Image: Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver
The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery in Vancouver is in the final week of 'Fragments and Forms: Attending to the Monumental', an exhibition that closes Sunday, August 16. The gallery’s email notice describes the show as a response to the statue of King George VI in the Belkin’s Outdoor Art Collection and says it brings together work by Deanna Bowen, Hazel Meyer and Jon Sasaki alongside works from the Belkin’s permanent collection.
On the exhibition page, the Belkin dates 'Fragments and Forms' from 19 June to 16 August 2026. The gallery says the project considers the ideological investments and representational strategies of the monument, using contemporary art to test how monuments hold authority, shape narrative and stand in for official memory. The exhibition sits within the gallery’s broader programming at the University of British Columbia campus, where admission is free and the gallery identifies its location on Main Mall in Vancouver.
The response to the King George VI statue is central to the exhibition’s framing. The Belkin notes that the sculpture, by William McMillan, was gifted to UBC in 1958, unveiled by the Lieutenant-Governor that same year, and dedicated by Queen Elizabeth II when she visited campus on 22 June 1958. The work was previously located near the Woodward Library on campus, but was removed in 2021 because of construction and remains in storage at the university. The gallery presents that history as a prompt for asking what a monument means when it is no longer standing in public view.
To develop that inquiry, the exhibition draws on a wide range of artists named by the gallery, including Rebecca Belmore, Raymond Boisjoly, Deanna Bowen, Christo, Whess Harman, Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens, Luis Jacob, Gerald Kelly, Laiwan, Glenn Lewis, Glenn Ligon, Ken Lum, Hazel Meyer, Kent Monkman, Will Munro, Marianne Nicolson, N.E. Thing Co., Jerry Pethick, Diamond Point, Marina Roy, Jon Sasaki, Kevin Schmidt, Dan Starling, Ian Wallace, Cornelia Wyngaarden and Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun. The Belkin’s materials do not present these artists as a single unified group so much as a set of voices around the same problem: how historical power is fixed, challenged or withdrawn through public objects.
The gallery has also linked the exhibition to an online panel discussion held on 24 April 2025, featuring Deanna Bowen, Ken Lum and Hamza Walker. In the recording, the conversation explores monuments and contemporary artworks that challenge canonical monumental forms and disrupt dominant historical narratives. According to the Belkin, the discussion centers on artistic practices and curatorial projects that address the production of memory in public space and the willful erasure of unacknowledged histories.
'Fragments and Forms' arrives at a moment when the Belkin is already looking ahead to its autumn schedule. The gallery’s newsletter also points to 'Jana Sterbak: Dimensions of Intimacy', opening on 11 September and continuing through 6 December 2026, curated by Naomi Potter and organized and circulated by Esker Foundation, Calgary. But for now, the focus remains on the closing days of 'Fragments and Forms', which the gallery says will end on 16 August 2026.
