A large freestanding, three-dimensional sign with soft domed LED light nodes set within Las Vegas style letter boxes spelling the phrase THE WORDS DON"T FIT THE PICTURE. The lights change colour with a computer programmed sequence.

This work was officially deaccessioned June 2020 after careful review of the artwork condition and pending changes to the plaza location. Nearly all of the electrical components had reached the end of their life expectancy. More importantly, restoration and reconfiguring costs were determined to be significantly higher than the original budget when factoring in repositioning expenses that would be required due to upcoming changes to the plaza.

The City of Vancouver strives to acquire and commission works of art of the highest quality. Acquisition by the City implies a commitment to the preservation, protection and maintenance of artwork for the public benefit and implies permanency within the collection. As such, deaccessioning is a serious consideration requiring careful planning and adherence to the conditions set out in our Deaccession Policy.

https://vancouver.ca/files/cov/PublicArt-DeaccessionGuidelines.pdf

THE WORDS DON’T FIT THE PICTURE [was] a text-based work made in response to the context, building and public surrounds of the Vancouver Public Library. The work takes the form of a large freestanding sign that sits in front of the VPL just off the southern entrance of the building in a heavy pedestrian traffic area. The sign takes its cues from an era of signage when signs were once seen as celebratory, grand and iconic – in effect, as landmarks in their own right as a kind of symbolic architecture (think: Caesars Palace, The Flamingo, The Stardust – to the landmark of all landmarks, Hollywood). In tracing this lineage, the work also acknowledges a local history when Vancouver was once seen as one of the neon-light capitals of North America. Reminders of this once past persists in signs like BOW-MAC “on Broadway” (now retro-fitted with the Toys R’ Us sign) and of course the W atop of what once was the Woodward’s building. In adopting the form of a sign, THE WORDS DON’T FIT THE PICTURE elides the classifications of traditional sculpture, by evoking a typology that is at once familiar and accessible. Taken within the context of a public library, the work touches upon – in a very poetic way – the use of words and language as boundless and imaginative, as a catalyst for a multiplicity of meanings.