As temporary home to the Olympics, Vancouver has been crowded with throngs of tourists for the past two weeks. With the excitement and thrills come lots of celebrations in the city’s bars, many of which have been spilling out into the streets.
So it’s only fitting that drinking should also make its way onto the art scene. In a recent article in the New York Times, Charles McGrath describes a new exhibit at Vancouver’s Playwrights Theater Center on Granville Island (the artsy area of town), which looks at the fine line between drinking and “drinking” and between the “bar as mere watering hole and as self-activating performance space.”
The installation, created by British neo-conceptualist Theo Sims, is set in a 12-by-20 foot plywood box, and recreates the Candahar, an Irish pub in Belfast, fully equipped with beer taps, a brass rail, and a TV tuned to Irish horseracing. The bar is tended by two Irish men wearing fedoras and thick Irish sweater—two real bar men (and brothers) who are also scripted performers for the exhibit.
“The purpose of the installation,” said the artist in the Times piece, “is to stimulate social interaction, encourage people to re-examine their preconceptions and start cross cultural conversations.”
It all sounds so civilized when you look at it this way. And it makes me think about the purpose of bars and the community gathering that must’ve been so integral for communicating and sharing events years ago. Now with Facebook and Twitter, people can “gather” virtually and video chat while sipping ale in their pajamas. Not quite the same.
*Photo source: Kim Stallknecht for the NY Times
