20-7-21

I was at the Vancouver Art Gallery for the first time post pandemic onset, and, truthfully, the first time properly in a couple of years. I usually get a membership and renew annually but was surprised to fine my membership expired in 2018. Two years. I did go once last year on a guest pass but there's been very little there of interest (to me) recently.

I suppose as any gallery should, the Vancouver Art Gallery balances showcasing local artists with with more international offerings. It's offering tourists a glance at what Vancouver's art is about while trying to give locals a glimpse of the world. It's not an easy task. Bigger cities might have more than one art gallery, one to feature art generally, and another to feature local art. Vancouver isn't big enough to support that.

Truth be told, Vancouver, and Canada are relatively small, and young, and filling a gallery with new quality work is challenging. It had been two years since being at the Vancouver Art Gallery and many old and familiar works had found their way into the current exhibitions, including Jeff Wall's Pine on the Corner. I've been to the same corner where Jeff Wall's photograph was taken more than once. More than once the photos have appeared here on this blog. The tree is gone. Then the houses were painted a different colour. And now one of the houses has been razed and replaced with something more modern.

I thought of that pine when I took this photograph. It's the same but different. There's a greater idea about landscape painting and Classical composition in this photograph as well, with paths into it, and a reference to the viewer's position, and inhabitable spaces, public vs. private realm tensions, and an allusion to human occupation without there being a single person in the photograph.

And a tree.