Yesterday, for some odd reason, I woke up wanting to visit the Vancouver Art Gallery. I haven’t been in that art gallery for probably more than 10-15 years. When I was very young my mom used to have a membership and brought me on Sundays after church to participate in some kids art activities, but I haven’t been since then.
As it was Tuesday, I took advantage of the Art Gallery’s admission-by-donation time in the evening. It’s the only day of the week that the Gallery is open late in the evening so I could visit after work. Also, I wasn’t going to pay $24 to look around. I was originally going to pay $5 to get in (really just wanting a quick look around not expecting to be interested too much), but the sign at the door suggested a $10 donation, so I went with that.
I guess I went in with the expectation that the majority of the displays in the gallery would be paintings and sculptures. Maybe I had sort of mixed art galleries up with museums; they felt like sort of the same thing for me. However, when I walked through the gallery I was surprised at the number of digital artwork including videos and music/sound-generating installations. One of the ones that captivated me was Plywood City by the Japanese artist Ujino Muneteru.
What was actually interesting to me was the circuit diagram that was displayed on one of the walls that detailed the connections among all the appliances in the Plywood City. But I guess making the combinations and patterns of sounds from household appliances was also quite intriguing. We use some of these appliances every day and usually don’t pay attention to the different sounds they make.
It was quite busy in the gallery even though I was there the hour before closing. I got to walk through all the floors, but I think I could have probably spent one or two more hours looking around in more detail. It was definitely an eye-opening experience for me, as I rarely involve myself in artsy things. All in all, for $10 the visit was worth it.
