mandate of the organisation, a selection of artists were also on hand to discuss their work in the respective exhibitions that their work was featured in.

Images Courtesy of Sunshine Frere & the Gam Gallery



Also in February, we joined Kim Kennedy Austin at her exhibition at the West Vancouver Museum. Accenting this first survey exhibition of Austin’s practice is a new body of work produced for the West Vancouver Museum. This work emerges out of Austin’s interest and research into the iron bridges that connect the North Shore not only to other land masses, but to other histories as well. CASV member Sunshine Frere wrote a great article on Kim Kennedy Austin for Vancouver Is Awesome. 

Images courtesy of the artist and Scott Massy – SITE Photography

Yet another event in February, we had a wonderful studio visit with artist Ben Skinner at this studio this past month. Skinner is a very prolific artist, you have probably seen his work and not known, he is everywhere!

Images courtesy of CASV

The very next day after the Skinner Studio visit, Emily Carr University of Art + Design hosted with the CASV an artist talk with Peter Von Tiesenhausen.

An artist who has exhibited and lectured widely across Canada as well as in Europe Von Tiesenhausen has had over 50 solo and many group exhibitions, which have been widely reviewed and the subject of 3 national television documentaries including a one hour award winning film “Elemental” produced in 2000 for “Adrienne Clarkson Presents." Thank you Peter, and Emily Carr University of Art + Design for partnering with us!

Images courtesy of Peter Von Tiesenhausen

The month of March was kicked off with a great tour of the VANCOUVER HOSPITAL COLLECTION, with a wonderful talk with Allan Switzer. 

The collection houses than 1,200 pieces by notable artists grace the walls of our hospitals, all donated by local artists and collectors. Notable artists in the collection include Jack Shadbolt, Martha Sturdy, Gordon Smith, Sylvia Tait, Gathie Falk, Scot McFarland, Stephen Waddel, Christos Dikeakos, Jock Macdonald and Richard Heikkila-Sawan.

Thank you to Laura Busby, Katharine Knowles, and Pennylane Shen for a great tour, and thanks to the UBC and VGH Foundation for partnering with us on this tour and reception. 

Upcoming members can look forward to an art tour in North Vancouver as well as a tour of the Fairmont Pacific Rim's art collection among many other events.  Join us and be sure to check our website for programming updates.

CHINATOWN ART TOUR

Join us for an afternoon tour of four Chinatown art spaces on Saturday January 24th.

The tour starts at 1pm, and will last approximately 3-3.5 hours. 
Below are the spaces that we will be visiting, as well as a bit of exhibition info. 
The tour will start at Unit/Pitt Projects at 1:00pm.

See you there!


INFO ON THE TOUR:

The tour will take in four galleries: Gam Gallery, Unit/Pitt Projects, Gallery Gachet, and The Apartment. At each space the directors/curators will give a brief talk on the mandate of the organisation, a selection of artists will also be on hand to discuss their work in the respective exhibitions that their work is featured in.

Gam Gallery is located within and fronts ACME Studios in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Reflecting the artistic community in which it is located, the Gam operates as a gallery, studio space, small boutique and venue. Since its inception in December 2009, Gam Gallery has strove to foster a social environment where emerging artists can exhibit, create and make lasting relationships. Programming includes a monthly schedule of exhibitions and games nights in the gallery as well as theatre and music events, model drawing, film screenings and community markets. The Gam was founded by Jasmine Colette, Tarah Hogue, Julia Kreutz and Jamie Reid. 

On Exhibit at Gam: Trevor Van den Eijnden will have a solo exhibition. Van den Eijnden is an MFA candidate in his second year at Emily Carr. He is a Canadian visual artist, writer, and designer. Van den Eijnden’s work assembles referents of the Anthropocene into visual iterations focused on the constructs of space versus place, where the first is a one-dimensional physical location, and the later is the overlapping subjective terrain. His current work centers on collecting, and comparing naturalist wallpapers for their romanticized illusions of nature as well as grappling with the effects of global climate change in the extremes of dystopic and utopic plausible futures. 

Image taken by @crompsy

Unit/Pitt Projects has been a mainstay in Chinatown for years. Formerly the Helen Pitt Gallery, Unit/Pitt is a non-profit artist-run centre dedicated to the promotion of experimental contemporary art that addresses social, political, cultural, and critical issues. Based in visual art practice, Unit/Pitt’s programming goes beyond the presentation of exhibitions, branching out into media, telecommunications, public actions, publishing, music and performance. We support and assist in the development of artists’ curatorial projects, concentrating on a limited set of projects each year. 

On exhibit at Unit/Pitt, a group exhibition entitled The Facility for Consideration, featuring work by Derek Coulombe, Tom Hsu, Kary Kleinmann, and Lida Pawliuk.

Gallery Gachet an artist-run centre committed to demystifying and challenging issues related to mental health and social marginalization in order to educate the public and promote social and economic justice through artistic means. Our gallery and studio space, precariously balanced in a neighbourhood undergoing advanced gentrification, has emerged as a symbol of creative refuge and artist-driven authenticity. 

On exhibit at Gallery Gachet: Oddities – a group show featuring the work the gallery’s members: Afuwa, d.June Conley, Rebecca Chunn, Cherise Clarke, Lara Fitzgerald, Edzy Edzed, Murray Huehn, Kara Lee, Pierre Leichner, Peter Lojewski, Laurie Marshall, Carmen Ostrander, Mary O’Toole, Bruce Ray, Karen Ward, and Ilir Xhediku.

The Apartment was founded in 2006 in a modernist one bedroom apartment situated in the bucolic landscape of Vancouver BC. Embracing the modernist aspiration of integrating art and daily life, our program was grounded in an active interest in the history of modernism and its dialogue with the contemporary.  After 7 years in a domestic setting, the gallery has expanded to a store front in Vancouver’s historic Chinatown to continue its program of international projects as well as its work with a roster of artists who reflect our interest in the dissenting conceptualist avant garde of the 60s and 70s and its impact on current practice and dialogues. The Apartment exhibits work internationally at LA Paris Photo, Art Los Angeles Contemporary and NADA Miami. 

On exhibit at The Apartment: Vikky Alexander’s The Temptation of St. Anthony.