PRESS COVERAGE
Fathoming Sudarshan Shetty's art practice
November 16, 2010 - Art Expo India Sudarshan Shetty’s intriguing body of work often hinges on a creative mix of intense observation and wit. Grasping the latent meaning or meaninglessness of it seeks power of observation on the viewer's part.An incongruous association of objects that might bear different meanings is intended on his part to form new meaning and in the process, create an abstract space for exploring the dark underbelly of the human-object relationship, the duality of free will as well as the inertness of things. He takes apart ubiquitous objects without dismantling them, and decodes them, by revealing their inherent mechanical being.
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Has Art Gone Too Far?
April 5, 2010 - Richmond Review Several youth wondered what the 55-foot tall steel statue was doing in Richmond. Dharra Budicha’s first response was "why is there a Mao lady on the head of Lenin, and what is it doing in Richmond?" Budicha is referring to the statue of Miss Mao Trying to Poise Herself at the Top of Lenin's Head that appeared in city centre just before Christmas, portraying two of history’s best-known communists, Vladimir Lenin and Mao Zedong.Read More
Freedom of Expression Too Precious to Throw Away
February 4, 2010 - Asia Sentinel In a free society, there will always be more than one single opinion. In a free society, it is accepted that everyone should have an equal right to express his/her opinion without fearing retaliation or persecution.Read More
Amorphous art to dazzle visitors
February 3, 2010 - Richmond Review Much to the dismay of its army of objectors, Richmond's Lenin/Miss Mao had not been decapitated and is not being run out of town.It was with a flick of the wrist that Jun Ren explained his vision for his latest work, Water #10, during a meeting with organizers from the Vancouver Biennale art exhibition
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Lenin blows his top, Biennale admits assembly error
January 29, 2010 - Richmond News Much to the dismay of its army of objectors, Richmond's Lenin/Miss Mao had not been decapitated and is not being run out of town.There was something of a rumble in the jungle Wednesday morning when passers-by witnessed workmen slicing Miss Mao off Lenin's head and then a crane and cables being hooked onto the famous former Communist leader's giant chrome bust.
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Editor's pick: Gao Brothers Sculpture for the Vancouver International Sculpture Biennale
January 18, 2010 - The Art Council of Ireland Miss Mao Trying to Poise Herself at the Top of Lenin’s Head, by the Gao Brothers (Gao Zhen and Gao Qiang) features a giant bust of Lenin's head with a small figure of Mao on top performing a balancing act.Read More
Vancouver Biennale announces Jaume Plensa's new work entitled ‘We’
January 16, 2010 - Canadian Architect The Vancouver Biennale is warming up the wet and chilly nights of the city with We by Jaume Plensa, widely recognized as one of the most important and influential artists of the 21st centuryRead More
Gao Brothers are pro-democratic and anti-dictatorship
January 12, 2010 - Richmond Review The Miss Mao public art installation and the reactions it has caused, continues to interest me greatly.Following the numerous, mostly negative, letters to the editor there is now an attack of "vandalism" of this very shiny
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Vancouver Biennale responds to outcry over Richmond statue
January 11, 2010 - Vancouver Sun The Vancouver Biennale stands behind the inclusion of a controversial, massive stainless steel sculpture in Richmond of Vladimir Lenin's head and a feminized Chairman Mao Zedong, and suggests critics should take another look."Far from celebrating the political figures, the sculpture ... uses satire in its depiction of a diminutive and feminized Mao acting as a trapeze artist trying to balance herself on top of Lenin’s giant head," the art organization said in a press release.
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Richmond residents incensed over art of Lenin, tiny Mao
January 6, 2010 - The Province A Richmond church administrator says she's outraged by a giant, stainless-steel bust -- depicting communist leaders Vladimir Lenin with a tiny Chairman Mao perched on his head -- which has been installed a stone's throw from the Richmond Olympic Oval.Read More
Gao Brothers Resurrect Mao and Lenin
January 5, 2010 - The Daily Beast Beijing's notorious art siblings Gao Zhen and Gao Qiang have created one of the largest works of the most recognizable communist figures—Vladimir Lenin and Mao Zedong. The Gao Brothers' sculpture, titled "Miss Mao Trying to Poise Herself at the Top of Lenin’s Head," reimagines the pair with a bust of Lenin’s head and a small Mao atop it. Now on display at the Vancouver Sculpture Biennale, the stainless steel sculpture has generated considerable debate in Canada, as the brothers' work tends to do.Read More
Lenin and Mao sculpture sparks debate
December 28, 2009 - United Press International Officials in a Canadian town said an outdoor sculpture of Vladimir Lenin and a female version of Chairman Mao Zedong is stirring debate.Richmond City Councilman Derek Dang said the stainless steel sculpture, Miss Mao Trying to Poise Herself at the Top of Lenin's Head, by Beijing brothers Zhen and Qiang Gao, has become the talk of the city's business district since it was installed there last week as part of the Vancouver Sculpture Biennale, the Vancouver Sun reported Monday.
