Greg Girard May Be Too Cool

I have seen many of Greg Girard’s photos. But not all of them.

The element of surprise in any art exhibition can still provide a glissando slide down the spinal column, a visceral miniature thrill ride.

Thus was it ever at the first-ever career survey of Girard’s work that opened last week at the Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver.

Co-curated by the Polygon’s director Reid Shier and curator Elliott Ramsey, Greg Girard encompasses 50 years and the many creative periods of the celebrated documentary photographer’s life.

That Girard has never had a full survey of his work is surprising, Shier said in the media preview for the exhibition. But Vancouver artists often need to head elsewhere to gain respect and recognition.

Again, thus was it ever.

Girard’s early work took inspiration from Vancouver’s grittier neighbourhoods of the 1970s, but it wasn’t until he turned his lens on farther-flung locales that the world took notice of his work.

One might pass Girard on the street and never clock him as an internationally famous photographer. He has the curious effect of disappearing into the background. For the images that Girard has created over the years, this is probably a handy skill to have.

At the Polygon, Girard said that he started taking photos in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and dock areas when he was in his teens. Too young to get into bars, he rented inexpensive hotel rooms to immerse himself in the community and people who lived there. He took photos purely for himself.

Many photographs from this period carry with them the funk of Vancouver haunts long gone, emitting a vaporous whiff of old cigarette smoke and spilled beer. There are greasy spoon diners lit by the lurid light of neon signs, the men’s washroom at the CN train station and hotel lobbies that still possessed a modicum of shabby glamour. They were gateways to another, less genteel and arguably more interesting world.

Girard was not alone in his photographic explorations of 20th-century Vancouver and its reputation as an old, raunchy end-of-the-line place. This spirit intrigued and inspired a wide range of artists, from documentary filmmaker Alan King to science fiction writer Philip K. Dick.

Girard’s photos of the city, largely taken in the rough and ready 1970s, resurrect a now bygone Vancouver. For viewers old enough to remember some of these establishments, such as the Aristocratic diner on Granville Street, the pull of nostalgia is powerful.

But nostalgia is a dangerous drug. Imbibe too deeply, and sticky old sentiment begins to surface.

Documenting massive change in Hong Kong and China

The teenage Girard was so ensnared by Hong Kong Harbour, a 1962 photo by American photojournalist Eliot Elisofon, that in the summer of 1974, he hopped a freighter and set sail across the Pacific. It’s a romantic story, but also indicative of a more innocent age.

The periods that Girard spent in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Beijing gave rise to the body of work for which he is most famous.

Magazines provided him with the means, and arguably the impetus, to take photos of current events. He noted at the Polygon’s media preview that he missed some of the most significant events, namely Tiananmen Square.

After spending time in Beijing, Girard traveled to Hong Kong to buy more film stock and recharge his emotional batteries when the infamous 1989 government crackdown took place. After months of rising tension, clashes between demonstrators and Chinese authorities came to a furious conclusion on June 4, 1989, when military troops rolled in, attempting to clear Tiananmen Square.

The photos taken before and after the events tell a complex story. In one street scene, a group of men is captured throwing pamphlets into the sky, while a police officer, his mouth wide open in what appears to be a shout of protest, looks on.

It’s a curious moment, a bit of frozen drama, that immediately begs the question, what happened before and what happened after?

A cinematic quality is evident in many of Girard’s photos, most especially in the work that cemented his reputation. City of Darkness: Life in Kowloon Walled City, which was reissued as City of Darkness Revisited, is composed of images taken between 1982 and 1998.

Originally built as a military outpost, Kowloon Walled City was converted to a fort in 1847 to bolster Chinese control and authority in the area. Its population swelled to extraordinary numbers in the aftermath of the Second World War, making it one of the most densely crowded places on earth for a time. Although gang control and illegal activities were rampant, there was another side to the story.

The infamous place that spawned legions of Bladerunner-esque notions and William Gibson cyberpunk references wasn’t a lawless no-man’s land of urban density and blight. It was rather a place where ordinary people raised families, operated businesses and did their best to survive. In other words, a neighbourhood.

When asked about his favourite image from this period, Girard recalls that it was a photo he didn’t actually manage to take.

When an airline stewardess exited a cab trailing her rolling suitcase, Girard expected her to cross the street to a neighbouring building, but instead she entered Kowloon Walled City. He ran after the woman, eager to take her photo, but she vanished down an alleyway and was gone.

Cities in states of wild transition make up some of Girard’s most iconic photos.

There’s the wholesale transformation of Shanghai, with older ornate houses captured in states of dereliction, still graceful and elegant in their decline.

Behind them rises a dense forest of new skyscrapers and towers, glittering with light and the power of a new paradigm. Many of these works were collected in Girard’s 2007 book Phantom Shanghai.

Hot art, cool gaze

When Girard returned to Vancouver in 2011, this city, too, was something of a different place.

When looking at Girard’s images of older Vancouver, other photographers working around the same time, if not in the same vernacular, come to mind.

Fred Herzog springs to mind, as do other artists from the Vancouver school. Jeff Wall, Stan Douglas, Ian Wallace.

Girard’s work as a photojournalist differentiated him from his colleagues in the art world. The images from his magazine era contain a time-based quality. History is part of it, as is documentation and narrative, but there’s something else going on. Call it the observer effect, the necessity of remaining slightly outside of events.

Girard’s early work also calls to mind American photographer Nan Goldin’s images of her friends, lovers and chosen family. But unlike Goldin, who was very much a part of the world that she documented, Girard feels like he is on the edge of things, looking on.

There is a coolness in many of his images. Not diffident, exactly, but somehow more detached. The emotional wallop present in much of Goldin’s work isn’t as evident in Girard’s images. I’m not exactly sure why this is.

In returning to the images that make up Under Vancouver, 1972 – 1982, the idea that young Girard could travel to the docks and streets of downtown Vancouver, then return home to Burnaby, might provide some answers.

It isn’t the perspective of a tourist, exploitive or prurient. But there is a sense of a divide. There’s a space that separates the images from their maker.

Back at the Polygon, Girard explained that when he was a teenager hanging around taking photos, his youth acted as a something of a golden ticket. It provided access and ease of entry to some of the city’s rougher spots. He posed no threat and could hang about on the scene without attracting attention.

This aspect also provides additional context. These photos are taken from the perspective of a young man, eager to know more about life and the world. An innocence of intent is on display. But that too carries with it a certain quality, as if it’s stuck in amber.

It’s easy to like Girard’s images, but harder to love them, at least for me. I know I am largely alone in these feelings. The opening night of the show attracted huge numbers of attendees.

There are larger forces at work that make it tricky to take in Girard’s photographs in the way they were initially created.

Photography has changed enormously over the last few decades. The ubiquitous, profligate, even promiscuous taking and sharing of images on social media has given rise to the notion that everyone can be a photographer. Of course, they’re not.

Even so, the deluge of images has diluted the idea of photographic art in a way that makes it harder to see things anew.

But there are still some surprises here. Things that stop you and make you look again, with fresh eyes, seeking out the true nature of the picture itself.

‘Greg Girard’ runs until Oct. 25, 2026 at the Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver.