About Gallery Gachet
Gallery Gachet is a unique artist-run centre located in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Gachet is a collectively-run exhibition and studio space built to empower participants as artists, administrators and curators.
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Gallery Gachet is a non-profit artist run centre located in the Downtown Eastside.
Your support will help us extend the range and quality of our programs.Accessibility Info
Front door - 32" width
No stepsWashroom
Door - 35" width
Toilet clearance:
8'' left side
29'' front
Support bars on left and behind toiletSubscribe to our e-newsletter
Neurotika Blog – Systems
In order to make art -you encapsulate. You take the pure light and stuff it in a cup so it becomes a shape. It is said that when God created life -he drew in the reluctant fire and put it in a form. He did this with the help of music. In this way you use a tool –a vessel for power. A system is such a thing -whereby art or poetry is processed. One cannot generate without a system. It is the work of the ages -to stimulate and also to direct the energy into a purpose. Art is a talent used with skill and thought. So systems are important. Even so a structure is not a thing that is useful all the time. There are errors and accidents -and sometimes these mistakes are solutions in disguise. The system that is successful all the time -is a lie and a hopeful negation.
In order to be filled -a glass must be empty. There is no room for plans and schemes. We must be streamlined and not top heavy. To be strong inside and weak outside is better than to be weak inside -and strong outside. A system is sometimes a way of buttressing and supporting an idea. This is a precarious thing to base a philosophy on. So tools are only things that work sometimes. There is no perfect law or rule to depend on. Morals are a system of ordinances – but are only the ground floor of the house. Taboos and manifestoes are only ways of understanding the complex world. All structures fall in the end -and art is a way of circumventing such simplicities. To be a moralist is to be a theologian -or a critic. Artists do not take apart -they put things together.
In order to use a system -you must know its limitations. It is invariably a thing of uncertainties. The higher you go -the further you fall. If you try to pluck the fruit from a branch you cannot reach -you tempt disaster. Art is a thing unlimited sight -to see like an eagle with pure vision -is to know a direct truth. If we emulate the generosity of all living things -we can give of ourselves. Still sometimes we are blocked by the guardian of denial -the thing that say’s No -to your Yes. This is indeed the enemy of our art -to fear consequences and to hesitate before the expression. What keeps us from progressing is a thing that kills the spirit. All negations are blind thoughts that encircle in the head -and these voices are harmful to the inward being.
So when we lose the confusions -we are united with the garden of self. We are rooted in darkness -like the seed. To pay attention to the details is indeed important -but all maps and charts are useless in art. In Outsider art -there is a dismantling of reality and then a rearrangement of its parts. Picasso did this -he disemboweled life -and showed the inside guts of its essence. In this way he evoked chaos. The Outsider artist is also an agent of anarchy -and in his own way -he also arises to a riddle. This puzzle is not a question that can be answered. There is no ultimate truth -and when you unlearn what you have learned -you know it’s all turmoil and mayhem. We cannot clean it up or remake it. The artist knows this -and works with the raw stuff of the universe. He puts his hands in the river -to cradle the water in his palms. He takes the free energy -and imprisons it in shape and form. He takes a system that has no system -and uses it with impunity -in this way he conquers matter. In this way he changes reality.