Walking Art-fully in Vancouver — Exercise Your Legs, Broaden Your Vision

 

 

Last post, I asked you to spot the red sculpture in the photo above — see? there, behind the second tree on the left of the path. . .  

I’d noticed it myself a few days earlier while walking the seawall on the other side of  False Creek (actually an inlet, but so-named because the19th-century hydrographer charting these waters, George Henry Richards, first thought he was going up a creek — realizing his mistake shortly thereafter, he wrote it onto the charts where it has persisted ever since, part of the colonial work to efface the First Nations who called their village here Sen’ákw).  . . . 

If you’ve ever visited Vancouver, perhaps you’ll have walked along part of this seawall — apparently,  at 28 kilometres it’s the longest uninterrupted waterfront path in the world (I did not know this until writing this post — the benefits of blogging and also of being tourist in one’s own city during a pandemic)  with wonderful views of ocean and mountains from almost every point. 

And besides the views of mountains, ocean, urban skyline, along the way you will also encounter some public artworks, such as this newly installed sculpture The Proud Youth by Chinese contemporary neo-realist artist Chen Wenling. The sculpture is one of the artist’s Red Memory series (this article will also tell you more aboutthe artist’s influences, materials, hopes for the series, , brought to the Vancouver waterfront by Vancouver Biennale. 

Sidebar: When I told my Italian Conversation class (in Italian, ovviamente) that I’d gone for a long walk (ho fatto una lunga passeggiata) to see una scultura nuova, that was part of the Biennale, our Italian instructor was taken aback — La Biennale di Venezia?!  “No, no, no,” I quickly corrected, “La Biennale di Vancouver. È molto più piccola ma è comunque abbastanza interessante e bella.”  

Of course, the Biennale here in Vancouver is much smaller than the prestigious and inspiring Venetian original but it’s interesting enough in its own right. And currently, with the 2018-2020 edition — disrupted as it was by you-know-what — supposed to be drawing to an end, we’re instead enjoying a six-month extension during which several new artworks will be popping up around the city. 

The sculpture is playful-with-an-edge. and dominates the view from several angles. Locals interviewed for a Vancouver news site had mixed responses with some rejecting it immediately as “ugly” and “a waste of money” but others remarking on how striking or thought-provoking or happy it is. At the very least, it broadens notions of what Art might mean, to whom, and why. . . Why do we call some kinds of art “beautiful” and others “ugly”? Can we learn to find beauty in something that disturbs us? Can we question our own aesthetic values? Can we learn that our culture’s yardsticks are not universally valid? Can we learn to be humble about that rather than feel threatened?

But those are big questions, and today we’re just out for a walk, right? Still, after we’ve finished looking at Proud Youth from a few more angles, you might want to check out Vancouver Biennale’s website page on the sculpture.  Not only will you read the following information about the sculpture (3000 Kilograms!, 5.5 metres/18 feet high!), but you will find a couple of videos about Chen Wenling and his work (I found the six-minute artist interview compelling — particularly the artist’s explanation about the many ways that the colour Red signifies in/from Chinese culture).

Title: The Proud Youth
Artist: Chen Wenling (b. 1969, China)
Medium: Painted bronze, stainless steel
Dimensions (H x W x D): 5.5 x 3.3 x 2.6 metres (18 feet x 11 feet x 8 feet 6 inches)
Weight: 3,000 kg (3 tons)
Location: South end of Drake Street along the Yaletown Seawall in Vancouver

Chen Wenling’s art often deals with three themes: personal experience, human desire, and community imagination. His vocabulary usually includes exaggerated forms, bright colours, and whimsical and metaphorical tones. Frequently using industrial materials, his works are modest and earthy, and always have a timeless quality. Following his ambitious solo exhibition in Beijing Mingsheng Art Museum, Duration of Allegories, Chen Wenling has brought his Allegories to Vancouver with two monumental sculptures featured in the Vancouver Biennale‘s Open Air Museum, The Proud Youth and Boy Holding a Shark, and an indoor exhibition at Sunzen Art Gallery, all curated by Michael Suh.

The Proud Youth is a representative artwork in Chen Wenling’s Red Memories series. It is named after a popular Wuxia (Martial Heroes) novel called The Smiling, Proud Wanderer (Xiao Ao Jiang Hu 笑傲江湖), which in Chinese literally means “to live a carefree life in a mundane world of strife.” The novel is frequently read as a political allegory.

Not only does the bright red colour signify auspiciousness in Chinese tradition, but this colour is also a testament to the artist’s fiery attitude toward life. The red figure, naked and free, fully reveals his honesty and fearlessness. Simple and truthful, this work creates a direct communication between man and nature, and initiates a sincere conversation between people and society. The cheeky expression and arresting pose are a celebratory call to audiences, inviting them to embrace their inner child.

I would love this sculpture — and be grateful to Vancouver Biennele for bringing it here — if for nothing else than the splendid contrast of that rich red against that blue and white sky. I’m thinking I’ll appreciate the vibrant hue equally when I walk that route on a grey day. . . 

And that mirrored surface as base pulls the landscape into the work, makes it even more dynamic than it already is, changeable with the seasons and with the day’s weather, with the movement of passers-by and admirers. . . 

But I also love this sculpture for its energy, boldness, and playfulness — while yes, at the same time finding something about it (the elongation, the thinness, that slight hint of rictus in the smile) disturbs ever so slightly. And my gratitude to the visionaries who brought it to Vancouver for this extension to the Biennale is also for pushing me to discover something new, learning about an artist I knew nothing of (despite his being “among the top ten contemporary sculptors in the international art industry today.”

And while I didn’t see this sculpture at the Venice Biennale, I learned that not only has Chen Wenling exhibited his work there but he has also, in 1999, won the Venice Biennale International Prize of the Golden Lion (among many other awards through his career).

I was grateful to be spurred on to find out more about a new-to-me artist.  In case you might be as well, let me recommend another article about the artist’s work, an article written in the context of a 2015 exhibition that brought contemporary art to rural China

Here’s an article about Chen Wenling’s influences and the political thrust of his work.

And an interviewwhich considers the way the artist’s work “acts as a mirror to the face of materialism, showcasing either his disgust for it in the forms of pigs, or his nostalgia for unaffected youth in the form of elongated red children”and in which interviewer and sculptor “discussed the message within his work and what it is like to be not only an artist, but a reflection of what many of us feel about today’s world.”

Finally, I found a wonderful videowhile searching for information on Chen Wenling — sadly, there’s no English translation provided and my language skills are limited to French, Italian, rusty Spanish, and very dusty Latin. But the energy and the art and the sense of the artist’s personality come through clearly — and it’s short, well worth the five minutes if you can find it.

I hope you’ve enjoyed these glimpses of Vancouver and perhaps have even discovered a new-to-you artist. Some of you, I’m sure, will already have seen Chen Wenling’s work and perhaps you’ll tell me where and when. Or tell me something about other new art you’ve discovered, perhaps even while out walking in your own neighbourhood. These days while we can’t travel, I’m grateful for all the ways the world still opens itself to us. . . chatting with you is an important part of that.

xo,

f