Make Furniture, Not War

Douglas Coupland stages “the world’s first table signing” to draw attention to the state of design in Canada.

Ernest Hemingway held court with artists and socialites at Harry’s Bar in Venice. Andy Warhol’s “champagne and chocolate cake” art openings are legendary and Dorothy Parker was a fixture in Manhattan’s Algonquin Hotel at the infamous “Round Table”. Now author Douglas Coupland is capitalizing on what is left of literary culture’s aura by signing round tables of his own design in a 21st century update of a celebrity artist’s happening, which Coupland calls, “The world’s first table signing”.

But the counter culture of the past seems to have been replaced by the sales counters of a high end lifestyle present. At this event, held on Saturday afternoon in Vancouver’s Caban store in the upscale South Granville area, there was only coffee and water in sight - ipso facto - a non-event for the three luminaries listed above, who would likely have still been in been in bed at this hour.

Add to these unenticing ingredients a massive anti-war rally taking place five kilometres away in downtown Vancouver and the crowd at the table signing was bound to be scant. At one point Coupland had only his toy Canada Geese to keep him company, though he seemed not to mind.

There was more than a hint of performance art in Coupland’s presentation. Dressed in an inexplicable combination of black and white jockey outfit and home-made glued Canada hat, with “Made in Canada” stickers all around, those who visited were greeted by a slightly eccentric, quite entertaining, caricature of Captain Canada.

Though the event was sparsely attended, Coupland’s “make furniture, not war” event was a success of sorts - in an understated Canadian way. The author/designer/artist gamely engaged with each of the visitors, most of whom were paying $200 for a signed copy of Coupland’s new, limited edition table, manufactured in Edmonton by Pure Design, exclusively for Caban. The dark wood design, the latest installment of Coupland’s “target” series, is named after the famous Hemingway haunt, “Harry’s Bar” in Venice.

Not everyone coughed up two hundred dollars for a piece of design-meets-performance-art history. Some just came to meet their literary idol. One woman introduced herself as an English teacher and a fan before turning to present her nephew, who managed to look both scared and bored. Coupland tried to break his trance, “What are you reading right now?” Blank stare. “Ah, video games. I can tell - books are dead.” Perhaps that is why Coupland returns, from time to time, to design and sculpture.

Coupland’s real reason for the table signing, beyond “moving the goods”, is to draw attention to the sorry state of Canadian design manufacturing, which he believes can be described as “doing nearly nothing with superabundance. It’s sinful. It’s disgusting. And we have a government that makes us think this is okay.”

Canadians have perfected the design and manufacture of 2” x 4” planks and it is time to move on, from foolishly shipping off all of the country’s raw materials to exporting many more finished products. “We should be shipping raw logs to Newfoundland, and Newfoundlanders should be making kickass furniture that wipes Ikea off the map. Anything less than this is national failure”.

In keeping with the art and celebrity theme, the event was photographed, with a Polaroid camera similar to the one with which Warhol documented many events, by Ernest Hemingway’s grandson, Vancouver photographic artist Patrick Hemingway.

(This article grew out of a ranting email exchange - excerpted below. All expletives have been edited so as not to upset Coupland’s mother, whom he describes as “the dream Globe reader”.)

James Culham is editor of useful + agreeable, a design and travel magazine. www.usefulandagreeable.com - jculham@usefulandagreeable.com

a version of this article appeared in the globe & mail newspaper, saturday, february 22, 2003

 

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Date: Tuesday, February 11, 2003 12:03 AM
Subject: table signing

hi doug,
i was just by the caban window this evening and saw a notice of your table
signing on the weekend. i believe you said this is a new table design? i'd
like to talk to the globe review about doing a piece in the saturday paper.
please send any info. + images - would be best to run it with your
appearance on sat.
could be an elvis mob scene - you may have to escape by helicoptor from the
roof.
james

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Date: Tuesday, February 11, 2003 12:28 AM
Subject: Re: table signing

Mob scene?   Good God, no.    I look at this as one of those rolling-up-shirt-sleeves-and-helping-Canada's-depressing-manufacturing-sector exercises.    I get so livid when I see our government shipping away a million logs, and with each log, 50 jobs.   Fools.
And then Canadians reflexively parrot moronic colonial crap like,   "Well, gee, it'd take money to set up things like furniture factories..."
"Well, YES, you F'ing twits. It WOULD."
And then we can't find an immediate market for our lumber and we walk into a corner, stick our head up against a wall and whimper, "Gosh. Nobody wants our logs.   We'd better just throw them away."
James, machines pick logs as if they were daisies, and it's only going to get faster and require fewer people.   WHY THE FRICK AREN'T WE KEEPING A FEW LOGS HERE AND ADDING SOME INTELLINGENCE TO THEM!    We have the talent, the engineering skills, an enthusiastic labour force but no "...We'd best ship our logs away..."
End of rant.
So that's my opinion.   Is Caban presenting this as a glamour event? I refuse to wear my Bryan Ferry suit for this one. It's fleece and screeds.    But I do think the idea of autographing furniture is kind of sexy. It's kind of blank and Warhol-ish and industrial, in the best senses of those words.
No idea who has photos of the Caban table. I mean, if they don't, who will? I've got two of them here at the house, but no photos....
D

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Date: Thursday, February 13, 2003 2:45 PM
Subject: questions

hi doug,
...

.1. works such as the ‘hockey night in canada’ and ‘expo 67’ tables and your books ‘souvenir of canada’ and ‘vancouver: city of glass’ often deal with a mixture of what i’d call nostalgia and nationalism. how does that fit with your position as a global brand (for lack of a better term)? are you interested in exporting canadian culture? do you believe, as indigo books used to say, “the world needs more canada”?

