DOUGLAS COUPLAND - EVERYWHERE IS ANYWHERE IS ANYTHING IS EVERYTHING

Brilliant Information Overload Pop Head, 2010

Douglas Coupland is the west-coast maven of technology-based commentary, and now he is being featured at the Vancouver Art Gallery with his show "Everywhere is Anywhere is Anything is Everything".

Coupland's work deals with the increased  presence of the media in westernized culture, in a time when it is easier than ever to gain access to information and imagery. A dry sense of humour combined with an almost dystopian attitude create truly unique works that "say it as it is".

Coupland's work encapsulates painting, installation, novels, screen-plays, photography, prints and public commissions, making him a pseudo-renaissance man of this supposedly "shrinking mediated world".  His paintings create new abstractions while quoting from art history, especially his QR code paintings and their relationship to Piet Mondrian's gridded abstractions.

Vancouver Codes, 2012 

Piet Mondrian, Composition with Red Blue and Yellow

Alongside a retrospective of his works, the VAG has commissioned a public sculpture  for the exterior of the museum space.  This piece is a seven foot tall recreation of Coupland's face, which the public is invited to cover with used chewing gum. Eventually, these small acts of vandalism -- or is it collaboration? -- will obscure Coupland's face entirely. It's something to chew on, that's for sure.

Recreation of Coupland's face for the work "Gum Head"

The exhibition is on at the Vancouver Art Gallery from May 31 - September 1, learn more about it here: http://www.vanartgallery.bc.ca/the_exhibitions/exhibit_coupland.html