RESTLESS: Recent Acquisitions

RESTLESS refers to the underlying sense of movement reverberating through this exhibition’s featured works—whether by changing one’s position geographically through travel and migration or by shifting digitally into the virtual metaverse. It also speaks to radically altering perspectives and structural paradigms, a global de-centering. To be restless implies constant activity or motion but also a boredom and sense of anxiety. It is both rousing and unsettling.

Since the 1980s, the Vancouver Art Gallery has acquired a significant number of important contemporary works by international and local artists of Asian descent in order to provide a better understanding of the multiple art histories of our time. RESTLESS comprises recent acquisitions from the last decade that build upon the programming and collecting goals of the Gallery’s Institute of Asian Art. Featured artists include Gu Xiong, Sunil Gupta, Ho Tam, Pushpamala N., Henry Tsang, Paul Wong, XU ZHEN®, Jin-me Yoon and YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES.