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Vancouver Art Galleries Head Eastward
By Michael White published Oct 1, 2012
The city’s heavyweight galleries pack up and move
The Los Angeles gallery scene moved to the industrial wasteland of Culver City a few years back, when top-drawer gallerists discovered they were destinations in themselves and had no cause to pay outlandish rents in fashionable ’hoods. (Culver City, naturally, has now become a fashionable area in itself, which will necessitate another exodus sometime in the future.) Likewise, serious commercial galleries in Vancouver—which have traditionally lined the tonier blocks of South Granville—are fleeing for the cheaper and capacious Great Northern Way neighbourhood.
Catriona Jeffries Gallery, ever at the forefront, began this shift in 2006 when it moved to a 6,500-square-foot warehouse space on East First Ave. Committed buyers, went the logic, aren’t strolling down a strip of boutiques, anyway. The gallery became a destination, not a pop-in accident. Monte Clark Gallery is in the midst of moving nearby, as of this writing. And Jennifer Winsor (of the eponymous space) says she’s looking into the area herself.
The announcement that Equinox Gallery—a decades-old institution—is making the move, too, has solidified things. The first exhibit at gallerist Andy Silvester’s new home base (525 Great Northern Way) is a show of Gordon Smith paintings (in a space twice the size of Equinox’s old South Granville space). Arranged thematically, the exhibit pairs new canvases with work completed in the 1950s. Sept. 8 – Oct. 27, Equinoxgallery.com
