At the Museum of Vancouver, two very different exhibitions reveal the city through the people who built new lives, new art and a global creative industry.
A city is built in more places than we tend to notice.
In a basement suite where an artist keeps creating after a long day at work. In the everyday objects that become reminders of another life. In a studio where game developers build worlds that will eventually be played far beyond Vancouver.
This fall, two exhibitions at the Museum of Vancouver look at the city from very different directions, yet both arrive at a similar idea: the story of a place is really the story of the people who make something here.
BECOMING: THE ART OF GU XIONG
Becoming: The Art of Gu Xiong is the most comprehensive presentation of Gu’ s work to date, tracing more than five decades of artistic practice through painting, sculpture, photography, video and installation.
Born in Chongqing, China and now based in Vancouver, Gu experienced life as a labourer during China’ s Cultural Revolution before building an artistic career. After coming to Canada, he faced another kind of transition: establishing himself in a new country, navigating a new culture and beginning another chapter of his life.
One of the exhibition’ s most personal sections looks at the years Gu and his family were building a life in Vancouver. He worked as a dishwasher, janitor and pizza chef while continuing to make art from the basement home where they were living.
A charcoal drawing of the staircase in that basement suite captures an ordinary domestic view, but in the context of Gu’ s story it becomes much more. It reflects a period shaped by work, uncertainty, adaptation and the gradual process of making a new home.
That experience of living between cultures appears throughout the exhibition. Gu’ s work turns familiar objects and everyday spaces into ways of thinking about memory, identity and belonging.