Guerilla spider sculpture in East Vancouver may not be removed after all

An eye-catching piece of guerilla art in East Vancouver could be spared from the chopping block, after the city said it was working to remove the sculpture.

Titled Phobia, the piece consists of a large black spider made from found materials and is located on an underpass near Broadway and Victoria streets, and visible from the SkyTrain Millennium Line.

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The work was recently installed, without permission, by Montreal-based artist Junko Playtime. City staff said last month that the artist had not submitted it through the proper public art channels, and that it hadn’t undergone any safety reviews.

But it turns out the big spider may not be squashed after all.

In a Tuesday tweet, Vancouver Coun. Peter Meiszner said city staff had reviewed the sculpture and determined it was safe to leave it up “on a temporary basis” for up to six months — if an agreement can be reached with the artist.

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Meiszner said any such agreement would clarify timelines and responsibilities for maintenance, along with the work’s eventual removal.

“The City has been working with its partners to discuss the best path forward for the installation and City staff are reaching out to the artist to discuss the option of keeping Phobia in place on a temporary basis,” he wrote.

Global News is seeking more information from the City of Vancouver.

The city originally said it started planning to remove the sculpture after complaints from the public.

The artist then launched a campaign to save the work, urging supporters on social media to contact the city and ask for it to be left in place.

In an email last month, the artist told Global News it was hypocritical for the city to remove the sculpture — which is essentially made from trash — while the railway it overlooks remains strewn with garbage.

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“In terms of this piece, the city didn’t pay a dime for it. It’s built out of waste material collected in the streets so it’s essentially cleaning up some of the litter and there’s a huge amount of people that really enjoy it — seems like a pretty good deal to me,” he said.

The sculpture is not the first work by Junko Playtime to appear in Vancouver.

In February, another piece fashioned from reclaimed materials appeared outside the Bentall Centre Gallery as a part of the Vancouver Mural Festival’s Winter Arts Festival. That piece, named Habitat, was officially sanctioned.

Last year, a large, yellow, insect-like sculpture he created called Queen BX1000 appeared in an empty lot near the Fraser River near the Canada Line.