Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘Bill Reid Gallery’

Nicholas Galanin, concept art and the Northwest Coast tradition

Posted in aboriginal art, art, art appreciation, Bill Reid, Bill Reid Gallery, British Columbia, Bruce Byfield, First Nations art, indian art, Michael Dangeli, Nicholas Galanin, Northwest Coast Art, Personal, Tlingit, Uncategorized, Vancouver, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 24, 2009| 3 Comments »

This afternoon, I heard Tlingit artist Nicholas Galanin speak at the Bill Reid Gallery. His talk was my first prolonged exposure to concept art applied to Northwest Coast art. I came away stimulated, but not particularly sympathetic to the effort.

Galanin is the latest of several generations of artists, and has done some jewelry in the traditional style. However, at least for the time being, he is not especially interested in traditional art or culture. He talked about traditional art as being confined by the stereotypes imposed by a romantic view of first nations, and – rather tellingly – could not tell where he obtained a traditional song he used in a video, even though in coast cultures, rights in songs and their performance can be important pieces of property. [Note: Both Galanin and Sonny Assu tell me that it was not the traditional song whose source Galanin didn’t know, but a hiphop song that was part of the same work. See the comments below. I apologize for the error].

Instead, Galanin is more interested in exploring the First Nations as another ethnic minority within the dominant culture – in particular, how coastal images are bastardized and exploited by cheap imitations made in Asia for the tourist trade in the Northwest Coast. He discussed, for example, a series of masks he made out of pages of the Bible, talking about how he found it appropriate that the holy book of Christians, who suppressed shamanism, should be converted into a shaman mask. Galanin also talked other paper masks he had made and how they were masks by a first nations person that showed no signs of first nations culture.

Other projects he discussed involved embedding tourist-trade masks in a wall covered with wallpaper that depicted idealized pictures of 19th century life and another in which the same type of masks were covered in Chinoserie. In a pair of videos, he had a traditional dancer (or an approximation of one) and a modern dancer moving to the same traditional song. In yet another series of work, he gave his version of the highly idealized photos of Edward Curtis: naked women with masks added in a graphics editor.

Meanwhile, ten meters from the podium where he stood was his contribution to the Bill Reid Gallery’s Continuum show: A version of Bill Reid’s “Raven and First Men” rendered by a chainsaw. Galanin was seeing his version of the famous sculpture for the first time, because he had outsourced the work – as he does much of his work.

The outsourcing is a commentary on commercialism, but I also had the sense that for Galanin what matters is not the actual work so much as the concept. Apparently, he sees his role as that of impresario, rather than as an artist who necessarily creates works with his own hand.

Having been a grad student in an English department of a major university, I am tolerably well-versed in such approaches to art. Nor do I find anything in Galanin’s social commentary with which I disagree.

But I wonder if I am missing something, because I have never found this kind of concept art very compelling.

For one thing, it seems to have little room for something that is central to my own appreciation of art – the enjoyment of craft, of sheer artistic excellence. Part of this lack may be that it does not delve deeply into tradition, so it has no standards to judge skill by. But the major reason for the lack seems to be that, when you are making a comment, craft becomes unimportant or perhaps a distraction.

Moreover, when you are commenting on commercialism, too much craft is probably out of place. If anything, your message is stronger if an object shows a lack of craft.

This situation helps create another problem: most concept art, including Galanin’s, is like a symphony of a single note. If your ideal is the “well-made object” of Bill Reid’s aesthetics, then viewers can return to it many times, and even discover something new after the first viewing. In comparison, concept art seems simple and to offer few reasons to return to it. Once you have grasped the message – which is often simple enough that you can reduce it to a single sentence, or at least a rather short paragraph – nothing is left to appreciate. Concept art seems to be unambiguous and unsubtle by nature, and, consequently, not very interesting.

