Subscribe to the print edition and enjoy The Republic in
your bathroom!
Plus, your subscription goes a very long way in helping to support The Republic and its writers and produces. It's like paying for the music you like.
Click here for details
|
Art
A funny place for an unfunny sculpture
What do the denizens of the Terminal City Club know about the regularities of the work day?
By Kevin Potvin
|
Beside the Terminal City Club on Hastings Street sits an odd public sculpture. “Working Landscape,” by Daniel Laraskin, is three large wooden discs set about with potted trees and park benches.
That accounts for the “landscape” part of the title. The “working” part derives from the fact the three discs rotate. But there’s a joke: they rotate at different rates, one completing a revolution in one hour, another in eight hours, and the third in 40 hours.
Get it? “Working,” in this work of art, has a double meaning: one, eight, and forty happen to be the key numbers regulating the lives of the working class who are paid by the hour, installed at their work stations for eight hours a day, and complete their basic unit of labour with 40 hours of work in a week.
It’s difficult to imagine anyone in the Terminal City Club peering down at the sculpture from the lofty heights atop the downy pillows of their spa’s massage quarters getting the joke. Theirs is not the 1-8-40 world, but rather the .25-18-40 world. These are the three numbers that regulate the lives of Terminal City Club members. 0.25 is both the margin of profit to kill for and the portion of a year they think ahead to,18 is the number of holes in a golf course, and 40 is the number of ounces of liquor of the finest scotch on offer in the clubhouse after a hard day on the links.
If Laraskin could have rotated the discs by these numbers instead, and made them complete their revolutions in seconds instead of days, it’s delightfully possible to imagine a few of those Terminal City Club types stepping onto that 0.25 one and getting flung clear over the sails of Canada Place and plopping with a satisfying plop into the deep dark sea beyond.
I was invited there for lunch recently by a lifetime member. I went half expecting to be treated to trained kittens licking my feet, masseurs to ease my tight back, cigars all around lit with rolled-up hundred dollar bills, and a million-dollar bottle of cognac just to loosen up the tongue. No such luck. The lettuce salad was wilted and the white bread sandwich stuck to the roof of my mouth.
It’s the juxtaposition of the two installation pieces that makes for a depressing commentary at that particular corner of Vancouver. The sculpture is the working landscape indeed, captured in all its circular frustration. What do you get for one hour of work but another hour demanded? What do you get for the eight hour work day but another day at work? What does 40 hours of work in a week lead to but another week of work? Not so for the executive class right next door who have no such maddening circularity to their lives. On the other side of the wall, it’s all about growth, advancement and accumulation. Tellingly, the workers’ sculpture is a horizontal wheel while the bosses’ sculpture is a vertical. What the art piece could have done is place a fifth disc cutting through the wall of The Terminal City Club so that everyone gets time on the outside doing the work followed by a turn through the inside getting some of the treats.
But that would destroy the whole point of a private executive-class club. Just as one of the chief features of heaven is a window onto hell through which one may enjoy the endless pain subjected to all those who couldn’t join Jesus, the chief feature of private clubs like Terminal City are the windows through which one may enjoy the pointless circular scrambling of the hourly wage earners way down below who can’t join their club.
“Membership has its privileges,” says the famous credit card offered to virtually everyone on the planet. “Forward with the confidence only tradition brings,” replies the Terminal City Club in its own motto. Meanwhile, the workers outside riding that 1-8-40 set of discs are not going forward at all. So I guess they must lack confidence, huh? “Around and around with the degradation only YOUR tradition brings,” the “Working Landscape” sculpture might have posted up as its motto, on a big sign facing the Terminal City Club spa windows. They still wouldn’t get it, though.
|
The Republic
print version is generously supported by the following regular advertisers:
Storm Brewing
604-255-9119
Dan's Homebrewing
692 E Hastings
Co-operative Auto Network
604-685-1393
Turk's Coffee
1276 Commercial Drive
Dutch Girl Chocolates
1002 Commercial Drive
Magpie Books and Magazines
1319 Commercial Drive
Artrageous Pictures & Framing
1256 Commercial Drive
Bouzyos Greek Taverna
1815 Commercial Drive
Magnet Hardware
1575 Commercial Drive
Uprising Breads
1697 Venables
Highlife World Music
1317 Commercial Drive
Mark's Pet Stop
1875 Commercial Drive
Abruzzo Cafe
1321 Commercial Drive
Our Community Bikes
3283 Main Street
Does Your Mother Know
Magazines Etc
2139 West 4th Ave
Kali
1000 Commercial Drive
Uncle Don
Freelance Curmudgen
on CFUR Radio, Prince George
Receptive Earth
Hemp & other Earthly delights
4168 Main Street
Geist
Magazine of Canadian ideas & culture
Momentum
Bike magazine
West Coast Seeds
Where to find the print version of The Republic:
Vancouver
Aboriginal Friendship
1607 E Hastings
Bean Around the World
10th & Trimble
Benny’s Bagels
Broadway & Larch
Big News Coffee Bar
2447 Granville
Black Dog Video
Cambie & 19th
Book Warehouse
550 Granville
632 W Broadway
2388 W 4th
Cambie Hostel
300 Cambie St
Capers Community Markets
2285 W 4th
1675 Robson
Carnegie Comm. Centre
Hastings & Main
City Square Mall
Cambie & 12th
Cuppa Joe 189-175
E Broadway
Dadabase
Broadway & Main
Danny’s Coffee
Denman & Pendrell
Denman Community Ctr
Denman & Nelson
Denman Mall
Denman & Nelson
Drive Organics
Commerical & Napier
Does Your Mother Know?
