Poster!

Marie-Claude Langevin — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 20:28:19 +0000

Artwork identification

Artwork creator(s):

Courcey, Michael de

Artwork creator(s):

Courcey, Michael de

Text author(s):

Courcey, Michael de

Text author(s):

Courcey, Michael de

Installation year:

1988

Remarks on location:

Downtown

Artwork description

Source: Sherrin, Bob (1988), Urban Subjects, Vancouver : The Vancouver Association for Non Commercial Culture

Description:

Posters installed in illuminated signs.

Mention(s) légale(s) des illustrations:

Photo credits:

Remarks on image:

Overview

Text of the artwork:

READ
THE
WRITING
ON THE
WALL
---
IT IS THE
ART
OF THE
STREET

Text theme:

Street art

Artwork theme:

Ideology of public and private spaces; mixture of personal and cultural messages on the street

History

History:

Event: Exhibition Urban Subjects September 26-October 15, 1988

Event date(s):

1988

Dimensions

Height:

2.28m

Width:

3.05m

Other information

Note(s):

Text printed in 10 languages

Artist's biography:

De Courcy, Michael

Source:

1. Michel de Courcey mdec@decourcy.ca 2. Vancouver Association for Non Commercial Culture, centre d’artistes (1984-1998) (Fonds Vancouver Association for Non Commercial Culture fonds) en la possession de la Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery University of British Columbia Contact: Krisztina Laszlo , Archivist Address: University of British Columbia, 1825 Main Mall, Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1Z2 Phone: (604) 822-0001 Fax: (604) 822-6689 EMail: klaszlok@interchange.ubc.ca

Document(s):

Urban Subjects

Domicile (Neighbourhood Series)

Marie-Claude Langevin — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 14:17:44 +0000

Artwork identification

Artwork creator(s):

Campbell, Kati

Artwork creator(s):

Campbell, Kati

Text author(s):

Campbell, Kati

Text author(s):

Campbell, Kati

Installation year:

1988

Remarks on location:

Downtown. Signs placed in windows.

Artwork description

Source: Sherrin, Bob (1988). Urban Subjects, Vancouver : The Vancouver Association for Non Commercial Culture

Description:

Illuminated posters installed on billboards

Mention(s) légale(s) des illustrations:

Photo credits:

Remarks on image:

Image 1: details. One of the four panels of the artwork. Image 2: detail. Three of the four panels of the artwork. Picture 3: detailed. The work in context (overview from the street)

Text of the artwork:

[panel 1]

Common morning   activities   accom-
plished within a few seconds : turn off the
tap,   open   the   curtains, take   off   the
kettle, pour the water, open the fridge,
pour the milk, replace the carton, close
the   fridge,   close    the    bathroom   door.
Once    inner   adhesions    give    way,
Common    motions    break    down,    are
Significant   tasks   in   themselves.

The man chased the woman out onto
the deck. He flailed at her with a long
plank of wood; she held her own with a
metal coat rack.
The deck doors are constantly left
open. Often he has his son or daughter
down on the living room floor while he
pummels and kicks them, screaming
hoarsely. Or else the woman is chasing
them with a cooking pot. Squalls of
words swirl about them.

[panel 2]

Although small and plain, the backyard
is used to its fullest capacity. Many
nights in summer, the whole family sleeps
outside, the man, the woman, the three
teenaged sons, the young daughter. Each
has their own cot, blankets and sheets.
An electric alarm on an extension cord
wakes them up for work.

Two motions deliberated carefully and
then she must sit down, exhausted, beside
the window. She can just see the heads
of two people in another house carrying
on a conversation. Nodding civilly back
and forth. Normality.

[panel 3]

The law required them to build a two
car garage and put in a driveway. This
left little space for a garden. The week
before they moved in, the grandmother,
old and tiny, almost doubled over, built
up a garden in the driveway. They parked
their car on the street.

Several times each year, the young girl
can be heard screaming, over and over,
“Why don’t you just kill me you bastard,
oh I want to die, I want to die”. When
the police come, the mother and daughter
are helped out of the house and they
drive away.
Recently the young girl came home
from the hospital with a baby. The
stepfather has since bought a new car
and dresses more respectably.

[panel 4]

Last year they tried to get rid of the son,
dangerously full grown now and as sour
as the father, by paying his way back to
the homeland. He came back after a few
months; no change.

This was in mid-November and she had
a miraculous garden of giant bok choy
and cabbage under plastic. She tended
it every day; with slow, precise move-
ments, she would lift the plastic, the
wind blowing, then prune and weed and
water. Meanwhile the other houses’
legitimate garden spaces lay fallow, open
to the winter weather.

Text theme:

(Dysfunctional) domestic suburban life

Artwork theme:

Lack of direct interchange amongst city dwellers; exposes fraud of neighbourhood; dislocation, alienation from our neighbours; home as a hideaway from the urban, public sphere

History

History:

Home (Neighborhood Series). Screenprint on plexiglass, fir, fluorescent fixtures, paint. Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Vancouver

Exhibition Urban Subjects, September 26-October, 15, 1988.

Event date(s):

1988

Dimensions

Height:

109m

Width:

38m

Other information

Artist's biography:

Campbell, Kati

Source:

Vancouver Association for Non Commercial Culture, centre d’artistes (1984-1998) (Fonds Vancouver Association for Non Commercial Culture fonds) en la possession de la Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery University of British Columbia Contact: Krisztina Laszlo , Archivist Address: University of British Columbia, 1825 Main Mall, Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1Z2 Phone: (604) 822-0001 Fax: (604) 822-6689 EMail: klaszlok@interchange.ubc.ca

Document(s):

Urban Subjects

Privé/public: art et discours social = Private/Public : Art and Social Discourse

Présences du littéraire dans l’espace public canadien - Urban Subjects

Poster!

Domicile (Neighbourhood Series)

[panel 1]

[panel 2]

[panel 3]

[panel 4]