In this respect, it is interesting to compare Galanin’s chainsaw Bill Reid knockoff with Mike Dangeli’s ridicule mask, which is also in the Continuum show. Where Galanin’s “Raven and the First Immigrants” seems one-dimensional, Dangeli has reached into his cultural history to bring an old concept into the future: just as the ridicule masks of the past were public announcements of a wrong, so Dangeli’s is a declaration of the wrongs suffered from the first nations. Dangeli’s mask is every bit as social or political as Galanin’s sculpture, but where Galanin’s sculpture seems facile, Dangeli’s mask is ambiguous and complex. And I doubt it is a coincidence that Dangeli is throughly involved in preserving and reviving his culture while Galanin sounds like a typical deracinated intellectual.

But such issues are a matter of taste. Regardless of what I think of Galanin’s work, I have to admit that the very fact that it takes the form that it does illustrates the diversity of Northwest Coast art and proves it a living tradition. And that by itself, I suspect, is something of value.

Read Full Post »

Michael Dangeli: Traditionally Contemporary

Posted in aboriginal art, art, art appreciation, Bill Reid Gallery, Bruce Byfield, First Nations art, indian art, Nisga'a, Personal, Uncategorized, Vancouver, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 1, 2009| Leave a Comment »

The Bill Reid Gallery kicked off a series of talks about artists from its Continuum exhibit with a slide show by Michael Dangeli, a Nisga’a artist who has started to receive recognition in the last few years. The choice was lucky or inspired, because Dangeli is more articulate about his work than most artists, and has clearly thought carefully about what he is doing.

The Continuum show is supposed to be about the conflict between traditional and contemporary influences in Northwest Coast art. And, in fact, Dangeli was introduced in terms of this conflict. However, he immediately made clear that he rejects such a dichotomy in his own work. Calling his work “traditionally contemporary,” Dangeli made clear that he considers his work a continuity of the past, both an attempt to reclaim it and to expand and to adopt it.

One reason why Dangeli is comfortable with the paradox of living with opposites is that he sees the rest of his life in such terms. Nisga’a by birth, he has lived in the United States and Vancouver, far from his nation’s territory. Deeply interested in his cultural past, he is also aware that he is a modern urbanite in his day to day life. Spiritually inclined, he is also a veteran of two tours of duty abroad in the American military. With such tensions, those between the traditional and contemporary must seem like just one more.

Another reason that Dangeli can have the attitudes he does is probably the fact that he is actively involved in the cultural revival of his people – something that seems especially unusual for an urbanite. During his discussion, Dangeli talked of pieces of art being given as payment for services, and at potlatches, as well as important events such as a betrothal. He talked, too, of being groomed to take over a chieftainship, and of his hesitation about taking on an even larger chieftainship recently. He talked about his dancing, and of acquiring songs and dances and inventing new ones, and of exploring the distinctions between male and female powers and responsibility with his finacee.

Unlike many First Nations artists, Dangeli seems either fortunate enough or determined enough to have lived with a sense of tradition from an early age. Consequently, it is easier for him than many artists to see a continuity rather than an opposition.

This continuity seems to affect his art very strongly. He talked of preferring that his gallery pieces not have eyes that would make them danceable, and of his relief when he managed to buy back an early exception to this preference. He talked, too, of making one of the first stone masks for well over a century, and having it danced.

But the strongest evidence of his artistic continuity came at the end of his talked, when he uncovered three pieces of his work that are reserved for ceremonial purposes: The mask he bought back and modified with a pieced of Ainu cloth; the stone mask, and a frontlet worn by his fiancee. He explained that he generally kept them covered, and treated them as living spirits, requesting that people look them over a few at a time so as not to overwhelm them. It was unclear to me whether any power in the objects was innate or resided in the respect shown to them, but his attitude was curiously moving.

Even if you didn’t share his cultural background or beliefs, they were obviously alive for him – either never having died or after being carefully revived, or some combination of the two. Clearly, he had fought hard to make them meaningful to himself and those around him, and I believe that he has largely succeeded. At the very least, he demonstrated to the audience that his cultures were still ongoing and hadn’t stopped developing with the European conquest.

All this says nothing directly about his work, which ranges from the traditional to the modern, with a variety of color palettes and a frequent emphasis on collaborations with other artists – or “brothers,” as he called them.

