Yaletown Roundhouse Station: Model Suite…
Yaletown Roundhouse Station: Model Suite (Sliding Door) 2005/17
By Vikky Alexander
As a contemporary of artists such as Richard Prince, James Welling and Sherrie Levine who were active in New York in the early 1980s, Vikky Alexander is often associated with the Pictures Generation. She is best known for work that foregrounds a strong interest in the histories of architecture, design, and fashion, often focusing on locations such as shopping malls, showrooms, and show apartments—sites of desire, aspirations, and ideas of home. The images are often complicated through light, reflections, and refractions and speak of a set of conditions and values embedded in appearances as seen through furnishings and the notional view from the window (here, a large-scale photo mural). Shown outdoors at Yaletown-Roundhouse Station, Model Suite (Sliding Door) (2005/17) interplays with its architectural surroundings; the station’s glass pavilion lends a further physical and visual layer as we see the daily activity on the street through the work itself.
This presentation forms part of the group exhibition at the Contemporary Art Gallery, Songs of the Open Road, the central feature of the Capture Photography Festival in 2017.
Vikky Alexander is one of Vancouver’s most acclaimed artists. Her work has been recognized within Canada and internationally in New Zealand, Japan, Korea, Europe and the United States. Alexander’s work is fantastic in both the literal and figurative senses of the words. Her work is at once both seductive and disruptive; she likes to situate the viewer within idealized spaces that reflect our aspirations and utopian desires. With Alexander’s work one can experience a sense of vertigo: a physical displacement from the natural world that mirrors and frames our desires within the dynamics of consumption and utopian ideals. Her work is in many international public collections including National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Hammer Museum, UCLA, Los Angeles; Vancouver Art Gallery; and Winnipeg Art Gallery.
She lives in Montreal and is represented by the Trepanier Baer Gallery, Calgary, Alberta, Wilding Cran, Los Angeles and Cooper Cole, Toronto.
