Vancouver could soon have a public art work unlike anything else in the city.
The developer of Vancouver House, the 52-storey twisting tower by the Granville Street Bridge, is proposing to hang a spinning, 18th-century-style chandelier from underneath the bridge.
Designed and conceived by artist Rodney Graham, the sculpture would be about five metres in size.
Although details still have to be worked out, it would likely be made from a polymer similar to skateboard wheels that mimic crystal and allow LEDs to be embedded inside. Over the course of 24 hours, the chandelier would turn slowly while rising. At a predetermined time once a day, it would be released and descend to its original position.
Vancouver House wants to hang the chandelier from the bridge deck above Beach Avenue.
Ian Gillespie, president of Westbank Projects, the developer of Vancouver House, believes Graham’s artwork will be a major addition to the city.
“This will change Vancouver,” he said in an interview. “People are going to fly to Vancouver because of this piece.”
Reid Shier, the public art consultant for Vancouver House, said the spinning chandelier will likely become as much a part of the fabric of the city as other horological time pieces such as the 9 o’clock gun, the 12 noon O Canada blast at Canada Place and the Gastown clock.
“It’s one of the more extraordinary ideas for a piece of of public art,” Shier said.
“I can’t imagine a more magnetic thing to go watch. It will be one of those things that will be an extraordinary event unto itself.”
While the project has been approved by the city’s public art committee, much more work has to be done to carry off Graham’s design. Shier said the city’s engineering department has looked over the project and given it initial approval to continue.
“There are few precedents for such an audacious adaptation and addition to civic infrastructure,” Reid said in the Vancouver House public art proposal to the city.
Total cost of the project is estimated at $1.2 million. The biggest component of the project is making the chandelier at $390,000.
Graham hasn’t yet given his public art work a title. Unofficially referred to as the spinning chandelier, it is a sculptural interpretation of an earlier film of his called Torqued Chandelier Release. The film is an illustrated thought experiment inspired by Sir Isaac Newton’s 17th century water bucket experiment which explored the physics of rotational motion. The 35 film shot at twice normal speed records a chandelier hanging from a rope off-camera as it is wound up and then released. The chandelier spins in one direction until it unwinds, slows and spins in reverse direction until it eventually comes to rest.
“It is an extraordinary film work,” Reid said. “The clarity and beauty are just mesmerizing.”
Rarely seen, Torqued Chandelier Release will be shown at the Belkin Gallery at the University of B.C. this summer in an exhibition of Graham’s work that opens June 20.
As an artist, Graham’s work has often explored opticality and the origins of making images with cameras including the camera obscura, a device to project an image on a screen and a precurser to the modern camera.
The installation of the spinning chandelier is designed to reclaim forgotten urban space under the bridge. Vancouver House is also reclaiming other unused spaces under the Granville Street Bridge with another public art proposal to hang light boxes from the bridge deck to animate a new urban plaza bracketed by two low-rise buildings.
Concept drawings for Graham’s work will be shown at Gesamtkunstwerk, an exhibition on the evolution of Vancouver House and the city’s architectural building forms, which opens Saturday, March 22
 |
Designed and conceived by artist Rodney Graham, the sculpture would be about five metres in size.
Although details still have to be worked out, it would likely be made from a polymer similar to skateboard wheels that mimic crystal and allow LEDs to be embedded inside. Over the course of 24 hours, the chandelier would turn slowly while rising. At a predetermined time once a day, it would be released and descend to its original position.
Vancouver House wants to hang the chandelier from the bridge deck above Beach Avenue.
Ian Gillespie, president of Westbank Projects, the developer of Vancouver House, believes Graham’s artwork will be a major addition to the city.
“This will change Vancouver,” he said in an interview. “People are going to fly to Vancouver because of this piece.”
Reid Shier, the public art consultant for Vancouver House, said the spinning chandelier will likely become as much a part of the fabric of the city as other horological time pieces such as the 9 o’clock gun, the 12 noon O Canada blast at Canada Place and the Gastown clock.
“It’s one of the more extraordinary ideas for a piece of of public art,” Shier said.
“I can’t imagine a more magnetic thing to go watch. It will be one of those things that will be an extraordinary event unto itself.”
While the project has been approved by the city’s public art committee, much more work has to be done to carry off Graham’s design. Shier said the city’s engineering department has looked over the project and given it initial approval to continue.
“There are few precedents for such an audacious adaptation and addition to civic infrastructure,” Reid said in the Vancouver House public art proposal to the city.
Total cost of the project is estimated at $1.2 million. The biggest component of the project is making the chandelier at $390,000.
Graham hasn’t yet given his public art work a title. Unofficially referred to as the spinning chandelier, it is a sculptural interpretation of an earlier film of his called Torqued Chandelier Release. The film is an illustrated thought experiment inspired by Sir Isaac Newton’s 17th century water bucket experiment which explored the physics of rotational motion. The 35 film shot at twice normal speed records a chandelier hanging from a rope off-camera as it is wound up and then released. The chandelier spins in one direction until it unwinds, slows and spins in reverse direction until it eventually comes to rest.
“It is an extraordinary film work,” Reid said. “The clarity and beauty are just mesmerizing.”
Rarely seen, Torqued Chandelier Release will be shown at the Belkin Gallery at the University of B.C. this summer in an exhibition of Graham’s work that opens June 20.
As an artist, Graham’s work has often explored opticality and the origins of making images with cameras including the camera obscura, a device to project an image on a screen and a precurser to the modern camera.
The installation of the spinning chandelier is designed to reclaim forgotten urban space under the bridge. Vancouver House is also reclaiming other unused spaces under the Granville Street Bridge with another public art proposal to hang light boxes from the bridge deck to animate a new urban plaza bracketed by two low-rise buildings.
Concept drawings for Graham’s work will be shown at Gesamtkunstwerk, an exhibition on the evolution of Vancouver House and the city’s architectural building forms, which opens Saturday, March 22
No comments:
Post a Comment