I have liked what I’ve seen of Dangeli’s work in the past, and, by the time he had finished talking, I had a much clearer sense of why, and an increased interest in what he might do in the future. And, really, what more can you ask of an artist’s talk? With several dozen slides and intelligent commentary, Dangeli sets a high standard for the next speakers in the series to match.

Read Full Post »

Review: “Continuum: Vision and Creativity on the Northwest Coast”

Posted in Aaron Nelson-Moody, Andrew Dexel, art, art appreciation, art galleries, Bill Reid Gallery, British Columbia, Bruce Byfield, Carrie Anne Vanderhoop, Dan Wallace, Dean Hunt, First Nations art, Ian Reid, Krista Point, Mike Dangeli, Moy Sutherland, Northwest Coast Art, Personal, Phil Gray, Shawn Hunt, Sonny Assu, Teri rofkar, Uncategorized, Vancouver, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 21, 2009| 6 Comments »

(Note: Because the staff was unsure which exhibits the artists had given permission to photograph, I was unable to take pictures)

When I go to an art gallery, I come prepared to be pleased. Just as when I go to a movie or go to a book, I generally arrive with few expectations. I try to practice the concept that I should understand a work in its own terms, and not through the filter of expectations that I bring with me. Over the years, I have found that this approach has allowed me to appreciate things that I might otherwise have dismissed.

I mention my perspective because I have to report, very much against my wishes, that the new exhibit at the Bill Reid Gallery, “Continuum: Vision and Creativity on the Northwest Coast” is a disappointment. The fact that it comes after the gallery’s first successful show that highlighted Bill Reid’s career, and shares space with the dazzling permanent collection of Reid’s jewelry only makes the show’s failure all the greater.

For the most part, the problem is not with the artists. True, a few of the artists chose to submit the physical equivalent of one-liners. For instance, Shawn Hunt’s “Trickster,” which shows Raven perched atop a can of clam chowder is amusing at first glance, with its reference to Andy Warhol’s famous silkscreen (and also an indication of how Bill Reid’s “Raven and First Men” has altered the traditional story in modern minds, since the recorded historical versions mention a different type of shell). But, on second glance, what the incongruity means remains elusive. It seems only a poke at the commercialization of Northwest Coast art in a way that has already been done before. Personally, given the design ability displayed in Hunt’s Raven, with the grinning faces as part of the body and wing, I would far rather see what he does with less derivative work, especially since he is a relatively new artist.

A similarly limited work is Moy Sutherland’s “The Negotiator.” Sutherland, whose work I have often admired elsewhere, is not the first artist to add First Nations politics into his work. But where Charles Heit (Ya’Ya) rarely lost sight of his art and his comments had an angry wit to them. Sutherland’s use of Canadian flags, five dollar bills, and a dangling carrot is simply angry. It can be reduced to a single short sentence: He is angry with the people negotiating land claims on behalf of his nation. Any work that can be reduced to fourteen words, I submit, is not art at all, regardless of whether I sympathize with the sentiment, as I do with Sutherland’s.

However, the majority of the work exhibit present an interesting variety. In contrast to Sutherland’s work, Mike Dangeli’s “’Redemption’ Ridicule Mask” presents a much more complex reaction to the situation of the First Nations, using an old tradition to comment on contemporary politics.

Similarly, Ian Reid creates a new effect by placing Chilkat patterns and colors on a raven mask. He did so, he explained as an acknowledgement of Tlingit and Tsimshian women who introduced the Chilkat patterns into Heiltsuk society. At a time when many First Nations people are descended from multiple nations or are half European in ethnicity, he said, this acknowledgement seems particularly appropriate. The juxtapostion of two different traditional media more than justified Reid’s motivation, resulting in an arresting and original effect.

Dan Wallace also placed Chilkat patterns in a new medium by engraving them on his silver bracelet, “Remembering our Royalty.” Like Reid, Wallace emphasizes the importance of looking back at history while reflecting on the current situation, and, like Reid, produces a new artistic effect as he does so.

