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Published: August 7th 2007
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There were signs throughout the city for the "Monet to Dali" exhibit at the Vancouver Art Gallery. The exhibit sounded great but, unfortunately, it didn't open for another two days. It was raining though and so we decided to check out the Art Gallery anyway. From the guidebook, we learned that the museum has a permanent collection of paintings by Emily Carr. We had never heard of her, but the Lonely Planet said she is Bristish Columbia's best-known painter and so we went.
The girl who sold us the museum tickets was kind, giving us the student price. The discount made it easier to walk past the first floor where they were having a sneak preview of the Monet to Dali exhibit for gallery members. If you don't have a ticket, please proceed upstairs, the guide told us. We went to the fourth floor to see the Emily Carr paintings and other works by the "Group of Seven" famous BC painters. We then explored the only other open exhibit, a series of political- and cultural-themed installations by Huang Yong Ping, a Chinese artist. One sculpture is a dog urinating, the urine forming the shape of the United States. (Tell us
how you really feel, Huang.) Another installation resembled the cockpit of a spy plane that had crashed into a Chinese jet and, in another room, a 100-foot wooden snake skeleton hung from the ceiling. The most intriguing part of the exhibit, however, was an installation that we did not even see. Shortly after opening the Huang Yong Ping exhibit, the Vancouver Art Gallery found itself in the center of the "what is art?" debate.
The controversial installation, called "Theater of the World," was a turtle-shaped terrarium full of live insects and small reptiles. As museum-goers looked on, the snakes and scorpions and lizards and crickets would run/slither around and, when the mood hit, eat each other. The display of these interactions was intended to demonstrate something about the dynamics of power in our society. Well, the Vancouver Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals did not share Huang's artistic vision. Concerned about the animals, the SPCA sent letters and held meetings. Various animal protection measures were adopted. Then, the SPCA issued an order that the "Theater of the World" comply with additional measures -- including removal of all spiders and the periodic weighing of cockroaches -- or be
shut down. Because he believed complying with the SPCA order would jeopardize the integrity of his art, Huang chose the latter option. So, the exhibit was closed and, in its place, are a series of articles and video clips about the controversy.
As we were leaving the Art Gallery, we paused in the doorway to consult the guidebook for our next move. As we stood there, a woman walked in and asked if we were there to see the Monet to Dali exhibit. No, we said, it doesn't open until Monday. Well, she replied, I have two free tickets if you want them. Yes! It was such great luck and we both enjoyed the exhibit, which spanned a century of European art, starting with the impressionist movement and ending with early modern sculptures and surrealist paintings. In addition to amazing paintings by Monet and Dali (not too surprising), there were pieces by Manet and van Gogh and Rodin and Picasso and others. It was really good.
After the art gallery, we walked to Canada Place. Canada Place is Vancouver's convention center, designed to resemble a giant ship, that sits on pier overooking Vancouver Harbour. And, it has an
IMAX theater. It was still raining and so going on a 3-D African Adventure at the IMAX and eating popcorn seemed like a great idea. It was. The 3-D technology has certainly improved since the last time either of us had seen a film. There is a great scene where the elephants wade through the water and seemingly into your face. The problem with the film is that the Okavango Delta, where the movie is set, is really not an easy place to capture animals on film. So, the movie is more about the search for the animals then it is about the animals themselves. Regretably, there are no pictures of us in those 3-D glasses. We looked awesome.
Having failed in our attempts to get Chinese food, we were determined to successfully follow at least one of the recommendations we had received for eating in Vancouver and so we left the IMAX theater in search of sushi. We ended up at Ichibanya Japanese Restaurant. There, still damp from the rain, we enjoyed warm bowls of miso soup and sushi, the first I'd eaten in more than 15 years.
We decided it was time to head back to
the U.S. We had about 8 Canadian dollars left and figured what better way to spend them then at the bakery counter in the Granville Island public market. So, after a quick stop, we had a chocolate eclair and blueberry tart in hand, and we headed for the border. To Belingham!
We arrived in B-ham around dinnertime. We needed to find a place to stay. There were several cheap options in the guideboook but after calling a few disconnected numbers, we ended up at what appeared to be the only affordable option in town, the Shangri-La Downtown Motel. Despite the grungy exterior, the guidebook promised that there would be kind management and newly remodeled rooms. Instead, we were greeted by a distracted, gruff man who begrudgingly rented us the last room. I guess we should have been a little concerned by how much he hesitated to even rent us the room. "I mean if you're sure you want it, I can give it to you for $10 off. It's not like it's not clean or anything, it just hasn't been painted or nuthin." And, by that, he meant, it smells kind of weird and there's only a few inches of dirt in the bathtub.
After checking into the motel, we walked around town a bit and ate dinner at the Boundary Bay Brewery. After eating, we wandered around some more and found a place to shoot pool before heading back to the Shangri-La.
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