From Bars to Brollies, Bright Lights

Posted on Mar 13, 2012 in Press, Projects, T & T: False Creek, When The Hosts Come Home

T&T: False Creek

At the Pen­du­lum Gallery until March 3

by Robin Lau­rence, Febu­rary 25, 2010

Orig­i­nal Arti­cle | Down­load (PDF — 438KB)

When inde­pen­dent cura­tor Patrik Ander­s­son invited T&T to cre­ate a sustainability-themed exhi­bi­tion for the Pen­du­lum Gallery dur­ing the Win­ter Olympics, he made this request: “Think about what hap­pens when the Olympic count­down clock goes below zero.” Tony Romano of Toronto and Tyler Brett of Bruno, Saskatchewan—who often make art together under the sobri­quet T&T—responded with a cheery, postapoc­a­lyp­tic vision of Van­cou­ver called False Creek. Specif­i­cally, their instal­la­tion is a kind of after-the-gold-rush imag­in­ing of the area.

Located in the atrium of the HSBC Build­ing at the cor­ner of Geor­gia and Hornby streets, the Pen­du­lum Gallery looks out at one of the gath­er­ing places for Win­ter Olympics crowds. The count­down clock, the teem­ing plaza, the floral-patterned north faí§ade of the Van­cou­ver Art Gallery, sky-high ads from cor­po­rate spon­sors pasted across neigh­bour­ing office towers—all con­tribute to a hec­tic and boos­t­er­ish tem­po­rary environment.

Inside the Pen­du­lum Gallery, the huge mobile sculp­ture by Alan Storey that gives it its name dom­i­nates the space. As Ander­s­son pointed out in a recent inter­view with the Straight, the immen­sity of the atrium has a ten­dency to over­whelm the exhi­bi­tions it hosts. Not, how­ever, this one. The show con­sists of three car-based assem­blages, a panoramic print, and a des­ig­nated area where chil­dren can colour T&T–produced draw­ings. Also part of T&T’s project are a children’s pic­ture book and a hand­some cat­a­logue with a smart and insight­ful essay by Jor­dan Strom, both avail­able on-site.

The free­stand­ing sculp­tures, which sit on car­pets of bright green Astro­Turf, rep­re­sent whim­si­cal house­boats. They’re com­posed of old car bod­ies altered with build­ing mate­ri­als, bicy­cle parts, flags, planters, pro­pellers, and brightly hued paint. Among their many ref­er­ences are the inequities of Vancouver’s real-estate boom, the con­struc­tion of the Ath­letes’ Vil­lage, and the now-banished float­ing homes of for­mer False Creek squat­ters. The allu­sion to dis­placed squat­ters serendip­i­tously coin­cides with Ken Lum’s tem­po­rary sculp­ture from shangri-la to shangri-la, on dis­play at the VAG’s Off­site space a cou­ple of blocks west.

T&T’s instal­la­tion also relates to their estab­lished brand of “carchitecture”—their future fic­tions in the form of com­puter draw­ings and sculp­tures in which aban­doned cars are repur­posed as struc­tures in which peo­ple might live, work, and meet. As seen in the lively light-jet print that serves as a kind of illus­trated guide to False Creek, the artists pro­pose a post­car future for Van­cou­ver in which, curi­ously, the waters of False Creek have not risen but have drained away, along with most of what we know of the area.

T&T’s postapoc­a­lyp­tic vision is not one of blasted nature inhab­ited by rov­ing bands of thugs and can­ni­bals. It is brightly coloured, opti­mistic, even utopian. Whether fish­ing, plant­ing, dis­man­tling Sci­ence World’s geo­desic dome, work­ing with var­i­ous low-tech devices impro­vised from ped­als and pul­leys, or lis­ten­ing to min­strels, every­one in the com­mu­nity depicted gets along swim­mingly. The sky is blue, the trees are green, and life is sim­ple and har­mo­nious. It’s a vision that, while deeply crit­i­cal of our climate-altering ways, should appeal to both adults and children.