Art Fag

By only

Sunday October 15, 2006

You don’t even need to go inside the CAG to see my favorite work in the current wry ‘n’ dry exhibition “Concrete Language.” Just walk past the display windows on Nelson Street and check out a 1981 specimen of the matter-of-fact, text-only works that have constituted the grand-daddy of conceptualism Lawrence Weiner’s practice since the ‘70s. The exhibit involves numerous artists from Vancouver and abroad, and is on until November 5. Stay tuned for a public talk by Weiner scheduled sometime next month, exact date TBA. At Catriona Jeffries’ still-new (cavernous and commanding) location on East 1st, Kevin Schmidt of Burning Bush and Long Beach Led Zep fame forges on through the woodsy almost-sublime familiar from past works, this time with a trompe-l’oeil tree and a very Sad Wolf (detail pictured right). While we’re on the subject, work by another CJG artist, the late Jerry Pethick, was recently unveiled on the north shore of False Creek: the Planet of the Apes-y Time Top, a surprisingly bearable new public artwork.