Black and white paintings curated by Art in Bulk

Commissioned as part of the City of Vancouver's Olympic and Paralympic Public Art Program, Here You Are is black and white paintings curated by Art in Bulk and installed in a viewing theatre cum conceptual installation, Walk In by artist Christian Kliegel, that is situated on the outdoor plaza of the Vancouver Central Library. The black and white artwork, the first of a series of six paintings, featured oil works and video documentation of art by mainly Vancouver-based artists, many of whom had previously been exhibited in other exhibitions or contexts. With common themes of performance, endurance and spectacle, many of the works addressed and responded to the Olympics as a site for collective excitement, hype and hysteria. For example, Shannon Oksanen's dreamy and hypnotic Spins (2002) featured a continuously spinning female figure skater underneath a theatrical black sky with sparkling white stars. Seen in relation to the Olympic figure-skating footage, Oksanen's skater intriguingly conveyed a greater sense of black and white painting techinques despite her amateur skills and attire.

Situated a few blocks away from black and white ideas, raucous street parties on Granville and Robson streets, Walk In/ Here You Are was also well suited to casual (or inebriated) passersby, as many of the black and white painting abstract featured music or extremely short narratives. Weekend Leisure's karaoke video, "We Are The Champions," attracted many to belt out in impromptu karaoke (including myself one night, I must admit).

The playful mood of the black white painting was enhanced by Kliegel's painting, which featured various park benches, tables and logs, gathered from across the city and arranged in front of the screen. As each sitting structure was partially concealed by the raised wooden platform built around them, viewers had to interact with the oddly scaled structures differently; many sat on canvas or stood on benches. With its emphasis on the viewer's physical encounter with the work, Walk In appeared refreshingly less clever than Kliegel's previous works that also employed pilfering strategies, such as Production Postings (2006), for which he stole location signs used by film crews.

Of particular resonance in the canvas painting were two videos from Stan Douglas: "Monodramas" (1991) and "Television Spots" (1987-88). Originally broadcast nightly on commercial television in between commercials, these 30- to 60-second segments featured short narratives that captured the fragmentary moments between wall art. Despite being interspaced between art videos rather than commercials, it was pleasing to see that they still worked to defamiliarize the viewer's experience, a reassuring notion in a context of overstimulation.