THE VANCOUVER BIENNALE

Jaume Plensa, We (2008), aluminum. Located at Sunset Beach Park, Vancouver.

INTERNATIONAL SHOW EXPANDS BEYOND SCULPTURE

With most of the monumental public sculptures in place around the city, the Vancouver Biennale is set to move into phase two, which will fill spaces with new media and performance art. The second Biennale (the first, in 2005 - 2007, resulted in the city acquiring five important pieces of public sculpture) the scope of the show has expanded well beyond its original mandate, and has become more interactive and widespread.

This 2009 - 2011 Biennale has brought together a remarkable, global collection of sculpture, including work by Yue Minjun, Dennis Oppenheim, Jun Ren (making his North American sculpture debut), and Sophie Ryder. Minjun’s work, A-Maze-ing Laughter incorporates his iconic laughing man, while Ren’s, Freezing Water #7, pours a wave of steel across the landscape. Mexican sculptor Javier Marin’s Cabeza Vainilla, Cabeza Cordoba, Cabeza Chiapas lays a series of giant, neoclassical heads in the Vancouver suburb of Richmond.

New media pieces include work by Kelly Mark and Joe Sola. Biennale organizers will also take the show on the road — adapting the theme of “in-TRANSIT-ion” to put art on buses and on the new Canada Line trains, along bike routes, and in the Vancouver Airport.

Yvonne Demenge, Olas de Viento (Wind Waves), painted bronze. Located at Garry Point, Steveston, Richmond. PHOTO: Dan Fairchild Photography.

Artists from Canada, China, Korea, Spain, France, the U.S., Mexico, Poland, Lithuania, Italy, India, and England are participating in 2009 - 2010. It’s been a rapid expansion from the kernel of an idea in 1998, put forward by Vancouver’s Buschlen Mowatt Gallery, to bring an international group of sculptors to place art in highly visible public places in the city. That show, which included work by Niki de Saint-Phalle and Fernando Botero, grew within a decade to gather public support, leading to the current incarnation, and an exhibition that is soundly accessible to the public.

Phase Two, which will be operational all summer, will bring an interesting influx of new forms of art, expanding the show in unusual ways, and appealing anew to the public.