Bettman to Bartels

Only yesterday did I notice the incredible volume of construction/destruction going on in my neighbourhood. Every second block has an infill project; every other block a lifted house. At the west end of my block, two houses were razed to accommodate a three-storey, nine unit cluster with underground parking, while a block south on Kingsway, another car-lot-cum-condominium-complex.

It was while watching the installation of a large pane of glass that my ears tuned into the workmen's boom box: a sports talk show dissecting the current NHL lock-out and what is likely the suspension of the entire 2012-2013 hockey season. Representing the players is Donald Fehr; representing NHL team owners, Commissioner Gary Bettman.

Every June, Gary Bettman walks onto the ice to present the Stanley Cup, and is routinely greeted with boos. Rarely is his name mentioned in a positive light. But that's his job, for Gary Bettman is a well-paid whipping boy whose duties also include the maintenance and marketting of the NHL on behalf of its teams' owners -- because it is the owners, not Gary Bettman, who are calling the shots.

While sports talk shows operate on emotion (as opposed to analytical critique), I have on a occasion been inspired by something I have heard on these programs, an insight that has altered the way I think about professional sports. But on this day, with the workmen's boom box blaring, and this huge window being craned into its frame, it occurred to me that the contempt for Gary Bettman is misplaced, that Bettman is merely the messenger, and that the greater problem lies in a group of owners with their own agendas, some of whom have formed a majority. And as is the case with most boards, majority rules.

It was while considering the NHL lock-out that my thoughts returned to the current situation at the Vancouver Art Gallery, under the direction of Kathleen Bartels. When Gary Bettman was hired in the 1990s, the NHL was moribund; since then he has built the league into a powerhouse (by corporate standards). Kathleen Bartels achieved something similar after she was hired to direct the VAG in 2000. But somewhere along the line the board decided the VAG required a bigger space to house and display its collection (no doubt bolstered by the inclusion of long-serving board member Michael Audain's impressive accumulation of B.C and Meso-American art and artefact), and that it was Bartels's job to sell it.

Like Gary Bettman, the name Kathleen Bartels is often greeted with scorn. During her eleven years at the VAG, we have heard stories of poor working conditions, low staff morale, union troubles, insensitive donor "asks", budget shortfalls, a lack of curatorial support and, most recently, disdain for the manner in which she has presented the gallery's case for moving -- not the end goal, which many of us agree on (a larger space to display the collection, where the stories of this city's art can be told), but the means by which she has gone about selling this purpose-built, stand-alone "iconic" building to taxpayers, business and government. I, for one, have been appalled by some of Bartels's presumptions, while at the same time aware that the awkwardness and injury that have accompanied the VAG's proposed move is not wholly her fault. For this I blame certain members of her meddlesome, self-serving board, just as many of us blamed another meddlesome, self-serving VAG board twelve years ago, when an ad hoc group known as VagConcern formed to protest not the "resignation" of the gallery's previous director, Alf Bogusky, but the arrogance of board member Joe McHugh, after he was appointed from within that board to serve as the VAG's interim director.

Those who participated in VagConcern will remember visits from VAG board members Christos Dikeakos, who, with all the righteous indignation this artist-restauranteur-gadfly could muster, admonished us for our principles, to developer-philanthropist Michael Audain, who entered our forum as a self-appointed peace-maker, a gesture that would have been better received had he not come to us insisting that he would leave with our blessings. Yet whereas the aristocratic Audain was relatively low-key during the VagConcern era, he took a different approach after the VAG announced four years ago its desire to move, when he paired himself with Bartels at public information sessions and made himself available to journalists. That he took this tack seems consistent with a man whose interest in a move was linked less to the public good than the vanity that comes from wanting to see, in his lifetime, his collection on permanent display -- in a gallery room with his name above the entrance. Michael Audain is not the VAG board, merely its wealthiest member. But with wealth comes influence (and Audain's influence, we are told, is far-reaching).

But back to Bartels. The reason she has my sympathy extends beyond her character. For here is yet another blithe U.S. American who came to Vancouver to be a first-time gallery director, only to be shepherded by Audain, who introduced her to his good friend Gordon Campbell, the then-premier of this province and a top-down autocratic so unilateral in his approach to governance that caucus members not only quit on him but quit politics altogether. So this is the political economic culture Bartels was exposed to during the first days of her directorship, the culture she did her best to adapt to, learn from. But with Campbell gone, and his party unlikely to form a government after the May 2013 election, so too are the millions Campbell committed to a new VAG building. But rather than stick by his director, what does Audain do? He sulks, loses interest, then announces two weeks ago that he is considering moving his collection to Whistler so that he might see his legacy enshrined ("in my life lifetime").

I am not sure when the NHL lock-out will end, but when it does, it will not come from Gary Bettman but from team owners. As for Kathleen Bartels, until her board tells her otherwise she will have no choice but to continue lobbying for a purpose-built, stand-alone "iconic" building, whether she believes in one or not. So next time you hear the name Kathleen Bartels and feel compelled to hiss, look not to the messenger -- but to those who wrote her message.

In response to Allen Garr's May 26 piece in the Vancouver Courier:

Re: “City holds power on VAG’s future”

After reading Allen Garr’s Wednesday May 26 “Opinion” piece on the proposed relocation of the Vancouver Art Gallery, I was left wondering, Where’s the opinion part?

Garr’s failure to opine echoes a story that appeared in the May 19 Globe and Mail, where mention was made of the mere seven emails the City had received on the question of the gallery’s relocation. Clearly many Vancouverites, not just Garr, are indifferent to the issue.

As someone who writes on art, and who agrees the current gallery site is problematic, it seems to me that the starting point for any conversation concerning the gallery is not a new site, and what “icon” might be dropped on top of it, but the insufficiencies of the current site in relation to the gallery’s long-term plans.

