The Good, The Bad, and The Allegory

Description:

The Good, The Bad, and the Allegory (2015) was an installation by Assemble with illustrator Daniel Dzonu-Clarke, presented as part of Urgent Imagination: Art and Urban Development, Part 1. Two illustrated panels depict Vancouver as both a city in thrall to development economics, and as a diverse and interconnected city led by an inspired administration.

The work is inspired by Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s frescoes The Allegory of Good and Bad Governance (1338) at the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena, Italy. As one of the first major secular commissions in the Renaissance, Lorenzetti’s series was created to remind government officials of their duties to the people of Siena. In Good, tranquility reigns and figures representing Wisdom and Peace watch over an idyll of harmonious city and country life. In Bad, tyranny sits on a throne flanked by Deceit and Fraud while the city is in ruins. Hilarious in their hyperbole, Lorenzetti’s frescoes lay responsibility for such glory, harmony, discord, and damnation—not with God, but directly at the feet of local government.

Meanwhile, Assemble’s “allegory” reminds us of the responsibility of a government to its citizens and the consequences of allowing capital accumulation to drive civic policies. With wooden supports, the panels were situated in the parking lot of Buy-Low Foods at Kingsgate Mall—a major site that had recently seen a number of architectural and cultural shifts due to development.

Urgent Imagination: Art and Urban Development was a two-part project that proposed creative alternatives to developer-driven architecture and urban planning in Vancouver. The project generated events, artworks, conferences, and an online platform for critical inquiry into issues concerning urban development, spatial justice, and critical theory.

Curated by Caitlin Jones.