Next time you hear a voice, run with it

*image: Coupland.com

Douglas Coupland can pinpoint the exact moment he became a writer. The story, as Coupland tells it, is quirky and fantastical—almost like something you’d read in one of his novels. It goes like this:


I was the fall of 1988—the same season he quit smoking. He was leaving the Golden Griddle near Davisville subway station in Toronto just as a storm was ending. The air was cold and wet, but a tangerine orange sunset was lighting up the sky.

It was then Coupland says he heard an external voice that would never return. The voice, Coupland says, told him, “You’re writing now, so you have to put away everything you’ve ever done before and you can’t do it anymore. That’s just the way it is.”


That, Coupland says, is how he moved away from the study of typography and started typing novels of his own. The rest—from art shows to his CBC series—is Canadian pop culture history.

*Douglas Coupland was in town on a tour in support of his latest book, Generation A. Read my news coverage of that here.

Walking with the wigs of a ghost

There is Life After God, he wrote. And so, there is life after literature. The same themes that filled the artist’s novel pages are captured on canvas, strewn on the floor, and carved onto toy blocks. Douglas Coupland is Canada’s renaissance man, and this is his latest pet project.

In town to work on a set of sculptures for Concord Cityplace Park, which is reportedly the country’s largest privately funded public art commission ever, Coupland played artist-in-attendance on June 18 for the opening of his latest show, Atelier, at Toronto’s Clark and Faria gallery.

After working as a novelist, playwright, screenwriter, actor, and general pop culture critic, artist and designer is a logical next step. Given both the fame and notoriety associated with his body of work, Coupland is poised to become one of the few brand names in Canadian art.

Weeks after the opening I enter the pseudo-studio concept, Atelier. Carefully scattered on the floor and propped up against the gallery’s stark white walls is a collection of odd items. Game boards, papers, a mass-produced spic n’ span box, and an abandoned 7 UP sign have been littered below the pieces to give the impression of a work space.

On the walls Coupland plays patronage to his most blatant predecessor and inspiration, Warhol, with two groups of work. One is titled Matricide, another Patricide. Eight Marilyns pout at visitors, covered by skateboard stickers, brand names, and decorative decals; Matricide. Eight Warhol-wigs are pressed under glass on the opposing side of the room; Patricide.

Bill Gates yearbook shots watch over a table of vibrant, childish sculptures. Talking Sticks, a square-space city of sentences reading: Monsters Exist, Teen Spirit, Hot Shit. Out front gallerist Daniel Faria watches visitors ponder the pieces, shoulders pulled back with pride and covered by a well-pressed shirt. As the red stickers reveal, his show is a success. All but one of the Marilyns are sold, safe for she who is not painted platinum.

“I guess you make Marilyn a brunette, and no one wants her,” my accomplice whispers to me through corner-cracked lips before we slip out the gallery doors.