Other pieces worth seeing included a traditional Tsimshian mask and a stop-action video of its carving by Phil Gray, Sonny Assu’s graffiti-like canvas with its reds and pinks and grays, Dean Hunt’s traditional-looking mask “Pk’vs: Wild Man of the Woods,” and Aaron Nelson-Moody’s red cedar and copper panel “Copper Man.” Nor should I forget to mention the wealth textile works, such as Marianne Nicolson’s “Tunic for a Noblewoman,” done in memory of her grandmother; Krista Point’s untitled Salish blanket; Teri Rofkar’s “Tlingit Robe,” and Carrie Anne Vanderhoop’s “Dream of Dragonflies.” Individually, all these works were well-worth lingering over and returning for second and third and fourth looks.

The problem is, while most of the works in the exhibit stand on their own merits, they seem to add up to nothing as an exhibit. Part of the problem may be that the show seems to have changed directions, starting as an exhibit of young artists but transforming into an exhibit with the theme of the tensions between the contemporary and the traditional and adding older, more established artists. But, for whatever reason, the result is a seeming random collection of artists.

For all the obvious skill of individual artists, there seems no particular reason why these particular artists were chosen. Any of four or five dozen other artists could have been swapped in instead, and the impression left by the exhibit as a whole would not be significantly changed (As if in confirmation of this statement, after I left the exhibit, I saw Andrew Dexel, the graffiti artist, at one of the Aboriginal Days booths outside the Vancouver art gallery).

Another problem is that, with only one work allowed per artist at the most (one bracelet was the work of three), you have trouble appreciating anyone’s work. A quarter of the artists, and four or five works apiece would help visitors to gauge each artists’ range. Given the number of newer artists in the exhibit, that sort of context would have been welcome.

As things are, the result is that seeing “Continuum” is not much different from seeing the latest work at a commercial gallery. In fact, I have seen larger shows at commercial galleries, as well as chances to meet the artists that did not include a request for donations at the door.

Nothing is really wrong with such a show – I guess. But the Bill Reid Gallery is not a commercial gallery, and is obviously struggling to be something more. Its difficulty is that it is still struggling to define what that something else might be. In “Continuum,” I suspect it temporarily lost its way in academic critical jargon and posturing (if the catalog is any judge).

I can only hope that, with its next show, the Bill Reid Gallery returns to the success of its first show. If it does, then I will be happy to report the fact. Meanwhile, so far as “Continuum” is concerned, “disappointment” is the mildest word that I can honestly choose.

Read Full Post »

George Macdonald’s lectures on Haida villages

Posted in archaeology, Bill Reid Centre, Bill Reid Gallery, British Columbia, Bruce Byfield, Haida, Haida villages, history, northwest coast history, Personal, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on November 20, 2008| 1 Comment »

For the past three Wednesday evenings, I’ve attended George Macdonald’s lectures on Haida villages at the Bill Reid Gallery. It was time well-spent, and I only regret that the lectures stopped with three. Nobody is boring when talking about an area of expertise, and Macdonald, Director of the Bill Reid Centre for Northwest Coast Art Studies at Simon Fraser University and the author of Haida Monumental Art, was certainly in his element. Just as importantly, he combined knowledge with an informal and lively manner, which made for an absorbing scholarly trio of evenings.

Macdonald divided his subject matter into the southern villages centering on Skidegate, the central villages around Masset, and the northern or Kaigani villages of southern Alaska. Unsurprisingly, the second lecture was the most popular, with many Haida living in Vancouver coming out for it, including artists like Gwaai Edenshaw and Dorothy Grant, but the third was also popular, perhaps because the arbitrary border has resulted in few Canadians knowing much about the Kaigani villages. And the entire series was attended by a core of regulars, including me.

The first surprise in the lecture is how much photographic evidence exists from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Because much of this evidence is not available to the general public, many people, I suspect, are like me and believe that it is very limited. However, Macdonald speaks in terms of thousands of photos (and I’m not sure that he didn’t talk of tens of thousands), to say nothing of sketches by anthropologists and navy officers, and works of art like Emily Carr’s. In fact, so much of this evidence exists that pieces can be cross-correlated, and the distinctive style of individual – if often anonymous – artists can be detected. Macdonald showed perhaps a few hundred slides of this evidence, but his lectures were enough to suggest the surprising wealth of material.

