The days may be numbered for a Banksy-style giant spider that recently appeared along an East Vancouver SkyTrain route but one city councillor is hinting a compromise may be in the works, given the public’s admiration for the rogue art piece.
Crawling with controversy since it was first installed under an overpass near East Broadway and Victoria Drive in mid-March, the unsanctioned spider continues to draw crowds.
The City of Vancouver said the arachnid art will be removed because its creator, an anonymous Montreal-based artist who goes by the moniker Junko Playtime, did not follow the proper public art process.
Phobia as it’s titled has also been creeping out commuters on SkyTrain’s Millennium line, and the city said it has received complaints from the public.
However, it’s not scary for everyone.
“It’s not scary at all, it’s nice,” Chris Furanna told Global News Sunday as he viewed the sculpture.
Seattle spider specialist Rod Crawford said he has very little sympathy for those scared of the species he’s studied for 45 years.
Crawford is the curator of arachnids at the University of Washington’s Burke Museum.
“Arachnophobia is very treatable,” he told Global News in an interview.
It’s extremely rare Crawford said, for spiders to bite humans while he has dispelled dozens of other misconceptions on his website, Spider Myths.
“All those horrible things you believe about spiders are all a lot of phony baloney,” Crawford said.
After handling tens of thousands of live spiders in his career, Crawford gives Vancouver’s spider art a six out of 10 rating in terms of anatomical accuracy.
“At least the legs are coming out of the right part of the body and so forth.”
“I’m not an arachnophobe so I thought it was amazing when I saw it,” ABC Vancouver councillor Peter Meiszner told Global News in an interview.
But, said Meiszner, the unique piece made from reclaimed materials, was installed without the city’s permission above an active rail line.
“I’ve asked the city manager to work with the artist to potentially find a permanent space for it because I think we need more pieces of art like this in the city.”
The artist has already launched a Help save spidey! campaign on his Instagram account, calling on supporters to contact the city and ask it to leave the guerilla artwork in place.
Ropes and chains were used to secure the sculpture in its current location.
How the city would remove it and at what cost, is unclear.
“I would ask the city to chill out,” said Crawford.
“They’re being the nanny state. I don’t like that but it’s a fact of life these days.”
The story has legs, eight to be exact, and this is only chapter three as the spider art remains caught in a tangled web of municipal bureaucracy.
-With files from Simon Little.