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Artspeak

Reid Shier

Reid Shier is Director of Presentation House Gallery in North Vancouver. He has curated numerous exhibitions locally, nationally and internationally. He is an artist and critical writer, and was one of the founding editors of Boo Magazine, which he co-edited from 1994 to 1998.

Exhibitions

  • Boys and Girls Welcome!

    ALAN HOFFMAN
    March 25–May 6, 2000

    Just in from the corner of Nanaimo and First sits a deadpan clapboard structure, its windowless facade contradicting the friendly handpainted Boys and Girls Welcome! sign that is tacked where a window ought to be. Photographed in isolation and printed in deeply saturated colour this forgettable building becomes embued with a sinister innocence. This image is one of a series of cibachrome prints presented in a first solo exhibition by Alan Hoffman. His enlargements of vernacular architecture in Vancouver and his hometown Penticton hover between nostalgia and unease. The gas stations, motor motels and churches at first appear to be architectural models or miniatures, perhaps model train environments. In recognizing the Ridge Theatre or Penticton’s giant peach it becomes clear that the curiously distorted sense of scale and euphemized colour are technically accomplished representations of the familiar landmarks and architectural oddities of Vancouver neighbourhoods and Okanagan tourist destinations.

    Hoffman has chosen to photograph the clumsy manifestations of lowbrow aspirations—not the grandiose failures of Vancouver modernism so comprehensively covered by this city’s more senior artists. His work escapes ‘the quaint’ and resists ‘the serious’ simultaneously as it fails to allow easy entry into the ‘reality’ it pictures.

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    Bibliography

    Breukleman, Jim; Laurence, Robin “Hot Properties”, Presentation House Gallery: North Vancouver, 1987.

    Adrian, Robert; Arngn’naaq, Ruby; Butler, Jack; Campbell, Kati; Esch, Deborah; Falk, Lorne; MacInnis, Neil; Miller, Bernie; Moylan, Tom; Robert, Jocelyn; Urban, Colette. “The City Within”. Jeanne Randolf, ed.: The Banff Centre, 1992.

    Graham, Rodney; Kleyn, Robert; Linsley, Robert; Sinclair, Jennifer Oille; Smithson, Robert; Snider, Greg. “Some Detached Houses”. Bill Jeffries, Cur. Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, 1990.

    Haraldsson, Arni; Kleyn, Robert. “Project on Vancouver Architecture and Landscape”. Presentation House Gallery, North Vancouver, 1995.

    Sekula, Allan; Dufour, Gary; O’Brian, John. “Geography Lesson: Canadian Notes”. Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, 1997.

    Crewdson, Gregory; Morrow, Bradford; Steinke, Darcey. “Dream of Life”. Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, Spain, 1999.

    Group Exhibition. “Mois de la Photo à Montréal, 1999”. Organized by VOX, Montréal, 1999.

    Hoffman, Alan. “Fourteen Stories”. Self-published. Vancouver, 1996.

    Whitehead, Gary. “I Can Fix Anything”. Arsenal Pulp Press: Vancouver, 1994.

    Derksen, Jeff. “Until”. Downtime Talonbooks: Vancouver, 1990

    Coady, Lynn. “Nice Place to Visit” Play the Monster Blind. Doubleday: Toronto, 2000

    Speak, Dorothy. “The View From Here” Object of Your Love. Somerville House: Toronto, 1996

    Gom, Leona. excerpt from “Zero Avenue”. Douglas & McIntyre: Vancouver, 1989

    Trujillo Lusk, Dorothy. “Sentimental Intervention” Writing 25. Kootenay School of Writing: Vancouver, 1990.

  • Artspeak: 5th Anniversary, Exhibition and Sale

    DONNA LEISEN, DAVID STEELE, DOUG MUNDAY, WORKSITE, LAURA LAMB, ARTISTS'S BOOKWORKS, MARK GRADY, REID SHIER, ROB LINSLEY, LAIWAN, ROBERT SHERIN, SFU STUDENT WORK, PATRONS, STAN DOUGLAS, BRENNA GEORGE, MARK LEWIS, HENRY TSANG, ROY ARDEN, ALLYSON CLAY, KATHERINE KORTIKOW, BEHIND THE SIGN, ANNE RAMSDEN, CORINNE CARLSON, CHRISTINE DAVIS, LAUREL WOODCOCK, AMI RUNAR HARALDSSON, KATHY SLADE, PHILLIP MCCRUM, EDWARD POITRAS, WILL GORLITZ, KELLY WOOD, NANCY SHAW, KEN LUM, LORNA BROWN, ROY KIYOOKA, KAY HIGGINS, ELLEN RAMSEY, SARA LEYDON, MARTHA TOWNSEND, MINA TOTINO, FRANK GAUDET, LANI MAESTRO, PANYA CLARK
    February 22–March 23, 1991

