Preview: The Gallery Guide | June–August 2010

PHOTO: OTTO LANDAUER
www.sfu.ca/gallery
Bridge City: Links for a Fragile Peninsula, 1895 -1980
TECK GALLERY, SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY, VANCOUVER BC – Mar 15-Jun 25, 2010
These images of local bridge construction reveal the universal gracefulness and ‘dynamic form’ of steel
and concrete in the service of making new transportation links.
The city of Vancouver and its surrounding municipalities and cities were once a series of disconnected
villages. The waterways separating the various regions are linked today by numerous bridges. The
concept of “Greater Vancouver” depends to a great extent on their construction. Photographs by
Leonard Frank and Otto Landauer document
local bridge erection and capture both the
difficulties and the triumphs.
The photos for the exhibit were selected
from the Leonard Frank Photos Studio
Collection of the Jewish Museum & Archives
of British Columbia, which includes 39,000
photographic images taken between 1880
and 1983. The studio was founded by
Leonard and Bernard Frank and later purchased
by Otto F. Landauer. The years 1946
to 1971 in particular were a heyday for Modernist
influence on Vancouver’s architecture
High-steel men working on the Port Mann Bridge above the Fraser
River, BC. February 23, 1962 [Teck Gallery, SFU Vancouver Campus,
Vancouver BC, Mar 15-Jun 25] Source: Jewish Museum & Archives of
BC, Leonard Frank Photos Studio.
and transportation infrastructure. These
three decades witnessed the virtual rebuilding
of Vancouver’s central business district.
The subject of bridges in the 21st Century
raises questions of their fragility in the face
of earthquakes, rising sea levels and other
natural events; the cost-effectiveness of their maintenance and replacement, the aesthetics of their
design and construction, and the socio-geopolitical forces involved in building and maintaining
structures designed to integrate different municipalities with different agendas. Mia Johnson
tion. Jun 4-Jul 18 Claire Kujundzic,
“Message from the Beetle”, an intuitive,
risk-based process incorporating iron
and charcoal mimicking beetle trails,
reminiscent of cave paintings; Jul 23-
Sep 4 Taj Alexev, “Allegro”, botanical
images in paste resist and natural dyes
reminiscent of African bark cloth.
KELOWNA
★ Alternator Centre for
Contemporary Art
103-421 Cawston Ave, Rotary Centre
for the Arts ✆250-868-2298
www.alternatorgallery.com
tues, wed, sat 11am-5pm thurs & fri
1-9pm. Jun 18-Jul 31 Chris Bose,
“Jesus Coyote”, combination of
sound, video and large-scale supersaturated
colour images juxtaposing
archival images of the Nlaka’pamux
people with Jesus Coyote. Bose portrays
the mythical trickster figure of
‘Senklip’ as a hybrid of Indigenous
and Christian spiritual beliefs.
Geert Maas Sculpture
Gardens and Gallery
250 Reynolds Rd ✆250-860-7012
www.geertmaas.org
irregular hours. Geert Maas, internationally
acclaimed artist invites the public
to visit his exceptional sculpture gardens
and indoor gallery with one of the
largest collections of bronze sculpture
in Canada; changing exhibitions of distinctive,
rounded, semi-abstract figures,
architectural structures as well as
installations in a wide variety of materials
including bronze, stainless steel,
aluminum, wood, stoneware and multimedia.
The great diversity of outdoor
art is complemented in the gallery by an
overwhelming number of paintings,
serigraphs, medals, reliefs and sculpture
in various media.
★ Kelowna Art Gallery
1315 Water St ✆250-762-2226
www.kelownaartgallery.com
daily 10am-5pm. Thru Jul 18 Nobuo
Kubota: Hokusai Revisited, Torontobased,
senior Canadian artist salutes
the 19th C. printmaker Hokusai, and his
famous print ‘The Great Wave’; Thru
Sep 18 The Tree From the Sublime to
the Social, large thematic exhibition
organized and circulated by the Vancouver
Art Gallery; Thru Sep 26 Trevor
Mahovsky and Rhonda Weppler,
“Dysfunctional Chairs: The Searchers”,
the Vancouver-based artist duo produce
a work with a notable absence of
chairs in which their seated figures are
perched on the gallery roof; Satellite
Space at the KELOWNA INTERNATIONAL AIR-
PORT Thru Nov 8 Byron Johnston, “Single-Sprocket
Super-16”, installation of
an entropic landscape created by tossing
and piling up unwound reels of old
16-mm films.
32 PREVIEW ■ JUNE/JULY/AUGUST 2010 ★ OPEN LATE ON FIRST THURSDAYS