Wing Chow

In celebration of its 30th Anniversary, the Contemporary Art Gallery presents an exhibition honoring its early years. On February 23, 1973, the Artists’ Gallery opened its doors at 555 Hamilton Street. Later to be renamed the Contemporary Art Gallery, the Artists’ Gallery was initiat­ed by an arts advisory committee under the umbrella of the City of Vancouver. Central to its early mandate and philosophy was the promotion and creation of local visu­al arts. 

During this time the City of Vancouver began a program, with assistance from the Federal Local Initiatives Program (LIP) to collect works by local artists. In support of this ambitious project, the Artists’ Gallery was con­ceived as both a depository and exhibition space. The Contemporary Art Gallery continues to act as custodian for over 3000 collected works, many dating from the early to mid 1970s when the majority of works were created. The history of this important collection of art, of the Artists’ Gallery and of the early years of the community that shaped what would become the Contemporary Art Gallery will be showcased this summer in an exhibition featuring selected works from the collection. 


Essay: “L.I.P. Service,” Reid Sheir

A black and white photograph depicting a person wearing a striped shirt drinking from a glass bottle. They are outdoors in a vast crowd of people milling around or seated in the grass.

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Four coloured paintings are mounted on the gallery wall. These images depict people working in various natural environments including lakes and woods. Their gestures mimic some biblical stories. 

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A coil-shaped wood sculpture is placed on a pedestal. Two coloured prints and a pair of black and white drawings are mounted on the wall behind this wood sculpture.  

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A tall sculpture is placed in the middle of the gallery floor. It has two cube shapes; one is on the floor and another in the air supported by a thin leg. These two cubes are connected with a chain.

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A number of black and whire photographs are mounted on the wall. They are arranged in two rows running horizontally to the floor. A wood sculpture on a pedestal stands in front of this wall.

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Five artworks are installed on a gallery wall. A text-based work is placed in between a coloured photograph and a drawing. Two large black and white drawings are mounted in the back. 

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A large sculpture is placed on a pedestal. It looks like a flat square-shaped slab of white marble. This slab has a carved gun bullet shape placed in its middle. 

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Eight black and white photographs are mounted on the wall. They are placed in a row horizontal to the floor. Many of those photographs depict pedestrians on the streets. 

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On a large plinth placed in the middle of the gallery, six square-shaped sculptures sit. Four framed two-dimensional works are mounted on the walls around this plinth. 

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In a gallery space, a set of blue and white landscape drawings and another set of small coloured drawings are mounted on the wall. Two wood sculptures are placed on pedestals.

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Different two-dimensional images cover CAG’s window spaces. One window is covered by a detailed image of a black and white photograph of children standing outside. 

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A set of eight coloured drawings are mounted on the wall. Those images are dominated by blue, grey, and white. These depict different scenes of a city foregrounding blue mountains and the sky.

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Two of CAG’s window spaces are visible in this photograph. Different works cover those windows. One is covered by an enlarged image of a photograph of people at English Bay in Vancouver. 

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A set of three drawings are mounted on the wall. They all depict geometric shapes that could be found in geometry exams. None of the drawn shapes are shaded. 

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Two of CAG’s window spaces are visible in this photograph. Enlarged images from different black and white photographs cover those windows. Both images depict people but in different social settings.

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Works from the City of Vancouver collection

L.I.P. Service

“Viewers can catch a crash course in Vancouver art of the 70s just from the pieces on the CAG walls. Works such as Wing Chow's four images of rough concrete or earthen surface illustrate the 70s’ obsession with surface and texture: after all, this was the decade that popularized corduroy, velour, interior stucco, and shag carpets. Another obsession emerges in an entitled geometric drawing by Gary Lee-Nova: maniacally intricate and detailed pencil work. Scrapped with a painstaking zeal rarely seen today. The influence of album art and acid can be seen in two works by Jed Irwin, whose biomorphic shapes appear to borrow from Martin Sharp’s cover for Cream’s Wheels of Fire, and pop still makes its mark in Eastcoffe’s bright silkscreens of industrial valves and faucets. … This exhibit smacks so viscerally of a place and time that now seems ancient history that it is both provocative and pleasurable.”

Excerpted from Alexander Varty, “Civic Stores Contain Tack and Treasure,” *The Georgia Straight* (Vancouver, BC), July 30 – August 6, 1993.


Wing Chow

Exhibitions