2. unless there is a harry’s bar in west van that i don’t know about, i assume you’re referring to the one in venice - with the dark wood - where hemingway hung out (where didn’t he hang out? by the way, his grandson patrick is a photographer and a friend - and i think he’ll be shooting the event with me on saturday). but back to the point, why ‘harry’s bar’? are you interested in how places, or in this case a table, can be fetishized based on an author/artist’s endorsement?

3. the pieces are numbered and will be signed, but are they art? do you have a goal in mind for saturday’s “table signing”? is it “move the goods” or something else?

4. although the process of design is typically initiated by an individual and often intended for universal use, somehow national characteristics (or more likely stereotypes) frequently enter into the equation. reputations are cemented in consumers’ minds for decades, producing tremendous added value. i’m thinking of italian and swedish furniture, german cars, japanese electronics and so on. if this is, as many believe, an increasingly global and internationalist era, why does, or should, nationalism play a role in design?

5. you’ve lived in japan and the u.s., and have likely noted the nationalistic pride many japanese have for ‘made in japan’ design goods and can’t help but have noticed the u.s.’ various - “buy american” movements over the years - in cars and clothing, etc.. many other industrialized countries are similarly concerned with developing and supporting their local industries. how would you describe canadian attitudes and government policies in the recognition and promotion of design generally?

 

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Date: Friday, February 14, 2003 12:15 AM
Subject: Voici encore...

Hi James,
I went in and rejigged things a tiny bit just for flow. But it’s all here....

………………………………………………………………………….
Q)
Works such as your Hockey Night in Canada, and Expo 67 tables and your books, Souvenir of Canada, and Vancouver: City of Glass, often deal with a mixture of what I’d call nostalgia and nationalism.
A)
Yup.
Q)
Why?
A)
The books in particular were my attempt to stop looking at Canada using glasses with prescriptions issued circa 1973. I think that Souvenir of Canada is maybe one of the first books on Canada that refuses to use photos of the country in a non-fawning, non-boosterist manner. You know the usual suspects: Peggy’s Cove and orange grain elevators photographed at sunset -- and all the usual images which have been drained of psychic charge decades ago. I mean, you go to the airport to buy a book on Canada to take to friends in, say, Europe, and all you find are hardcover glossy thingies that contain sterilized imagery that says zilch about our daily lives. We all know what I’m talking about here. Americans reading these words wouldn’t know, but any Canadian reading these words knows EXACTLY what I mean.
Q)
How does that fit with your position as a global brand (for lack of a better term)? Are you interested in exporting Canadian culture?
A)
We should start doing more with what we have. Whether it stays inside our boundaries or not isn’t the primary issue.
Q)
But as for you being a brand…?
A)
Me? A brand? I’m a very lazy person, so it’s hard to think of myself being a brand. Brands don’t go to bed at 2:30 AM and wake up at 10:30 every morning. Brands are photogenic and have logos. I am logoless. I dread cameras. I used to try to be good for the camera, but now my philosophy is, “Oh for God’s sake, show a picture of furniture or a book cover instead. Or if you have to show a face, show Matt Damon or Brad Pitt. Or a disaster or something sexy. I lost my aura somewhere around 1994 and that was that.
Q)
The pieces are numbered and will be signed, but are they art?
A)
Nope. They’re design. But I think the SIGNING itself is performance art. It’s a deliberate way of hijacking a capitalist boutique to generate the exact dialogue we’re having right now -- questions about nationalism, authorship, art, design, commerce, industry…
Q)
Do you believe, as Indigo books used to say, “The world needs more Canada?”
A)
Indigo USED TO say? Does this mean they’ve STOPPED believing it? Really? I’d find out what that’s all about. Call Heather immediately.
Q)
But you?
A)
What the world DOESN’T need is increased Canadian raw material exports. The world needs more VALUE ADDED CANADIAN GOODS made HERE using our own brains and natural resources. We are losers and idiots to ship away our heritage.
Q)
Italians and Swedes have reps for furniture design—the Japanese for electronics, and so forth. What about Canada?
A)
Most countries have aesthetics based on doing the most with what little they have – Sweden and pine; Japan and bamboo. The Canadian aesthetic is based on doing nearly nothing with superabundance. It’s sinful. It’s disgusting. And we have a government that makes us think this is okay. We should be shipping raw logs to Newfoundland, and Newfoundlanders should be making kickass furniture that wipes Ikea off the map. Anything less than this is national failure.
Q)
How would you describe Canadian attitudes and government policies in the recognition and promotion of design generally?
A)
Some people and orgs have been great – the DX in Toronto, and some arms of government that help businesses like Pure. The HUGE unaddressed, undiscussable, taboo issue is that we are stuck in a position whereby if we don’t give away our raw materials, the people who buy them can economically destroy us. THAT is what the government must address.Q)
I assume this table refers to Harry’s Bar in Venice. The dark wood … Hemingway and all that.
A)
Oh yes.
Q)
Why Harry’s Bar as a name? Are you interested in how places, or in this case a table, can be fetishized based on an author/artists endorsement?
A)
If that’s a long way of saying that there’s nothing I’d like more in life than to get shitfaced with Truman Capote and Maria Agnelli at 3:00 AM in Venice, then the answer is yes. But literary culture in Canada isn’t really glamorous. It’s not glamorous at all. Whenever I pay GST on stuff at the airport customs, and they scroll through tariff categories on the computer screen, I expect to see CanLit sandwiched in there between tractor parts and Bartlett pears.