The artist behind a guerilla sculpture installation in East Vancouver that town plans to remove is fighting to save lots of the work.
The art work in query is a big, black spider product of recycled materials affixed beneath an overpass near Broadway and Victoria Drive, and visual from the SkyTrain Millennium Line.
Town says the work was unsanctioned, and that it’s within the midst of plans on how you can best remove the spider.
The anonymous Montreal-based artist who goes by the moniker Junko Playtime is asking on supporters to contact town and ask it to go away the guerilla installation, titled Phobia, in place.
“I believe it’s a shame, there’s are a number of folks that really benefit from the artwork and would love for it to remain there. Sure, there are some folks that won’t prefer it, however it’s not possible to please everyone with public art,” Playtime told Global News in an email.
“The work is positioned in a way that doesn’t put anything or anyone in peril and may easily be ignored if someone doesn’t want to take a look at it.”
Junko Playtime contrasted town’s response to the spider to the mounting piles of trash along the rail line where it was installed, saying it doesn’t make sense to remove the art but not the rubbish.
“By way of this piece, town didn’t pay a dime for it. It’s built out of waste material collected within the streets so it’s essentially cleansing up a number of the litter and there’s an enormous amount of folks that really enjoy it — looks like a fairly good deal to me,” he said.
The City of Vancouver said the artwork was installed without review or approval, and that it began planning to remove it after complaints from the general public.
It pointed to town’s official public art program, which selects works through a jury process or its Public Art Committee, and that every one approved pieces are vetted by engineers to make sure safety, structural integrity, longevity and maintenance plans.
“The installation of public art on key infrastructure, akin to a bridge, would require due process to make sure safety. The unsanctioned spider artwork has not been through this review process,” it said in an announcement Friday.
The fee of removing the spider stays unclear, based on town.
The artist responded by suggesting leaving the piece in place was a likelihood for Vancouver to shake its dubious repute as “no fun city,” which he said it had earned “for a reason.”
The spider is just not the primary artwork by Junko Playtime to look in Metro Vancouver.
Last month, Habitat, a sanctioned piece he created from reclaimed materials appeared outside the Bentall Centre Gallery as a component of the Vancouver Mural Festival’s Winter Arts Festival.
Last yr, a big, yellow, insect-like sculpture he created called Queen BX1000 appeared in an empty lot near the Fraser River near the Canada Line.
The artist, who said his work revolves around themes of biodiversity and ecological responsibility, said he designed the spider installation specifically for the situation where he placed it, telling Global News, “the cliff face covered overhead by the big metal and concrete bridge really felt like a fitting environment for a creation like this to inhabit.”