And what are those plans? Has anyone asked? Does the VAG want to be a modern and contemporary art gallery that buys onto blockbuster touring shows of Renaissance masters? Does it want to be all those things under one roof?

If that is the only reason to build such a roof, then I say no, spread it around, ask more of our city’s Contemporary Art Gallery, keep the current VAG site for historical wall work and, yes, explore what remains of Robson Square, or an aspect of the Sears Building, for video, film and installation works.

It is only through conversation, in the broadest sense, that new questions emerge, some of which will speak to the root of this indifference and invariably propel us forward. Because like many, I am of the opinion that it is the way the VAG does things, not the ends it is trying to achieve, that alienates its publics.

VAG director Kathleen Bartels has accomplished a great many things since arriving from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2001, such as boosting membership, increasing attendance and mounting successful fundraisers. But the bar was low. And the means by which she achieved these feats came with more than a few bruised toes.

Now the bar is high, the stakes even higher -- and Bartels, who appeared to us as Hillary Clinton, is in danger of becoming the next Sarah Palin. She wants a new building but, after nine years, has learned little of the city (and indeed, the country) on whose lap it will sit. How else to explain our indifference?

I missed the Vancouver Art Gallery's public forum last Thursday, regarding their proposed relocation to a purpose-built singular structure at Larwell Park. Have yet to speak with anyone who attended the event, though both the Globe and Mail and Vancouver Sun have weighed in – the Globe with reportage, the Sun with (snide) commentary.

One bell that keeps tolling is Vancouver City Councillor Heather Deal on a) how disinterested Vancouverites are about the move (only seven emails in favour) and b) how a number of local architects want the gallery to remain at its current site – the heart of the city.

It appears that Deal, who was appointed by the mayor to oversee the gallery’s proposal, is there to steer support for a shared site at Larwell, the last city-owned block in downtown Vancouver. Sharing, in this instance, would mean a gallery and a tower, for the City has committed millions from any Larwell Park development to the renovation of the nearby Queen Elizabeth Theatre --something only a commercial-residential tower could provide, something the VAG wants no part of.

Not sure how the VAG is going to get around this. Nor do I see the City budging. That, to me, is the biggest problem facing the VAG's proposed move, a ball Heather Deal is doing her best to keep out of the City's court.

In eleven hours the cash-poor Vancouver Art Gallery will pitch the Vancouver Board of Trade on a new building at the site of the former bus depot on West Georgia Street. Topic heading: “A Vancouver Masterpiece.”

As much as I would like the gallery to reorganize, create a better situation for the display and dissemination of art and art production, my hope is that they do so as part of a larger conversation -- where the desire for a new gallery is based not on the egotistical posturing of its Chairs and Director but on a civic understanding of what a gallery is and how it might serve the city and its guests. Only when people feel part of something do projects like the VAG’s come to pass.

Will the Board of Trade be open to the VAG’s pitch? A few years ago the owner of the local soccer club put up the cash to build a new stadium at the west end of Gastown. All that was needed was City approval, and the City said no -- the owner wanted to include market housing. In the VAG’s case, they want the opposite -- a stand-alone building. But the City wants a shared site.

Is there a compromise? Yes. The new VAG will have corporate skyboxes.

As angry signatories continue to circle National Gallery director Marc Mayer, critics of the Vancouver Art Gallery’s latest relocation plan have formed a circle of their own, this one based on the VAG’s second attempt to move to the former bus depot on Georgia Street, now that the False Creek site has been quashed.

So far, the Globe and Mail has run back-to-back stories.

In yesterday’s paper we read (once again) how the VAG is pressed for space, that it can only exhibit 3% of its collection. “Pure and simple, we need to expand,” said VAG pater familias Michael Audain -- to which former VAG board member Bob Rennie opined, “They should go underground. The Louvre did it.”

Audain doesn’t like the suggestion. For Audain, digging down would mean "as much as 90%" of the gallery would be below street level. Where he got that figure, I’m not sure. If it were based on the collection, versus the 320,000 square feet currently available above ground, that would add up to over a quarter-billion subterranean square feet, with the entire collection on permanent display.

Hyperboles like Audain’s are often borne from pressure. This appears to be the case, for the VAG has said repeatedly that it will stand for nothing less than a stand alone building of its own design.

According to VAG board chair David Aisenstat, the gallery has met with “some of the most famous architects in the world,” and to share the site, as city manager Penny Ballem has suggested (with “a tall building or even anything else"), is not enough. “We simply would not embark on a project of this magnitude with ordinary as our goal.” As if sharing should be equated to “ordinary”.

Today’s article had a different slant, with architect Bing Thom leading the charge. First: “The Olympics have proven that the gallery has the best site in Canada. It’s the perfect location.” Second: “There’s a whole bunch of us in town wanting to say that the business case for the move is not convincing.” Third: “The feeling is that we have a small number of people on an ego trip, wanting to do a [Guggeneheim] Bilbao.”

As for the VAG’s argument, that a move is necessary based on the volume of their collection, former VAG associate director Chris Wooten is unconvinced, describing the gallery’s holdings as “mediocre,” and that back-to-back deficits suggest that they are in no position “to pay to maintain twice the square footage.”

So the stage is set, the actors emerging. All eyes are on Bartels. How will she respond? Will the VAG mount a publicity campaign, like they did during their last move, in 1983? As for Bing Thom, is his desire to see the VAG remain on Hornby Street related to his desire to see the viaducts leading to and from the proposed VAG site removed? And if the VAG were to share this site, who would their neighbours be? Indeed, who would want to share a site with those who do not want them?