Exhibitions

Didactic Panel Text:

The Giant Hand And The Birth of Gianthropology

In the grand scheme of Vancouver’s heritage, the neon period from 1925 to 1960 is perhaps the city’s most heralded example of its transition from gloomy sawmill town to vibrant metropolis. At the peak of this glowing epoch there were thousands of electrified gas filled glass tubes in the Terminal City’s neon jungle. A big hiccup in this bright-lights-big-city story came with the blackouts of WWII when civil defence restrictions lead to a new category of no neon outdoor advertising known as “Spectaculars.”

When McGavin’s Bakery approached Neon Products for an animated neon of Mother Hubbard’s bread, a “Spectacular” was suggested instead. A hand of enormous proportions was proposed, roughly the same size as the Statue of Liberty’s, but instead of grasping the eternal flame of freedom, Mother Hubbard’s digits would raise on high a leviathan loaf of  liberty bread! Genius! McGavin’s, a big supporter of Victory Bonds, approved.

Ironically, work on the Giant Hand & Loaf  didn’t begin until after blackout restrictions had been lifted at the end of the war. Progress slowed when McGavin’s roof required fortification supporting the added weight. Then the “Spectacular” installers were unavailable, preoccupied by a Log Cabin Cookies billboard featuring a real log cabin with smoking chimney and Mom inside whipping up maple creams. Finally in September 1948, the “Spectacular” crew convened on the roof of McGavin’s and over the next four months assembled the sheet metal loaf and concrete mixed with vermiculite hand, and a cuff hiding the steel bridgework. The finished Giant Hand & Loaf stood atop McGavin’s bakery from 1949 through 1973.

When Henri Robideau photographed the Giant Hand & Loaf in February 1973, its cuff had blown away in a wind storm and one of its fingers had rotted off. This image became the first in his life-long photographic study of humanity’s attraction to bigness, a new science he called Gianthropology. He conducted Gianthropological Digs along the Pacific cordillera throughout the 1970’s, culminating in the 1980 exhibition Giant Things, featuring the Giant Hand & Loaf as its signature image. Expanding on that huge success he launched the Pancanadienne Gianthropological Survey, portaging around Canada in the 1980’s, photographing the monumental in the form of panoramic images. After a dozen exhibitions of his panoramas, they were catastrophically destroyed in the Montreal flood of July 14, 1987. His lost work was later celebrated in the 1988 post deluge book Pacific To Atlantic, Canada’s Gigantic!

Turtle Islander Henri Robideau, born 1946 in Bristol Connecticut, came to Vancouver in 1969, a refugee from the violence of America. His photography and writing are grounded in history, humour and the ironic tragedy of human existence.

The WALL is located on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the xwməθkwəyəm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səlílwətaʔ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples.

EXHIBITIONS OF GIANTHROPOLOGICAL WORKS

© 2021 Henri Robideau