Finding space for art is no easy task in Vancouver, a city known for a nearing 0 per cent vacancy rate on rental units.
There were many moves on the city’s art map in 2016, and, similarly, a variety of ways that Vancouver arts organizations continued to respond to the insecurity stimulated by the city’s mercurial real-estate market: some dissolve; some shift; some dig in their heels.
Though the city has been ranked third most livable by the Economist, and its art scene earned it the first Canadian foray for American art-media powerhouse Art21 this fall, Vancouver’s real-estate pressures are having a huge impact on its art-world ecology, begging three questions: Livable for whom? Creative for whom? How can galleries cope?
Here are eight approaches that some Vancouver galleries—artist-run, commercial and institutional—are pursuing right now.
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