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Art sculpture in Richmond sparks debate
December 28, 2009 - CTV News A stand for freedom of expression or just poor taste?That's the debate that has emerged in Richmond, B.C., after a large stainless steel sculpture was installed near a busy intersection a couple weeks ago.
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Public art can both engage and be fun
December 27, 2009 - The Province As part of Vancouver Biennale, 30 sculptures were installed throughout the Lower Mainland this summer. The sculptures were erected throughout 12 neighborhoods along beaches, bike and walking paths, parks and urban plazas. The show will be open until June 2011.Read More
Lenin comes to Richmond as part of the Vancouver Biennale
December 17, 2010 - BC Local News A sculpture in City Centre is turning ordinary motorists into rubberneckers. Installed conveniently in front of the Insurance Corporation of B.C. claims centre at the corner of Alderbridge and Elmbridge ways, the artwork has a name as long as the sculpture is tall.Miss Mao Trying to Poise Herself at the Top of Lenin's Head made its appearance Wednesday as part of the Vancouver Biennale, a three-year public art celebration. The piece is the handiwork of a Chinese team of artists known as the Gao Brothers.
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Vancouver Biennale unveils first of several Richmond projects
October 7, 2009 - Richmond Review It's a fitting title for the first piece of public art installed in Richmond as part of the Vancouver Biennale.Crews installed Dennis Oppenheim's Arriving Home sculpture outside the doors of the airport's international terminal—a piece chosen before the selection committee knew the title.
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New public art aims to provoke
October 1, 2009 - WestEnder Love them or hate them, the laughing cast-bronze statues in Morton Park, near English Bay, have been attracting people in droves since they were unveiled last week.Read More
Central Park
September 18, 2009 - Vancouver Courier It's alive!The park board meets this Monday for the first time after its summer break and there are a number of interesting items on the agenda, including the concept design for the new VanDusen Botanical Garden visitor centre.
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David Kincaid on public works of art
CTV BC Public works of art are being strategically placed all around Vancouver and getting rave reviews.Watch Video
Giants among men
September 2, 2009 - National Post Barrie Mowatt thinks Vancouver's pristine urban landscape could use a little dressing up, and he's doing it with monumental sculpture. As the creative director of the second Vancouver Sculpture Biennale, Mowatt has been working non-stop for the past two years to make sure that when the Olympics touch down in Vancouver next February, people won't be thinking solely about sports -- they'll also be thinking about art.Read More
Word of the Street – Vancouver
April 18, 2010 - The Sunday Times The Vancouver Biennale has turned the city into a vast sculpture park. There are some great pieces dotted around, under bridges and by road sides. Favourites include A-maze-ing Laughter, made up of giggling giants, and the zippily named Miss Mao Trying to Poise Herself at the Top of Lenin’s Head, which speaks for itself.Read More
What’s Behind the Grin of Yue Minjun?
April 8, 2010 - CNN Talk Asia Artist Yue Minjun is the man the behind the rictus grin that has become his work's motif. Part self portrait, part parody, part social commentary, his paintings have made him one the most instantly recognized contemporary artists in China. Born in 1962, Minjun graduated from the Hebei Normal University in 1989, the year that authorities cracked down on student protests in China, most notably in Tiananmen Square. Minjun admits that those events and the subsequent changes in Chinese society have had a major effect on his life and work.Watch Video
Exhiben esculturas del mexicano Javier Marín en Canadá
February 3, 2010 - Informador CIUDAD DE MÉXICO.- Tres esculturas del artista mexicano Javier Marín se exhiben en el centro de la ciudad de Richmond, Canadá, frente al Lansdwne Shopping Mall, en el marco de la 'Vancouver Biennale 2009-2011'.Read More
Will three big heads be better than one?; Hot on the heels of the Lenin/Mao controversy, 3 more arrive
January 29, 2010 - Richmond News The fourth of six large public art pieces planned for Richmond as part of the Vancouver Biennale exhibition was installed near the Lansdowne Canada Line station Wednesday, prompting this common reaction from passersby: "What the hell is it?"Read More
Lenin and Mao Dismantled
January 27, 2010 - Richmond Review It's survived eggs, dirt and crude vandalism, but on Wednesday morning the city's most controversial public art appeared as though its opponents finally won.Read More
Vancouver B.C. museums offer world-class riches
January 23, 2010 - The Seattle Times Much to the dismay of its army of objectors, Richmond's Lenin/Miss Mao had not been decapitated and is not being run out of town.Founded in 1998, this outdoor exhibit of sculpture from around the world is open 24/7 to the public. The theme of the 2009-11 edition is "in-transit-ion," and many of the works are along bike routes and the stations of the newly opened Canada Line rail link to Richmond and Vancouver International Airport. The focus, the curators say, is on "the physical movement of people in our mobile society."
