Above: A-maze-ing Laughter (GoToVan/Flickr)
When we were kids, my dad would take me and my sister to English Bay on Saturday mornings. We’d grab banana bread at the Starbucks on Davie Street and make our way to the water, passing through Morton Park on the way. But there was always one part of the journey that gave me the chills, something that was fairly new at the time: The “Laughing Statues”. You know the ones, the odd, slightly terrifying 9-foot-tall men with Joker-esque grins? But A-maze-ing Laughter as it’s officially known is far from the only abstract art installation in the city. In fact, Vancouver has an abnormally large number of funky statues dotted throughout its streets, and I wanted to know why.
Besides A-maze-ing Laughter, some of the city’s most recognizable oddities include The Drop, a 65-foot long water droplet located at the Bon Voyage Plaza at Coal Harbor, Aerodynamic Forms in Space, an abstract aircraft at the entrance of Stanley Park, and of course, the Spinning Chandelier under the Granville Street Bridge, to name just a few. So, what’s the attraction? Why are there so many of these things?
Well, there’s a few explanations for why every block has something on display. For starters, there’s a little thing in Vancouver called a Community Amenity Contribution. The brass tacks of a CAC is a cash contribution to the city from developers when they grant building rights through rezoning. This money then goes into housing, parks, libraries, and yes, public art. Since the end of Expo, the city has been a golden goose for developers across the planet, and with more new developments being approved by the day, it makes sense that the city might have a substantial budget for abstract airplanes and giant water drops.
Of course there’s also Public Art Vancouver, which commissions artists to “spice up” certain public spaces by way of multiple programs, such as the Community Public Art Grant and the Civic Public Art Program. They also manage that CAC money through the Private Development Program.
So that covers where the money comes from and how the city plans installations, but there’s still a big piece of the puzzle left unsolved. Vancouver’s art installations are weird. Very weird. They could just be run-of-the-mill statues or murals, but instead they’re stacks of cars on top of a log, or a pixelated orca. Well, I think I’ve cracked the code.
Vancouver is an abnormal city with abnormal people, and I don’t mean that as an insult. We’ve built a community that fosters some of the most creative artists you’ll ever come across, as our diverse cultural makeup has allowed different forms to mix and mingle, creating a distinctly Vancouver style. Additionally, our wealth of art institutions like Vancouver School, Vancouver Film School, and Emily Carr University help to entice visionaries from across the Lower Mainland and the world at large to the city, such as my sister. She’s studied in the United States at the California Institute of the Arts, but now, she’s planning on attending Vancouver Film. Like many of her peers, she recognizes that Vancouver is the place to be for up and coming artists, as it’s appetite for innovative, out-of-the-box works doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere.
Written by Noah Schmidt
Contact: nschmidt20@my.bcit.ca