  • Grunt Or Artspeak

    LORNA BROWN, LAURA LAMB, DOUG MUNDAY, REID SHIER, NANCY SHAW, DEANNA FERGUSON, KATHRYN MACLEOD
    June 5–June 29, 1987

    Curated by Glenn Alteen, Ellen Ramsey and Cate Rimmer

    3 Gallery show curated by respective curators and presented at Charles H. Scott Gallery
    Review: Vanguard Sept/Oct ’87, by Colleen Fee

    Grunt Or Artspeak, an exhibition featuring a selection of work representing three local alternative galleries, Grunt, Or and Artspeak, will be at the Charles H. Scott Gallery from June 5 through 28, 1987. The opening reception will be from 8-10p, Friday evening, June 5, and a reading by members of Artspak/Kootenay School of Writing (K.S.W.) will take place in the Scott Gallery at 3pm Saturday, June 13.

    The guest curators, Glenn Alteen, Ellen Ramsey and Cate Rimmer have included works by sixteen ‘young’ artists. Representing the Grunt will be: Dav MacNab, Gary Ouimet, Bill Rennie, Garry Ross and Hillary Wood; the Or: Daniel Congdon, Sheila Hall, Catherine Jones and Warren Murfitt; and Artspeak: Lorna Brown, Laura Lamb, Doug Munday, Reid Shier, and Nancy Shaw, Deanna Ferguson and Kathryn MacLeod.

    The exhibition will transfert the ‘character’ of these alternative galleries, stiguating them in a more central locations with a much broader audience than they normally reach.

    For the large part, the Artists in Grunt Or Artspeak share a similar academic background having received training from either an art college or university, Their work however, varies greatly in both subject matter and presentation ranging from video and photo-textual work to assemblage and painting.

  • Facsimiles

    REID SHIER
    January 17–February 6, 1987

    Fascimiles, a series of five ‘portraits’ by Reid Shier, will be on exhibition at Artspeak Gallery from January 17 to February 6, 1987. In this series, Shier combines enlarged ‘found’ photographs of people before and after plastic surgery with his own drawn facsimiles. In doing so, Shier raises questions about forms of representation, and our subjective perceptions of art and its function.

Talks & Events

  • Vancouver Art & Economies Book Launch

    CLINT BURNHAM, RANDY LEE CUTLER, TIM LEE, MELANIE O'BRIAN, SADIRA RODRIGUES, MARINA ROY, SHARLA SAVA, REID SHIER, SHEPHERD STEINER, MICHAEL TURNER
    March 28, 2007

    Wednesday, March 28, 7-9pm

    At the Brickhouse, 730 Main Street

    Please join Artspeak and Arsenal Pulp Press in celebrating the release of Vancouver Art & Economies, edited by Melanie O’Brian, with essays by Clint Burnham, Randy Lee Cutler, Tim Lee, Sadira Rodrigues, Marina Roy, Sharla Sava, Reid Shier, Shepherd Steiner and Michael Turner.

    Vancouver Art & Economies was financially supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the BC Arts Council, the City of Vancouver, Arts Now: Legacies Now 2010, the Spirit of BC Arts Fund and the Hamber Foundation.

  • Vancouver Art & Economies: A Forum

    SHARLA SAVA, CLINT BURNHAM, MARINA ROY, TIM LEE, SADIRA RODRIGUES, RANDY LEE CUTLER, REID SHIER, SHEPHERD STEINER, MICHAEL TURNER
    October 6–November 3, 2005

    Vancouver Art and Economies is a forum for critical dialogue on Vancouver’s contemporary art practices in the face of globalization and a remarkable recent history. Academics, artists, curators and writers will speak at Emily Carr Institute over the course of five evenings in the fall of 2005. The speakers will consider Vancouver art and its institutions over the last two decades in particular, remarking on the economies at work. whether global, institutional or market. Addressing a perceived professionalization of the institution of art, the talks will collectively consider Vancouver’s position within local, national and international art economies. The forum talks will be published in an anthology in 2006.

    Thursday, October 6

    Sharla Sava: The Political Culture of the Counter-Tradition in Vancouver Art

    Clint Burnham: Imperial Art: the Vancouver School in the age of Empire

    Thursday, October 13

    Marina Roy: The Art Star, the Academic, the Author, and the Activist: Art-writing in Vancouver 1990-2005

    Tim Lee: Specific Objects and Social Subjects: Industrial Facture and the Production of Polemics in Vancouver

    Thursday, October 20

    Sadira Rodrigues: Dealing (with) Cultural Diversity: Art and the Economies of Race

    Randy Lee Cutler: Vancouver Singular Plural: Art in an Age of Post-Medium Production

    Thursday, October 27

    Reid Shier: Do Artists Need Artist Run Centres?