2139 W 4th
Duthie Books
2239 W 4th
East End Food Co-Op
1034 Commercial
Elysian Room
1778 W 5th
Food Stop
Commerical & Venables
Gemeral Store
312 Cambie St
Gold Coin Laundry
B-way & Waterloo
Granville Island
Public Market
Grind
4124 Main
Higher Ground
Broadway & Vine
Il Mercato
1641 Commercial
Joe's Café
1150 Commercial
Laughing Bean
Hastings & Penticton
Lugz
2525 Main Street
Magpie Magazines
1319 Commercial
Our Town Cafe
245 E Broadway
Pacific Central Station
Bus Depot
People's Co-op Books
1391 Commercial
Polonia Sausage
Nanaimo &Hastings
Rebound Health
Hastings & Kamloops
Receptive Earth
Main & King Edward
Rhizome Cafe
317 East Broadway
Simon Fraser
Downtown Foodfair
Soma
2528 Main Street
Sweet Tooth Cafe
Nanaimo & Hastings
Turk's Coffee
1276 Commercial
UBC
Student Union Building
Union Food Market
810 Union
Uprising Breads Bakery
1697 Venables
Vancouver Community College
250 W Pender
Vancouver Public Library
350 W Georgia
1661 Napier
2425 MacDonald
370 E Broadway
West Vancouver
Capers
2496 Marine Dr
West Vancouver Library
1950 Marine
Duncan
Community Farm Store
330 Duncan St
Victoria
Bean Around the World
533 Fisgard
Munro’s Books
1108 Government
University of Victoria
Graduate L0unge
Victoria Public Library
735 Broughton
Powell River
River City Coffee
4801 Joyce
Local Loco’s Music & Arts Cafe
Flying Yellow Breadbowl
4698 Ewing
Powell River Library
4411 Michigan
Kaslo
Blue Belle Bistro
302 Fourth
SunnySide Naturals
404 Front
Nanaimo
Nanaimo Public Library
Harbourfront Br
Port Place Shopping Ctr
650 S Terminal
The Green Store
Port Place
Mermaid’s Mug
357 Wesley St
Nelson
Mountain Pass Imports
402 Baker
Toronto
Moonbean Cafe
30 St. Andrew St
Future Bakery
483 Bloor St West
Oakville Peace &Ecology Centre
148 Kerr
|
The Republic of East Vancouver masthead
The Republic of East Vancouver supports no party, advocates
for no cause, represents no group, serves no master, and considers
problems with no preconceived notions. We hope to afflict the comfortable,
both materially and intellectually, and comfort the afflicted—of
both kinds as well, and we are trying to do both things at the same
time.
Publisher, Editor
Kevin Potvin
Managing Editor
Kara Foreman
Copy Editor
Janis Harper
Website
Chris Lavigne
Advertising
Chris Richmond Kevin
Potvin
Support
Dan Crawford, John Daigle,
Jack Etkin, Janis Harper, Carl Johnson, Hilary Jones, Chris King,
James Mecham, Albrecht Meyers, Peter Miller, James Pope
Contributors in this and recent issues
Bruce Alexander, Dan Adleman, Toby Alford, Kevin Annett, Santo Barbieri, Bob Broughton, Mike Bryan, Stephen Buckley, Matthew Burrows, Maria Calleja, Ron Carton, Chad Christie, Joshua Corber, Dan Crawford, Gail Davidson, Eric Doherty, Joe Donaldson, Lorena Jara Patty Ducharme, Shadia Drury, Taivo Evard, Reed Eurchuk, Farnaz Fassihi, Thomas Feakins, Anthony Fenton, Reza Fiyouyzat, Andrew Gordon Fleming, Ryan Fugger, Sasha Gagic, Matt Goody, Guy Hawkins, Spencer Herbert, John Irwin, Nick Istvaniffy, Junius, William Kay, Mike Keep, Kate Kennedy, Donald Kropp, Chris LaVigne, James Lindfield, Brian Lindgreen, Karen Litzke, Keith MacKenzie, Michael McLaughlin, Sonya McRae, Rafe Mair, Sonia Marino, Jennifer Matsui, Michael Millard, Isaebel Minty, Michael Nenonen, Wendy Nylund, Derrick O’Keefe, Stephen Osborne, Sean Orr, Evan Augustine Pederson III, Stephen Peplow, Kim Peterson, Kevin Potvin, Mary Rawson, Andrea Reimer, Erin Riley, Phil Rockstroh, Becky Scott, Jason Scott, Chris Shaw, Jeff Steudel, Alex Tegart, Scott Turner, Elbio Grosso Trentini, Patrick Vert, Chris Walker, Sean Wilkinson, Brad Zembic
For comments or suggestions, please contact the
Republic Webmaster
|
