Douglas Coupland: everywhere is anywhere is anything is everything is the first major museum exhibition of the artist’s work and will be presented at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Deftly capturing the spirit of the age—or, as the artist refers to it, “the 21st century condition”—Douglas Coupland’s ideas are often encountered on the written page. But the themes he explores in his writing have appeared in his artwork as early as the 1980s when he was a student at the Emily Carr College of Art & Design. In this survey of Coupland’s work, we encounter his incisive social analysis in a variety of forms including installation, painting, photography, prints, sculpture, quilts and wallpaper. His synthesis of contemporary events, popular culture, new technologies and art historical references―that range from the paintings of Emily Carr and the Group of Seven to the Pop sensibility of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein―resists an identifiable style. By incorporating everyday materials and objects and referencing images that have become culturally iconic, he probes the way that things, images and processes of contemporary life affect our understanding of the world around us.

This exhibition brings together works made since the early 2000s as well as major new installations created specifically for this presentation. It sheds light on subjects as varied as the distinct nature of Canadian identity, the rise of utopian ideas, the power of words, the ubiquitous presence of digital technologies, the emerging culture of fear and the unshakeable nature of one’s own constitution—ideas that Coupland examines with both optimism and some trepidation.

*image (left)
Douglas Coupland
Luggage Tag Sunset No. 3, 2013,
acrylic on canvas,
Collection of David Dime and Elisa Nuyten