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

12 Comments

  1. Anonymous
    22 March 2021 / 5:24 pm

    Applause!! Your italian is excellent!
    Thank you for a virtual walk and discovery of a new-to-me artist. He is very interesting ,as well as his work (interesting contrast-it was custom in Japan and many minority groups in China history to paint teeth in black!)
    I love to see Vancouver through your eyes,so please,take us for a walk again
    I've visited last art exibition maybe 18 months ago…..but,yes,there are some sculptures in parks where I walk. Dottoressa

  2. slf
    22 March 2021 / 5:54 pm

    New to me as well. So much we can learn from art, so much to appreciate. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

  3. Sue Burpee
    22 March 2021 / 8:36 pm

    Oh, I love the stance and expression of this red child. Exhaustion and elation combined? Remember running as fast as you possibly could as a kid, until you had to stop just like this one, gasping and gleeful? Anyway, that's what this untutored-in-art-interpretation person sees. He does look a wee bit like Gollum from Lord of he Rings as well, if that's not being too irreverent.
    No art on my riverside walks except for the tracks made on the ice by the hundreds of geese on our river. They ARE kind of interesting, though. 🙂

  4. Rosie
    23 March 2021 / 11:23 am

    I love this sculpture …so vivid and exciting! My initial thoughts being almost identical to Sue’s! It’s all new to me, so I’m looking forward to looking at your links … thanks so much for this Frances … it’s a fascinating post.
    As you know, I so enjoy walks around Vancouver with you. Hoping one day we’ll actually be able to have lunch together too!
    I hope you’re having a good week …
    Rosie

  5. Duchesse
    23 March 2021 / 12:33 pm

    Public art, white a minefield. I can see why this piece generated such diverse reactions. And I wonder how he will age, that eternal boy. Thank you for the walk!

  6. Jennie, San Francisco
    23 March 2021 / 12:38 pm

    Thank you so much for this wonderful Vancouver walk. Like all the others said, a new artist, interesting sculptures, beautiful red color against the blue sky. I was in Vancouver in the 90’s. Looking forward to coming back again and seeing a whole new Vancouver.

  7. Elaine @ Following Augustine
    24 March 2021 / 12:42 am

    I've walked the seawall or parts of it many times. Next time, I'll have to make sure that I get over to the False Creek side for a look at Proud Youth in person.

  8. materfamilias
    24 March 2021 / 4:15 am

    Dottoressa: I'm glad you're enjoying these neighbourhood walks — I remember seeing many beautiful sculptures in Zagreb.

    SLF: Yes, this is what I find as well — I'm always turning a corner and finding out how much more I have to learn. Won't be getting bored anytime soon 😉

    Sue: It's exactly that moment, isn't it?! Catching one's breath! I think the Gollum effect comes from the combo of bald head, the elongation and thinness (the artist's memories include the poverty of his childhood, so not cute and chubby kids).

    Rosie: Vivid and exciting! I love those two adjectives for this. And yes, I hope someday you might be back in Vancouver and we'll have a good long walk along the seawall — I have a few ideas about where we might stop for lunch 😉

    Duchesse: Contemporary art always seem to evoke some predictably negative response, most of it predictably tiresome to me, to be honest.
    As for how this sculpture will age. . . I suppose we could ask that of any work of art — certainly much that was derided in its day has become pleasing to us. . . and just as clearly, much of the expressive potential of supposedly classical styles seems exhausted. . .

    Jennie: The Vancouver of the 90s was already so much different from the Vancouver of my 'teens, but it's changed so much again since then. I hope you do get back here again.

    Elaine: I think this will be here for the next six months — I hope you get a chance to see it.

  9. Anonymous
    24 March 2021 / 2:57 pm

    What an interesting city you live in. Actually there is a large sculpture park just a few miles from me. Artists from all over the world represented. Lovely grounds. It closed when the corporate building on the grounds was renovated. Eventually it reopened but only limited access, it used to be open daily. Now it is closed entirely during the pandemic. I have to say I am a little jealous.
    Darby

  10. Marsha
    25 March 2021 / 5:29 pm

    As is often the case, your post has got me to thinking about an artwork in a deeper than usual fashion, so I thank you, because that experience is somehow very gratifying and I have it too seldom. In my own neighborhood, we also have larger-than-life (much larger) sculptures of human figures that I believe originally graced the dust of Burning Man and have found their permanent home here, where they originated. Although they are really towering, I am often happy to hear (in person and through social media) from someone who has just discovered them and loves them as much as I do.

  11. Carolpres
    4 April 2021 / 5:59 pm

    Coming late to the party on this one – Packing! Moving!

    I love this sculpture – the pure joy of it, the bright red, the mirrored base bringing the Vancouver sky to the ground. Thanks for sharing, since I we can't visit it in person.

    When I was there in 2016 for Christmas, I stumbled across the newly-installed Ai Weiwei piece, "F Grass," which was a part of that Biennale, while I was out for my morning walk. I've been a fan of Ai Weiwei's work for quite some time, and it was a joy to encounter it so unexpectedly. Kudos to Vancouver for encouraging public art in such a manner. Here's the link to the work itself: vancouverbiennale.com/artworks/f-grass/

  12. materfamilias
    5 April 2021 / 8:01 pm

    Darby: How lucky to have that sculpture park nearby, although frustrating to have access limited. I hope you get at least some of that privilege back before too long.
    Marsha: I've just spent an enjoyable few minutes browsing some of the Burning Man sculptures extant out there — astonishing in scope and variety and intriccacy!
    Carol: Lateness no problem — I'm so excited your move is proceeding.
    And thanks for reminding me about Ai Weiwei's piece — I posted about it the Spring before you saw it: I love his work as well, ever since we saw his Sunflower Seeds installation at The Tate Modern. (His film Human Flow was so moving, so powerful)

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