other sights

Shaun Gladwell: Storm Sequence

Image © Shaun Glad­well Video still from Storm Sequence, 2000 , cour­tesy the artist & Anna Schwartz Gallery, Syd­ney, Australia

Down­load Press Release (PDF — 307KB)

pre­sented on the led screens

Rob­son and Granville Streets, Vancouver

Jan­u­ary 15 – 25, 2009

every 3 min­utes, 24 hours per day

Guest Cura­tor: Karen Henry

Other Sights is pleased to present an excerpt from Storm Sequence, by Aus­tralian artist Shaun Glad­well. Although filmed on the other side of the world, Storm Sequence evokes our own rainy coast in con­junc­tion with the global urban sub­cul­ture of skateboarding.

In Storm Sequence, the drama and grandeur of a tra­di­tional paint­ing of a storm at sea is inte­grated with the per­for­mance of a young man skate­board­ing on the con­crete pil­ings, caught in that moment of height­ened energy just before the storm breaks. Gladwell’s skate­boarder depicts a roman­tic fig­ure of the beauty and self-absorption of youth, and slow­ing the speed of the image empha­sizes the agility and grace of his move­ment. Gladwell’s work typ­i­cally explores youth sub­cul­tures as a man­i­fes­ta­tion of phys­i­cal prowess in rela­tion to urban com­merce and archi­tec­tural space. He posi­tions his work within a tra­di­tion of artis­tic ges­tures that respond to the city.

Storm Sequence is the sec­ond project of Look­ing Up, a curated series of artists’ works that engage with pub­lic space and civic agency, pre­sented by Other Sights for Artists’ Projects Association.

Pre­sented by:

Other Sights grate­fully acknowl­edges the sup­port of the BC Arts Coun­cil and the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts.

Related Links

Ffinni­gans Wwake [Aaron Car­pen­ter]
Open My Glade [Pip­i­lotti Rist]
Vox Pop [Anto­nia Hirsch]