Douglas Coupland
Gumhead

For the forthcoming NEXT exhibition, and in conjunction with Douglas Coupland’s solo exhibition, the Vancouver Art Gallery has commissioned a site-specific public sculpture located on the grassy mound on the Howe Street side of the Gallery. Gumhead is a seven-foot tall self-portrait that the artist has described as “a gum-based, crowd-sourced, publically interactive, social-sculpture self-portrait.” Viewers and passersby are encouraged to apply their own chewed gum to the sculpture so that over the summer months it is transformed, eventually obscuring the artist’s face. Coupland often involves others in making his art and also relies on everyday objects—such as gum—as the very materials of his work, playfully implicating mass culture with respect to the medium, subject and process of his art.