Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver)

The Contemporary Art Gallery (CAG) is a non-profit public contemporary art gallery in downtown Vancouver. The CAG exhibits local, national, and international artists, primarily featuring emerging local artists producing Canadian contemporary art. It has exhibited work by many of Vancouver's most acclaimed artists, including Stan Douglas, Ian Wallace, Rodney Graham, Liz Magor, and Brian Jungen, and it continues to feature local artists such as Damian Moppett, Shannon Oksanen, Elspeth Pratt, Myfanwy MacLeod, Krista Belle Stewart and many others. International artists who have had exhibitions at the CAG include Dan Graham, Christopher Williams, Rachel Harrison, Hans-Peter Feldmann and Ceal Floyer. Other notable people that have curated or written for the CAG include Douglas Coupland, Beatriz Colomina, Roy Arden, and John Welchman. In January 2011, Nigel Prince, former curator of the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham U.K., was appointed executive director of the CAG. Apart from the exhibition of visual art, the Contemporary Art Gallery produces publications, facilitates education and outreach programs, public talks, and visiting artist/curator programs, and maintains a library.

Contemporary Art Gallery
Location in Vancouver
Established1971
LocationYaletown in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Coordinates49.279676°N 123.121547°W / 49.279676; -123.121547
Typeart gallery
DirectorNigel Prince
CuratorKimberly Phillips
WebsiteContemporary Art Gallery

History

Established in 1971, the Contemporary Art Gallery (originally called the Greater Vancouver Artist's Gallery) began as an outgrowth of the Social Planning Department of the City of Vancouver, in which Vancouver artists were hired for a six-month period to produce art for exhibition at the gallery, and for inclusion in the City of Vancouver Art Collection. In 1976, the CAG was incorporated as a registered federal charity and a non-profit society under the Societies Act of British Columbia. In 1984, the Contemporary Art Gallery became an artist-run centre. It was widely recognized for providing initial solo exhibitions and catalogues for many of Vancouver's now well-known artists.[1] By the early 1990s, the exhibition program had expanded to include artists of national and international origin. In 1996, the Contemporary Art Gallery was transformed from an artist-run centre into an independent public art gallery, fulfilling the need for a contemporary visual arts institution with programming positioned between the vibrant experimentalism of Vancouver's artist-run centres and the more popular programs of large general-interest institutions. In May 2001, the Contemporary Art Gallery moved to a new purpose-built facility.[2]

Production Postings exhibit by Christian Kliegel, at the gallery in 2006

In 2006, Vancouver artist Christian Kliegel's exhibit, "Production Postings," featured hundreds of signs that film and television production units had used to direct their casts and crews to filming locales; "the general design and style of these brightly coloured signs are formulaic and a ubiquitous part of Vancouver's urban landscape," reads the exhibit description.[3] Film production companies claimed these signs as stolen property, the Vancouver police were contacted, and gallery officials were forced to take down some of the signs and replace them with photocopies. "If anything," Kliegel claimed, "the movie companies themselves practice location theft by setting a film in Vancouver and making it look like another city." Christina Ritchie, the gallery's Director, posted a letter addressed to Off-Set Rentals on the gallery's front door, telling the company's officials that she found it "sad and disappointing" that they could not appreciate Kliegel's "unique and insightful image of Vancouver."[4]

Building
Shannon Oksanen's exhibit Summerland in one of the two galleries at the exhibition facility

The Contemporary Art Gallery is located in the ground floor and mezzanine of a residential condominium building at 555 Nelson Street, at the corner of Nelson and Richards, just on the edge of Yaletown, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. In 2001, Martin Lewis, a UBC Professor and Noel Best Architect AIBC designed the facility the CAG now occupies. The exhibition facility consists of two galleries and a series of window vitrines on the façade that provide an additional opportunity for exhibition. The B.C. Binning Gallery is 1,040 square feet (97 m2) and the Alvin Balkind Gallery is 676 square feet (62.8 m2). A reception area adjoins the reading room, in which visitors can access information on current and past exhibitions. The Abraham Rogatnick Library, which participates in an international catalogue exchange with other galleries and museums, is located on the second floor and is open to the public by appointment. The building was awarded an AIBC Architectural Award of Excellence, Lieutenant Governor Medal in 2002.[5]

Programming

In 2018 the gallery began a five-year contract to curate art in the London Canada Gallery at the Canadian High Commission, London.[6] In 2019 the gallery launched the How far do you travel? program, placing contemporary art on the side of Vancouver Translink buses.[7][8]

Notable publications
  • Christopher Williams: Archäologie Beaux Arts Ethnography Théâtre-Vérité by Claudia Beck and John Miller. Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC, 2005. (ISBN 0-920751-96-2)
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See also

References
  1. Poll, Rosemary. "The CAG's First Ten Years." Ten Years Later. Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC, 1986. (ISBN 0-920751-10-5)
  2. CAG About. Contemporary Art Gallery. Retrieved 2009-05-23.
  3. CAG Exhibitions. Contemporary Art Gallery. Retrieved 2009-06-10.
  4. CBC Arts (2006-06-07). Artist's use of production signs in dispute. CBC News. Retrieved 2009-06-10.
  5. Canadian Architect Canadian Architect. Retrieved 2017-30-06.
  6. February 22, Kevin Griffin Updated; 2018 (23 February 2018). "Contemporary Art Gallery curates new program in Canada House, London - Vancouver Sun".CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  7. "TransLink buses turn into rolling paintings as Contemporary Art Gallery launches How far do you travel? project". Georgia Straight Vancouver's News & Entertainment Weekly. 4 January 2019.
  8. January 21, Kevin Griffin Updated; 2019 (22 January 2019). "Metro Vancouver TransLink buses moving art as well as people - Vancouver Sun".CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
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