    Shepherd Steiner: Beyond the “Ifs” of an “Ifing” Hermeneutic Economy: Examples from an Unsystematizable System 

    Thursday, November 3

    Michael Turner: Who’s Business Is It? Vancouver’s Commercial Galleries and the Production of Art 

  • Talk

    REID SHIER
    March 21, 1991

    Writers/Artists/Talks, a joint project of the Kootenay School of Writing and Artspeak Gallery, consists of a series of public talks and exhibitions by writers and artists with the intention to articulate a common theoretical and practical ground for the two disciplines.

  • Artspeak: 5th Anniversary, Exhibition and Sale

    DONNA LEISEN, DAVID STEELE, DOUG MUNDAY, WORKSITE, LAURA LAMB, ARTISTS'S BOOKWORKS, MARK GRADY, REID SHIER, ROB LINSLEY, LAIWAN, ROBERT SHERIN, SFU STUDENT WORK, PATRONS, STAN DOUGLAS, BRENNA GEORGE, MARK LEWIS, HENRY TSANG, ROY ARDEN, ALLYSON CLAY, KATHERINE KORTIKOW, BEHIND THE SIGN, ANNE RAMSDEN, CORINNE CARLSON, CHRISTINE DAVIS, LAUREL WOODCOCK, AMI RUNAR HARALDSSON, KATHY SLADE, PHILLIP MCCRUM, EDWARD POITRAS, WILL GORLITZ, KELLY WOOD, NANCY SHAW, KEN LUM, LORNA BROWN, ROY KIYOOKA, KAY HIGGINS, ELLEN RAMSEY, SARA LEYDON, MARTHA TOWNSEND, MINA TOTINO, FRANK GAUDET, LANI MAESTRO, PANYA CLARK
    February 22–March 23, 1991

Publications

  • Vancouver Art & Economies

    VAN A and E front
    VAN A and E spine
    VAN A and E back

    Title: Vancouver Art & Economies
    Category: Criticism
    Writers: Clint Burnham, Randy Lee Cutler, Tim Lee, Melanie O’Brian, Sadira Rodrigues, Shepherd Steiner, Michael Turner, Sharla Sava, Reid Shier, Marina Roy
    Editor: Melanie O’Brian
    Design: Robin Mitchell
    Publisher: Artspeak, Arsenal Pulp Press
    Year published: 2007
    Pages: 236pp
    Cover: Paperback
    Binding: Perfect Bound
    Process: Offset
    Features: 13 b&w images, 44 colour images
    Dimensions: (Height x Width x Depth) 23 x 15.5 x 2 cm
    Weight: 496 g
    ISBN: 978-1-55152-214-2
    Price: $30 CDN

    Since the mid-1980’s, the once marginal city of Vancouver has developed within a globalized economy and become an internationally recognized centre for contemporary visual art. Vancouver’s status is due not only to a thriving worldwide cultural community that has turned to examine the so-called periphery, but to the city’s growth, its artists, expanding institutions, and a strong history of introspection and critical assessment. As a result, Vancouver art is visible and often understood as distinct and definable.This anthology intends to complicate the notion of definability. It offers nine essays to address the organized systems that have affected contemporary art in Vancouver over the last two decades.

    The essays in Vancouver Art & Economies collectively remark, both compatibly and contradictorily, on the economies at work in Vancouver art – its historical, critical, and political engagement; its sites of cultural production; and its theoretical and practical intersection with technology or policy. Considering a selection of conditions, focuses, and resources within the community, Vancouver Art & Economies marks shifting ideologies and perspectives on art, politics, society, and capital in Vancouver.


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  • Boys and Girls Welcome

    BGW front
    BGW spine
    BGW back

    Title: Boys and Girls Welcome
    Category: Exhibition Catalogue
    Artist: Alan Hoffman
    Writers: James Baker, Neil Besner, Lorna Brown, Derek Fairbridge, Adrienne Lai, Henry Lehmann, Jonathan Middleton, Kathleen Ritter, Sharon Romero, Adam Lewis Schroeder, Sam Shem, Reid Shier and John Wertschek
    Publisher: Artspeak
    Year published: 2000
    Pages: 20pp
    Cover: Paper
    Binding: Round Head Brass Fastener
    Process: Offset
    Dimensions: 11.5 x 11 x 0.8 cm
    Weight: 29 g
    Price: Not available

    A special poster/catalogue project featuring the responses of the following artists and writers to Alan Hoffman’s photographs: James Baker, Neil Besner, Lorna Brown, Derek Fairbridge, Adrienne Lai, Henry Lehmann, Jonathan Middleton, Kathleen Ritter, Sharon Romero, Adam Lewis Schroeder, Sam Shem, Reid Shier and John Wertschek. This project is made possible through the generous contribution of James Baker and Stacey Noyes.