Solitude 2007

A major exhibition featuring the multi-faceted work of artist Douglas Coupland is slated for next year at the Vancouver Art Gallery, from May 31 to September 1, 2014. Titled Douglas Coupland: everywhere is anywhere is anything is everything, it’s the first exhibition to survey the visual art of this well-known Vancouver author, designer, and artist.

The title of the exhibition refers to Coupland’s relationship with place, cultural identity, and information and technology access.

Douglas Coupland was born in 1961 and grew up in West Vancouver, where he continues to live and work. His groundbreaking best-selling novel, Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, was the first in a line of successful books. Coupland has penned 13 novels, seven nonfiction books, and two collections of short stories in addition to film and television projects. Since the 1980’s, he’s exhibited his work both nationally and internationally.

Canada Picture No.3 2001
[Canada Picture No.3, 2001]

Coupland’s work challenges conventional definitions of high and low art, referencing historical artists such as members of the Group of Seven, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg and Roy Lichtenstein, while also drawing on pop culture, technology and Canadiana to explore “the 21st Century condition.”

Working with diverse media—from children’s toys to books to found materials such as plastic lids—he probes the way objects, images, and the processes of contemporary life affect our understanding of the world.

Le Boson de Higgs, 2013
[Le Boson de Higgs!, 2013]

The exhibition will contain five thematic sections, including Canada Noir (an unraveling of Canadian cultural identity with paintings, large-scale sculptural installations, and building models) and Words into Objects (an investigation of Coupland’s relationship with text and literature).

Coupland, heavily involved in the digital realm, will also contribute to a real-time online magazine about the exhibition. Visit the exhibit page online.

No Comments

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.