February 13, 2015

Main Street Poodle

From Frank Ducote: 

The Main Street ‘Poodle on a Stick’ brightens my day:

.

Poodle

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  1. As do the amazing artworks, probably costing into the millions, on display at YVR, purchased by public money raised by a tax nobody approved authorized by a board with no direct public accountability.

    1. yes but it is in the airport, and by the opinion of many it improves the airport experience and i guess the tax you mention is in fact a fee collected from airport user

      I am not sure how the poodle improve the transit experience…

      1. Ron, I understand that and that is the problem of this Translink “expense”:
        it is not the art, neither the money, but the principle of spending money on something doing nothing for Transit.

        Translink could have spent 10 times more money on a giant rubber duck sitting in the middle of a bus loop, people could have better understood

        1. Pretty much every transit system in the world spends money on art or beautiful stations ect. These things enhance the experience for the customer. Unfortunately art is very subjective and for every Stokholm metro there is a poodle on a stick. Again compared to things like bus efficiency it is a tiny expense. Cut all the Translink art ever and I doubt you could buy a bus, let alone operate it.

        2. Yes, my point is:

          Spending money on art/design is laudable when the motive is to improve the customer experience and/or the transit integration into the urban fabric (what enhance its image)

          a basic prerequirement to that, is that the art installation needs to be on the system (for Transit, a skytrain station, a bus loop bus stop…even a park&Ride…) or at least interacting with its customers.

          In Richmond the Canada line do a good job at it (the sculpture below the viaduct have unfortuantely disappeared):

          https://voony.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/dsc_0812.jpg

          My second point is that type of “art” doesn’t generate outrage because people understand the motive of this “art”…at the difference of the Poddle on the stick. Notice I don’t discuss its subjective quality or symbolic here 😉

  2. I beg to differ on the irrelevant poodle. It would have been just as meaningful to place a giant white question mark on a tall black pole.

    This would have been a more appropriate symbolic animal for Main Street …

    https://daveandjentravels.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/img_5586.jpg

    …for being unique but immediately intellectually accessible, for not resorting to kitsch, and for being a draw on its own loved by residents and visitors alike.

    But can certainly agree on the YVR artworks, Ai Weiwei’s ‘F Grass’ (Bienalle, north foot of Bute), native artist Thomas Cannell’s stone sculptures (‘Family’) on the terrace at the Shadbolt Centre in Burnaby, and a number of other installations around town.

  3. The poodle is neat. It has nothing to do with the neighbourhood though. Still it’s done. I just wish it was easier to see. The trolley wires block the view of it since it’s at the perfect height to be obstructed by them.

  4. Mount Pleasant didn’t want the Monument to East Vancouver (nor did Commercial Drive) so they got the poodle instead. Seems fair.

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