'The Words Don't Fit the Picture.' Yep, I agree. Another public art initiative that consists of light. More and more light. Where's the interactive component? Where's the public part, besides occupying public space? Besides shouting at us(like the brash advertising signs it references), that something is wrong? It glares down and I shy away, wishing public art initiatives were less about preaching and critical, negative impositions. Monkey bars, a bench and a tree would have served a better purpose to excited bodies, tired legs and concrete eyesores. But then there's no academic concept there, no tie to the city and the library. I say people are the tie, happiness and quality of public space the concept.
Ron Terada, Concept Image, 2009
----------------------------
Public Release:
THE WORDS DON’T FIT THE PICTURE is a text-based work made in response to the context,
building and public surrounds of Vancouver’s Central Library. The work takes the form of a
large freestanding sign that sits in front of the library, just off the southern entrance of the
building by heavy pedestrian traffic. Using a typography that is at once familiar and
accessible, the artwork is a reference to Vancouver’s neon past, when the famous BOW-MAC
sign and legendary Woodward’s W reigned over the city’s skyline.
“The sign takes its cues from an era of signage when signs were seen as
celebratory, grand and iconic – in effect, as landmarks in their own right, a
kind of symbolic architecture… Taken within the context of a public library, the
work touches upon – in a very poetic way – the use of words and language as
boundless and imaginative, as a catalyst for a multiplicity of meanings.”
Ron Terada
-----------------------------