Another source of evidence is family tradition. In many Haida villages, memory or written records have preserved the names of many of the houses, as well as some of their history. For instance, at the third lecture, Dorothy Grant told her grandfather’s story of how his village was abandoned for a centralized, missionary-run new village of running water and electricity. During the burning of possessions that the missionaries insisted upon, her grandfather saved only the contents of the bentwood box in his hands.

Nearly four hours of lecture and audience participation is almost impossible to summarize. However, other topics in Macdonald’s lectures included the patterns of resettlement in the south as European diseases forced the survivors to regroup and, in many cases, regroup again; the use of palisades and hilltops during wars between lineages; the names and appearances of some of the great chiefs and carvers of a hundred and forty years ago; the question of whether Albert Edward Edenshaw was trying to bypass matrilineal inheritance by bestowing property on his son, and the characteristic designs of the graves of shamans. In many cases, too, the villages were illustrated by sketch maps or aerial photos.

Equally fascinating were Macdonald’s own stories of his experiences as an archaeologist in the field. They ranged from the careless destruction of one pole that survived into modern times in Prince Rupert, and the danger of bears while exploring villages. Macdonald also revealed in passing some of the professional issues and puzzles in the study of villages.

This was the first lecture series from the Bill Reid Gallery. The gallery is an ideal place for a small crowd, even if the monumental Mythic Messengers and the smell of cedar from Jim Hart’s work on his tribute pole to Bill Reid sometimes became distractions. But, on the whole, if it is an example of what these organizations plan to offer in the future, then future events deserve to be crowded. Like any good lectures, Macdonald’s have pushed back the boundaries of my ignorance a little while tantalizing me to find out more.

Read Full Post »

The wolf banner

Posted in art, art appreciation, Bill Reid, Bill Reid Gallery, Bruce Byfield, Haidan art, Personal, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on August 29, 2008| Leave a Comment »

A banner, I’ve found, is hard to hang by itself. Several weeks after buying the Bill Reid raven banner that is one of my daily delights, I limped back to the Bill Reid Gallery to buy the wolf banner in the same series.

Since an injury had delayed me picking it up, I had been tormenting myself with visions of collectors discovering the banners and snapping them up, but, happily my fears were unrealized. Had I wall enough and cash, I could also have bought the frog, Mouse Woman, Dogfish Woman, and Beaver banners that were my alternate choices.

However, I am pleased to have the wolf banner, because it is one of the most playful in the set of 13 banners. As Reid himself points out in the text of All the Gallant Beasts and Monsters, the book from which the banner designs were taken, wolves must have been a fantasy figure in traditional Haida culture, since they are not found on the islands. He suggests they must have been semi-mythical, the epitome of ferocity and hunger, with their teeth always sunk in somebody’s belly.

It is this fantasy figure that Reid presents on the banner. The wolf’s twisted posture and the arrangement of the feet suggest that it stalking low to the ground. The head, which is as large as the body is dominated by the teeth, which are three-quarters the length of the head, with outsized nostrils and ears giving it a look of ferocity, especially with all these elements being red. The waving tail, also as large as the body, also helps to suggest intent, furious motion.

The most traditional element in the banner is the head, and even there, the design elements are designed to suggest a roundness of form – a kind of nod to realism. By contrast, only the back hip-joints in the body are classically designed. The length of the body, the feet are almost sketch-like in comparison, consisting of red ribs and black fur. As with the raven banner, in which the body is almost neglected in comparison to the body and the wings, in this banner Reid is focusing on the key aspects of the figure. Even the claws are not emphasized in any way, perhaps because it is the wolf’s hunger that he is most interested in.

All Northwest coast art has the habit of distorting figures to the surface, whether that surface is a ring, a box, or a spindle. Designing for the printed page or banner, Reid has no need to warp the design, but he does so anyway. His wolf twists asymmetrically, leaving much of the left side of the space blank – a suggestion, perhaps, that the wolf is stalking and trying to make itself less visible. One rear foot is stretched out behind suggesting that the wolf is moving low to the ground. At the front, though, the figure is so twisted that one foot is unseen, hidden by the head. Overall, the contortion of the wolf suggests a cat more than any canine – a reminder that this is a fantasy, but one whose blurring of natural categories adds to the menace.

