Curator on the prowl for van Gogh look-alike
Recently, Douglas Coupland, the Vancouver-based polymath — writer/artist/playwright/actor/curator — declared that 3D printing would be “the next big tech tsunami” to alter the art world, but it could very well be a wave of his own making.
On Tuesday, Coupland put out an open call for auditions for his latest public sculpture commission: an outsize bust of Vincent van Gogh, to be created by 3D scanning and printing a close look-alike.
His invitation is simple: If you’re red-headed and bearded, upload a photo for consideration by Aug. 20 to iamvincent.com. Visitors to the site can see submissions and place their votes. People can also enter by tagging potential look-alikes on social media with the hashtag #iamvincent.
The eventual winner will be jetted to Vancouver and paid $7,211for their trouble, and be immortalized in a large-scale — two-by-three-metre — bronze.
The race has barely begun, but the field is yet to broaden: as of 11 a.m. Wednesday, 61 entries had been received, with one, a Canadian named Daniel James White, leading the field with 192 votes.
Why redheads?
Though the famous Dutch artist was red-bearded, a bronze sculpture reveals no such details. Coupland is ready with an answer, calling redheadedness “the most recent successful human mutation . . . This is a complex way of saying that there is no way of telling when a gene is going to change and what sort of characteristic it will bring about.
“This genetic magic is a microcosm of the way in which all life on Earth changes with time. I want this first bronze piece to be eternal, but I also want it to be imbued with the 21st century.”
Coupland did not specify if applicants were to have one ear or two.
Twenty-first-century technology, clearly, is something Coupland is keen to embrace. Earlier this year, he embarked on a nationwide portrait project for Simons department stores, in which he 3D scans eager shoppers with a mind to assemble, eventually, what he calls a portrait of Canada.
Scanning and printing mini busts of his subjects in store as a take-home, Coupland keeps their data to be fed into his larger project. The eventual finished product, to be installed at the Simons store at Toronto’s Yorkdale Mall in 2017, will use data compiled from thousands of shoppers.