The Sky is Falling at the Vancouver Art Gallery

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Fuse Event at Vancouver Art Gallery

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VAG | JASON MCLEAN: THE SKY IS FALLING | to Jan
2006
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JASON
MCLEAN: THE SKY IS FALLING
A ceiling installation in the lobby of
the
Vancouver Art Gallery

On view from June 2005 to January
2006

Jason McLean's The Sky is Falling, consists of 162 individual
drawings created specifically for the ceiling of the Vancouver Art Gallery
lobby. The head-spinning medley of anecdotes and inside-jokes, irreverent
portraits of friends and family, images of foods and pharmaceuticals,
diagrams of rumours and news reports heard on local radio comprise a
metaphoric map of the comings and goings at the edge of Vancouver's Downtown
Eastside, where the artist has lived for well over a decade.

McLean's
drawings register the harsh conditions of the neighbourhood, but are heavily
punctuated by humour, self-reflexive slogans and constant references to the
mundane but specific details of everyday life. These frank
impressions
present an invitation to reconsider everyday experience as a dense,
psychological construct that unfolds over time and cannot be reduced to a
single iconic image. Thus, McLean's imagery may be seen to eschew
the
doomsday cliché of the Downtown Eastside by mapping his neighbourhood as
an urban space in flux.

This exhibition is curated by Daina Augaitis,
as part of NEXT: A Series of Artist Projects from the Pacific Rim, with
generous support provided by The Associates of the Vancouver Art Gallery. A
brochure with an essay by Monika
Szewczyk, Assistant Curator, will be
produced in conjunction with the exhibition.

Media Contact:
Sue
Lavitt
Marketing & Communications
604.662.4700 extension
309

Vancouver Art Gallery
750 Hornby Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada
V6Z 2H7
24-hour info: 604.662.4719
http://www.vanartgallery.bc.ca