East Van is horrible! But art is good!

I know some of you love this horrible thing but I think it looks like a Bibles for Missions shelter. Apparently it has been a popular graffiti symbol around East Van for years but it's still ugly. I love art. I love that some people hate something and other people love it. I love that I don't get it. I love that I think it's ugly. I love that although I think it's ugly it got made and displayed as public art. I don't really love Ken Lum but I'm pretty sure he's an OK guy. Oh, and from the angle of this photo, it almost looks nice.

Ken Lum had this to say to the Globe and Mail:

“Nietzsche says there are three kinds of history,” Lum says: monumental history (aggrandizing a people or historical moment), antiquarian history (the obsessive validation of facts) and critical history (interpreting the past in order to engage with the present). Lum’s Monument for East Vancouver arises, he says, from this latter approach, identifying an issue in the sociopolitical present and activating critical thinking.

I'm not sure that I agree that this big shiny cross "interprets the past" or "activates critical thinking" but it certainly does stimulate debate, which is always good.