The Youngbloods, Steppenwolf, David Bowie and other boomer favourites were just the ticket to kick off the opening reception to The West Coast in the Seventies, a collection of prints and paintings from Vancouver artist and writer Michael Kluckner on view until June 16 at the Petley Jones Gallery. The opening coincided with the launch of Kluckner’s new illustrated novel, The Rooming House, an ode to hippy Vancouver as seen through the eyes of eight 20-somethings who meet at a midtown rooming house in the 1970's.

Memorial for the lost pages, a collection of intimate videos and photographs, on view at Vancouver’s Contemporary Art Gallery until Jan. 3, honours documentarian Madiha Aijaz and her perspective on loss, longing and change in present-day Pakistan. Aijaz, born in 1981, died unexpectedly in 2019 from cardiac arrest. This is her first exhibition in Canada.

The story told by a new exhibition at the UBC Museum of Anthropology starts innocently enough with a parade of pre-Columbian blouses. Colours denote the wearer’s age and status. Nearby, the spiritual power of the Amazonian creation myth is evoked through a large mural. Black lines represent the forest, blue areas the river system. Animals are symbolized by other colours.

Whimsy and social commentary mark Japanese art star Takashi Murakami’s exhibition, The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg. The Vancouver Art Gallery snagged this coup, a blockbuster retrospective of 59 sculptures and paintings, for the show’s only Canadian stop in a three-city North American tour. The title? The octopus does indeed eat its own leg in order to survive when it is diseased or injured. And, likewise, Murakami wants to withstand the vagaries of mass popularity and critical approval.

Australian artist Gordon Bennett's exhibition, a powerful attack on systemic racism, is called Be Polite. It is anything but.The late artist, of Indigenous and Anglo-Celtic ancestry, expressed his disgust through wit and anger in a variety of styles and media. His largely unseen works on paper, at Vancouver's Contemporary Art Gallery until Sept. 24, are a foundation of his practice, precursors to the larger conceptual paintings for which he has attracted the most attention.

“I like a lot of the sculptors from the Renaissance and I like the special effects guys from the movie business,” says Vancouver sculptor Jesse Rubin. His pieces reflect that duality – beautifully rendered and finely detailed human shapes married with a touch of the bizarre, a unique combination that, admittedly, can weird people out. And oh yes, they stand no more than 20 inches tall. Rubin can’t explain his fascination with creepy creatures or why he works with such tiny figures. “I don’t hav

Canadian artist Heather Cline is on a mission - to celebrate the country's 150th birthday through a collection of landscapes and recordings that honour small town Canadiana - and she's almost there. 34 acrylics are completed with 16 or more to go.

A portrait of Tin Tin, the fictional young Belgian reporter depicted in the cartoon series by Hergé, isn’t what you’d expect from an Aboriginal artist steeped in First Nations traditions. Riding a bull in New York’s financial district doesn’t come to mind either, but Rande Cook bucks the stereotype. “If I have to do another killer whale motif I’m going to shoot myself,” he laughs. Cheeky but original, Cook’s mission is to redefine Native art.