The Vancouver Project

Description:

While in residence at Western Front, David Buchan produced a photomural that restaged Charles H. Scott’s painting Canadian Youth (1937). While the original painting depicts a summertime scene of three young people seated on driftwood logs on a British Columbia beach, Buchan’s photographic version reconstructed the scene within an overtly artificial landscape assembled from synthetic materials.

For his exhibition The Vancouver Project, Buchan displayed the original painting alongside his reconstruction, which was identified by an engraved arborite plaque. The installation also featured a small shelf clad in woodgrain laminate and a red-and-white gingham textile, displaying the wine bottle used as a prop in the photograph alongside plastic cheese and grapes.

Through his intervention, Buchan interrogated the difference between producing work for the corporate commodities market and for the high powered trading of the art market. The new work continued Buchan’s practice of reconstructing and re-presenting familiar images, historical references, and advertising imagery to challenge assumptions about language and image making.

Alongside the exhibition, Buchan staged a performance in the Grand Luxe Hall that blended fiction and documentation to trace the history of his persona, La Monte del Monte.

The exhibition was accompanied by an essay by Keith Wallace. 

Curated by Annette Hurtig. 

Presented with support from Emily Carr University of Art + Design.