Unlike the raven, the wolf banner has little sign of naturalism. With its modernly asymmetrical posture and the use of red to emphasize the wolvish elements, this is an animal that has been designed rather than observed. You sense right away that this wolf is the sort you have nightmares about. It’s a second cousin to the one in “Peter and the Wolf” and Tolkien’s wargs, the kind you imagine chasing sleds across the frozen Russian steppes in the hopes of snapping up a passenger.

At the same time, the depiction is so exaggerated that there is a kind of black humor to this wolf. From both the design and his remarks, I suspect Reid enjoyed both the menace and the humor. The result is an ambiguous design that is both these things at once.

Head Closeup

Read Full Post »

I’ve acquired a Bill Reid banner

Posted in art, art appreciation, Bill Reid, Bill Reid Gallery, Haidan art, Northwest Coast Art, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 9, 2008| 3 Comments »

For many people, Bill Reid is the epitome of Northwest Coast art. The reputation is both deserved, given the quality and variety of his work and unfair, given the number of artists in the same tradition who are equally worthy of acclaim. But regardless of how you view his reputation, Reid has a strong claim to being the major Canadian artist of the late twentieth century, with one of his pieces both on display at the Canadian embassy in Washington, D. C. and on the back of the Canadian twenty dollar bill. And, like any admirer of Northwest art, for a long time, I’ve lusted to have one of his works but been unable to afford one – until now.

Even then, I only did so by getting into an area that the collectors haven’t discovered yet. I bought a canvas raven banner whose design is an expansion of the illustrations that Reid did for All the Gallant Beasts and Monsters, which was published in 1991. The banner was part of one of two complete sets of banners from the personal collection of Martine Reid, his widow, and was sold through the recently-opened Bill Reid Gallery in downtown Vancouver, so its provenance is unquestionable. In fact, I’ve left my email address with the gallery so that Martine Reid can give me more details about the banner.

The last stages of Reid’s development as an artist could be called his post-Haida era, in which Reid, while obviously basing his work on tradition, began incorporating more modern or personal elements into his work. The banner fits very clearly into this period.

While the ovoids and wings feathers are in the Northwest tradition, the torso, the foot at the bottom of the tail and head feathers are something else entirely. Similarly, while the twisting of the entire figure as though it is turning away from the viewer seems in keeping with the distortion of figures to fit a particular shape in classic works, Reid handles the distortion with high imagination, inverting shapes on one wing on the other, and presenting some shapes in full on one wing, but only hinting at them in another. It is as though Reid is inventing a new form of perspective that comes from neither Northwest nor modern art, although obviously drawing on both.

Raven Banner

Reid’s design is equally playful when it comes to symmetry, seeming to abandon it at first glance, but really playing some complex games with it. The body of the raven is defined by the triangle formed by the ovoids on the wings and at the base of the tail, an unusual shape in traditional art. At first, too, the body seems asymmetrical, with the left wing showing three flight feathers and the right wing four – but then you notice that the right wing’s four feathers matches the four toes on the foot and the neck feathers, and forms another triangle whose angles are an inversion of the first triangle.

Then, in contrast to this complexity, there’s the simplicity of the head, with its economical lines and the heavy beak that suggests both the classic depictions of the raven and their actual appearance.

Head Closeup

It’s a complex work, and one that could only come after decades of development, with clean lines that stand out all the more because the design is black on white.

I don’t know if I got a bargain or overpaid, or whether the purchase will prove a good investment. The price was acceptable to me, and, since I bought the work because I admired it, I don’t care if its value increases over time. But the work shows all the mastery of Reid’s last period, and I admire it hugely.

The only trouble is, I’ve hung it in our hallway, and the rest of the hallway cries out for a matching banner. So, I suspect this won’t be the only Reid banner I’ll be buying this year. But if I can get one that intrigues me as much as this one, I’ll be extremely well satisfied.

