Spinning chandelier by Rodney Graham to be installed under Granville Street Bridge

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      A large spinning chandelier by B.C. artist Rodney Graham is set to be installed under the Granville Street Bridge. The sculpture, which will hang directly over Beach Avenue, is associated with the Vancouver House development by Westbank Projects Corporation.

      The chandelier is part of a larger exhibition, Gesamtkunstwerk—a German word loosely translated to mean artwork synthesized from many art forms—opening March 22. The show curated by Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, who has also been tapped to design the 52-storey Vancouver House, will observe Vancouver’s architectural coming-of-age.

      Graham’s work measures four by six metres and mimics an 18th century candelabra. The spinning chandelier will slowly rotate as it ascends, and once per day, release and spin rapidly back to its starting point.

      The Abbotsford-born artist best known for his association with the Vancouver School group of artists has worked in painting, photography, performance, music, and film. His work has been shown at the Venice Biennale, Museum of Modern Art in New York, Tate Modern in London, and Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. In 2011, Graham won the Audain Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Visual Arts.

      You can follow Michelle da Silva on Twitter at twitter.com/michdas.

      Comments

      9 Comments

      My Town Has Gone To the Dogs

      Mar 6, 2014 at 1:06pm

      This small joke is a perfect complement to the large joke that will be Bjarke Ingels twisty monstrosity. Aside from being a traffic distraction, it will also serve as a hanger for running shoes, a nesting location for birds and will undoubtedly become a magnet for the slingshot and bb pistol crowd.

      Perhaps Rodney Graham could balance this placement of an indoors item out of doors by putting something normally outdoors inside. How about doing the hallways as paved parking? No cars, just dysfunctional parking space, completely out of anywhere it could be useful and other than aesthetically appreciated.

      With Ian Gillespie this city could not be more ridiculous if it had Rob Ford.

      RE: My Town Has Gone To the Dogs

      Mar 6, 2014 at 1:39pm

      You're the worst

      I'm so proud our little city is finally get some big city architecture. This is hopefully the beginning of a move away from the generic green glass highrises to an exciting future for this beautiful city!

      Art Lover

      Mar 6, 2014 at 2:12pm

      I couldn't be more in favour of public art- and I know that in saying that, I lose some of the right to critique- but surely I'm not the only one who associates decorative chandeliers with old-world opulence and excess?

      In a city where real estate has sky-rocketed to comic levels, where the extreme cost of living is squeezing out portions of our population, and where poverty remains a very real issue for so many residents, this feels out of touch and a little irrelevant at best.

      At worst: insensitive, gaudy, and condescendingly bourgeois.

      Am I wrong here? Would genuinely love to hear counter-thoughts.

      RE: Art Lover

      Mar 6, 2014 at 4:27pm

      It occurs to me, knowing Graham's work and that he is not bourgeois, that this installation could be a clever, ironic statement on exactly everything about this city you list above (extreme cost of living etc).

      HellSlayerAndy

      Mar 6, 2014 at 5:26pm

      RE: Art Lover
      Irony is indeed the last refuge of the art critic.
      Surely you can do better than that???

      Art Lover's point is well-taken; a tasteless joke where a chandelier's only context is either ostentatious status/wealth or functionality as light.

      It's super-sized kitsch where the object really has no context, 'code' or purpose to go along with it other than 'it doesn't belong' under a bridge.

      Chandeliers take weak light and illuminate out. So what exactly is under a bridge that needs the 'focus'?
      There are many many indoor lighting approaches...even a faux Tiffany style shade illuminating 'diversity of colour' might make metaphorical sense in Vancouver?

      It is as silly here as they are in the foyers of South Vancouver McMansions.

      cathy

      Mar 6, 2014 at 8:38pm

      me and the pidgeons kinda like it-under bridges is always ugly so anything is an improvement.
      don't think it will last long though.....

      ACMESalesRep

      Mar 6, 2014 at 9:02pm

      “With Ian Gillespie this city could not be more ridiculous if it had Rob Ford.”

      I doubt there's anything quite as ridiculous as comparing the two, to be honest.

      Forest

      Mar 6, 2014 at 10:42pm

      Surely Graham does jest - at the hundreds interior desecrators who have filled this town's condos and faux Edwardian big houses with the same exact chandeliers in every single room of the house, especially the walk-in closets. Slavish obedience to a worn out trend now finds its perfect end point, at the bottom of a bridge.

      bobo

      Mar 8, 2014 at 12:42pm

      I wonder why nobody has mentioned how much this work of "art" is costing to purchase and install????????? Just more wasting of taxpayer money. I predict it will be smashed to bits within a month.