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Biennale: Statue not a memorial
January 13, 2010 - Richmond News The organization behind the controversial Lenin/Miss Mao artwork in Richmond city centre described last week's vandalism as "unfortunate" but said it has no plans to remove the sculpture.Read More
Sculpture of Mao and Lenin divides residents of Richmond, B.C.
January 11, 2010 - National Post At first glance the sculpture suggests grace and balance, with a tiny figure staying atop a giant head with the help of a long pole. Upon greater reflection, the face is that of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, and the balancer is a tiny, "feminized" Mao Zedong; and therein lies the problem for some residents of Richmond, B.C.Read More
Art for whose sake?
January 7, 2010 - 24 HOURS Miss Mao, Richmond's giant chrome head of Lenin with a girlish Chinese communist leader balancing on top, created a stir for all the wrong reasons.Critics complained the art celebrated two powerful symbols of 20th Century tyranny, and that a Vancouver suburb was an inappropriate venue.
Frankly, anything would improve the depressing intersection of Alderbridge and Elmbridge Way, with its big box blight and the empty gravel lot where the sculpture stands.
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Lenin/Mao statue is doing what art is supposed to do
January 5, 2010 - The Richmond Review One piece of art that will cost Richmond taxpayers little more than the space it temporarily sits upon is front page news, has people thinking about it, discussing both art and politics and writing to local and regional papers. It's fantastic!Read More
Real art is provocative
December 30, 2009 - Richmond News The reaction a public art installation featuring two communist leaders at the corner of Elmbridge and Alderbridge ways is generating is becoming a bit embarrassing.It's not the art itself, but the reactions to it that is embarrassing. We are coming across like bumpkins in the Louvre who don't "get" why Picasso couldn't just draw people the way they really look. Some people seem "horrified" by the large stainless steel Lenin-Mao statue, but can't quite express why it's so horrifying. Perhaps some people are confusing Lenin for Stalin.
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Gao Brothers continue to rile art world with Lenin-Mao sculpture
December 28, 2009 - LA Times Vladimir Lenin and Mao Zedong are long dead and buried. But like Jesus Christ, they are continually resurrected by artists looking to get a rise out of curators, collectors, journalists and government censors.One of the latest incarnations of communism's most recognizable faces is a large-scale sculpture titled "Miss Mao Trying to Poise Herself at the Top of Lenin’s Head," on display as part of the Vancouver Sculpture Biennale. The artwork, created by the brothers Gao Zhen and Gao Qiang, features a giant bust of Lenin's head with a small figure of Mao on top performing a balancing act.
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Giant statue of Lenin and Mao the talk of Richmond
December 27, 2009 - Vancouver Sun As part of Vancouver Biennale, 30 sculptures were installed throughout the Lower Mainland this summer. The sculptures were erected throughout 12 neighborhoods along beaches, bike and walking paths, parks and urban plazas. The show will be open until June 2011."When I went to the gym at 5:30 this morning it's all people were talking about," said Richmond city Coun. Derek Dang, who saw the piece for the first time Wednesday. "People just can't believe it."
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Controversy erupts over busts of Lenin and Mao
December 22, 2009 - Richmond Review If nothing else, the Gao Brothers have succeeded in stirring conversation.A Dec. 19 story in The Richmond Review about a massive stainless steel sculpture depicting 20th century communist leaders Lenin and Mao has elicited plenty of response from readers.
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Bonanza of public art coming to Richmond
October 14, 2009 - Richmond Review In September three innocent looking demons—two towering over six metres—will stand in Richmond, greeting guests of the 2010 Winter Games.Together, the trio of glossy black plastic sculptures weigh 1,500 kilograms, appearing mischievously devilish and, according to the artists, "apocalyptic."
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Touring the Vancouver Biennale by bike
October 6, 2009 - www.hellobc.com The Vancouver Biennale is a series art installations around the city and the Vancouver Area Cycling Coalition partners up with the Bienalle on its official opening for the "bikenalle" which is a bike tour of the installations that allows you to view the art and also see a lot of Vancouver.Read More
Stop Sign Art
September 24, 2009 - Global BC Usually they tell us to "stop"... but Mike McCardell found some stop signs today that gave the green light to creativity.Watch Video
Cityscapes transformed: Biennale propels public art
September 4, 2009 - Vancouver Sun VANCOUVER — Public spaces around Vancouver and Richmond are being transformed into outdoor art galleries with the installation of the first of 32 major sculptural works for the Vancouver Biennale.The new sculptures are already attracting attention. As soon as cranes began installing Wang Shugang’s Meeting on the east side of the Westin Bayshore Hotel, passersby started gathering around and staring at the eight red squatting figures arranged in a circle.
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Vancouver art scene blossoms in public spaces
June 12, 2009 - Vancouver Sun VANCOUVER - Prepare to be mesmerized without the use of psychotropic drugs.Between the Vancouver Biennale exhibition, the city and transit, about 50 significant public art pieces are being prepared for installation this year in the city of Vancouver alone and many more will be installed in Olympic venues and new SkyTrain stations in surrounding communities.
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