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The Vancouver Art Gallery is about to arrive at perhaps the most pivotal moment in its 94-year history. The VAG, which has been in its current location since 1983, has long been tagged to move a few blocks east to Cambie.
That process has come under some scrutiny. Late last year, a planned design for the new building by Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron was scrapped due to a significant increase in projected costs. A couple of months later, VAG CEO and executive director, Anthony Kiendl, announced his resignation.
That led to the appointment of interim co-CEOs Eva Respini (then deputy director and director of curatorial programs) and Sirish Rao (then senior director of public engagement and a co-founder of the Indian Summer Festival).
But, as both of them tell the Straight in their office on the top floor of the Gallery, there isn’t anything interim about the decisions they have been put in charge of making, and there isn’t currently an ongoing search for a new CEO.
“There’s nothing interim about our commitment to this institution and the city,” Rao says. “We’ve been really empowered by the board, who have said, ‘This is the role for now, but you’re part of making decisions that will have a long-lasting impact.’ We do feel very empowered and trusted.”
One of the first decisions on that list was hiring a new architect. In late September, the Gallery announced that West Vancouver-based Formline Architecture and Urbanism and Toronto’s KPMB Architects would be the team to guide the next phase of the gallery’s purpose-built home.
Respini and Rao already had major roles in planning out the insides of the proposed new gallery. One of the main goals was to improve on the many shortcomings of the current VAG, which operates out of the city’s old provincial courthouse building.
”The main thing about this building is that it doesn’t suit the needs of a 21st-century museum—we don’t have a lecture hall or classrooms,” says Respini, who came to Vancouver after years spent with the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston and MOMA in New York to be part of the gallery’s next phase.
Adds Rao: “We’re excited about a museum that is also a public square. I come from the world of programs, gathering people in talks and debate, music, dialogue, and learning. How those things come together is such a great proposition. How art meets people is important.”
Despite staff layoffs earlier this year, Rao and Respini insist that the gallery is currently in strong economic shape heading into a pivotal moment of change.
“The summer was great—30 percent higher revenues than over the last two years compared to the same period,” Rao says. “People want to be here. When we’ve been able to do things like Free First Friday Nights, there’s a lineup around the block every single time.”
Among the things that visitors have to look forward to in the VAG is a major Emily Carr exhibition next summer. “As we welcome in a lot of tourists for the FIFA World Cup, we’re putting on the biggest show of her work in 20 years,” Respini says. No pressure.
The Vancouver Art Gallery was voted Best Art Gallery in our Best of Vancouver awards. See the full list of winners here.