Read Full Post »

The opening of the Bill Reid Gallery

Posted in art, Bill Reid, Bill Reid Gallery, British Columbia, Bruce Byfield, Canada, Northwest Coast Art, Personal, Uncategorized, Vancouver, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on May 11, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Northwest coast art is one of the healthiest schools of modern art, because it starts from a tradition yet still welcomes innovation. A juxtaposition of local First Nations mythology and the rain forest environment on one hand and advanced industrial techniques on the other, it also seems to reflect the experience of anyone who lives in the area where the artists work. For these reasons, yesterday I fought down the ‘flu that had taken root in my stomach to attend the public opening of the Bill Reid Gallery in downtown Vancouver.

Bill Reid was one of the founders of modern Northwest coast art, and his work from the late 1940s to his death in 1998 is broadly reflexive of the school’s history, starting with imitations of the past and gradually gaining originality as his confidence and knowledge of technique increased. With copies of his monumental Spirit of Haida Gwaii at the Canadian embassy in Washington D.C. and the Vancouver airport – as well as on the Canadian $20 bill – he is perhaps the best-known Canadian artist of the last forty years.

The gallery that carries his name features Reid, but, in recognition of his influence, does not confine itself to his work alone. A tribute pole by Jim Hart dominates the main gallery, and the gift shop has a large room where other Northwest artists are highlighted. Right now, the gift shop features April White, but I understand that the plan is to change the exhibit regularly.

The gallery windows are covered in semi-transparent blowups of Reid’s design, but still let in the natural light. With its high ceiling and dais for speakers, the main gallery suggests a modern version of a Northwest longhouse, the only jarring touches being the carvings around the archway and the computer screens and holograms that stand-in for pieces of Reid’s work that are not in the gallery A mezzanine allows visitors a chance to see close up the top of Hart’s pole, as well as “Mythic Messengers,” a bronze sculpture that is one of Reid’s best-known works.

Although today was the official opening, finishing touches at the gallery are still lacking. Several display cases are empty, and many are unlabeled. Nor does a guidebook or recorded tour exist. For yesterday, little of that mattered, because one or two people were giving tours, but I worry a little that the context may be lost on casual visitors.

Knowing that context is important, because otherwise the gallery might be mildly disappointing. Several of the pieces are smaller versions of Reid’s monumental works, and the change of scale makes it easy to under-estimate them. In particular, a palm-sized version of “Raven and the First Men” looks cramped and intricate where the original at the University of British Columbia’s Anthropology Museum looks spacious and simple.

Still, that is a quibble that seems ungracious when such a gift has been given to the area. With Reid’s preference for deep-carving and, in the last stages of his development, his trust of blank spaces – to say nothing of his consummate knowledge of technique and his frequent experimentation – his work consistently breathtaking. And to see so much of it in one space remains an overwhelming experience, even if his best work is not always represented. I found that I had to wander in and out of the gallery several times, just so I could appreciate all the exhibits properly. Otherwise, I would tend to wander in a sort of daze of admiration.

While I was there, I was also lucky enough to catch Martine Reid, the artist’s widow, talking about the jewelry displays. Although her French-accented English was easy to lose in the crowd, her reminisces helped to bring her husband’s development as an artist into perspective while also revealing something of his human side.

I particularly remember her story of how she bought a silver box he had made several decades previously and gave it to him as a birthday gift; he stared at it, she says, like a parent who had not seen his child for decades – then took a napkin and started polishing it.

Martine Reid also recalled that her husband used to carry a coil of wire and a pair of pliers in his pocket, and would twist the wire into shapes as he sat and talked. His “knitting,” he called it. Apparently, the habit was so ingrained that, even in his final illness, he was moving his hands as though twisting wire.

The Bill Reid Gallery is small — at least, to display an artist with such a long and varied career — but, if yesterday is any indication, I expect it will become an important center in Vancouver, not just for tourists, but for the First Nations community and art-lovers. Lingering for several hours, I completely forgot my ‘flu, swept away by the convictin that a species that can create such an artist obviously has redeeming qualities despite what you read in the newspapers.

Read Full Post »