Cheaper Show 10

Last night was the preview of the Cheaper Show 10 at a temporary venue set up on the corner of Kingsway and Broadway, just across the street from Our Town Cafe. 

The Cheaper Show is an art show where every piece is selling for $200. It's a way for artists - local and international - to showcase their work, while also providing art lovers with a way to purchase art without going broke. It's also a bit of a who's who of the Vancouver art scene, as always.

I experienced the Cheaper Show for the first time last year when it was at Woodwards W2 building. I wasn't impressed much by what I saw last year, but I blame it partially on crashing it during its last half hour after having attended a wedding all evening. This year is a different story.

Nevertheless, if you intend to buy art, go early as most things sell within minutes of it opening. Most people however, I figure, just go to the Cheaper Show to see and be seen. So it goes.

If you're going to the Cheaper Show tonight, here's a taste of what you can expect. Click on the photos to zoom right in to see them in all their detailed glory. You know you want to!

Free Fred Herzog photography exhibits at the Equinox Gallery

Coal Harbour circa 1959 - photo by Fred Herzog

It's hard to believe that's what Coal Harbour looked like in 1959.

It almost looks fake, but it's not. I mean, heck! Did Georgia Street really look like Kingsway back then?

The photo is Fred Herzog's. It's one of the many Herzog photos featured at the Equinox Gallery on South Granville. Herzog's work is featured in two exhibits at the gallery: Reading Pictures and Early Colour Photographs - the latter of which features Vancouver.

Granville Street circa 1959 - photo by Fred Herzog

But the photos capture why I love Fred Herzog. He candidly captured Vancouver's past in colour when the rest of the world was shooting black and white. He brings to life lost eras of Vancouver's past and makes me nostalgic for a time I never knew. There's no such thing as a time machine, but this is the next closest thing.

I figure I'd throw this shout out to the Equinox because it's one of the many private galleries open to the public on South Granville. It's completely free to view the galleries. While the Equinox often features Fred Herzog's photography, these two exhibits end next weekend on March 5th, so if you're looking for something to do this weekend and you're even remotely interested in Vancouver history, put the Equinox Gallery on your agenda.

PuSh Festival's La Marea

I accidentally stumbled upon the surreal film set-like performance, La Marea, on Water Street Thursday night. As explained by the Georgia Straight:

PuSh International Performing Arts Festival presents nine stories imagined through pictures of the inhabitants of Water Street. The show is called La Marea, and along the street, in the trendy heritage storefronts and upstairs windows, a series of vignettes plays out, with live actors and surtitle screens that reveal their stories and innermost thoughts.

More information at www.pushfestival.ca/

Needless to say, it made Gastown even more photogenic than it already is...

Brian Eno in Vancouver

March 1993 - the month I discovered my taste in music. I listened to U2's Achtung Baby and my life changed forever. Cliches aside, Achtung Baby made me into the music geek I am today. But despite all my music geekdom, I never considered myself a fan of Brian Eno, mostly due to ignorance. I mean, I knew his more accessible projects - Roxy Music, U2, Passengers, collaborations with David Byrne, etc. - but never felt the urge to, say, discover Music for Airports. Ambient music, despite my love for more obscure ambient shoegaze crap (Ulrich Schnauss, anyone?), just never appealed to me. 


My loss, I suppose.


Despite all this, I jumped at the chance to see Brian Eno do a lecture at Vancouver's Vogue Theatre. He was in town by coincidence. The Vancouver Art Gallery managed to snag him for their Culture Series before his 4am flight to Brazil. He was in Calgary the night before because his art installation, 77 Million Paintings, is at the Glenbow Museum. ("That doesn't seem to be somewhere one would associate with Eno", an acquaintance of mine suggested.) In any case, if one's flying to Brazil, I suppose Vancouver's where you get your connecting flight. How fortunate for Vancouver!


So I sat through 2 hours of Brian Eno speaking that night and it was not unlike my art history lectures at UBC. It was all very geeky and academic and scientific and right up my alley. But rather than review the lecture here, I figured I'll link to the site I wrote it for:


http://www.guttersnipenews.com/features/brian-eno-an-illustrated-talk/

ROCK n' SHOTS at the Dark Room Gallery

I like to pretend I'm a concert photographer.

On November 27th, I played flaneuse to the real deal.

I was invited by friend and local photographer, Jason Statler, to the Dark Room Gallery on Kingsway for ROCK 'n SHOTS - a show of concert photography. It featured the works of famed Vancouver concert photographers such as Rebecca Blissett, Bev Davies, Tamara Lee, Adam PW Smith, Spout, and Femke Van Delft. Those in attendance were your expected mix of current-and-former Georgia Straight journalists and music geeks. Icing on the cake was the performance by local band We Found A Lovebird. Oh, and the wine.

I naturally took photos:











Upon leaving the event, we stumbled upon a bricklayer oblivious that it was 9pm.