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Artspeak

  • Iain Baxter&

  • CAUSA

    CAUSA (Collective for the Advancement of Unified Studies in the Visual Arts) has functioned, since 2003, with the aim of opening channels of communication concerning aspects of cultural memory in relation to independent curatorial research. CAUSA strives to develop autonomous scholarly analysis and interpretation of visual culture (including problems of intelligibility) within specific historical contexts. Recent curatorial initiatives have been realized by CAUSA in collaboration with the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery (University of British Columbia), Walter Phillips Art Gallery (The Banff Centre), Presentation House Gallery (North Vancouver), and the West Vancouver Museum. CAUSA is David Bellman & Meirion Cynog Evans.

  • Dan Graham

  • Lawrence Weiner

  • Ian Wilson

Exhibitions

  • Finite + Infinite

    IAIN BAXTER&, DAN GRAHAM, LAWRENCE WEINER, IAN WILSON
    September 10–November 12, 2011

    An Exhibition in Three Parts

    IN ONE SENSE, ART OR ‘IDEAS’ DO ‘REFLECT’ A SITUATION SINCE THEY ARE A WAY OF DEALING WITH A SITUATION.
    —Kenneth Burke

    An exhibition entitled 955,000 (a figure corresponding to the then-current population of Greater Vancouver) opened at the Vancouver Art Gallery in January 1970. That project is now globally recognized as a pioneering institutional initiative. The works assembled in the exhibition had revealed, according to the VAG, “new attitudes to art on the part of the artists,” and the exhibition succeeded on its own terms through the display and documentation of conceptual prospects. These prospects were being developed by groundbreaking experiments in North America and Europe from the potentialities of text, context, proposition, and place. On the CBC Radio programme Critics on Air (January 17, 1970), Richard Simmins spoke in support of 955,000, observing: “The total experience, which constantly expands every time anyone thinks or talks or reacts to the show positively or negatively, represents a challenge to established values.”

    By extension from these remarks, the exhibition Finite + Infinite proposes precise engagements with certain key works—located across an expanded field of experimental visual culture—that emerged from a new generation of critical inquiry circa 1970. This project focuses attention on extensive and regenerative legacies that, through contemporary curatorial practice, continue to develop the endlessly renewable possibilities of public address.

    A CAUSA research project concerning the purposeful use of revived curatorial resources—as contained within local art reference library and archive holdings at the Vancouver Art Gallery, the University of British Columbia, Emily Carr University, and the Vancouver Public Library—is scheduled to coincide with the opening of Finite + Infinite.

    Curated by CAUSA (David Bellman and Meirion Cynog Evans)

    Part 1

    DAN GRAHAM
    September 10–October 1

    Opposing Mirrors and Video Monitors on Time Delay, 1974

    mirror and closed circuit video and time delay, video camera, and monitor

    Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver Art Gallery Acquisition Fund

    First installed at Palais des Beaux-Arts, Bruxelles, 1975

    Part 2

    LAWRENCE WEINER/IAN WILSON
    October 5–22

    LAWRENCE WEINER

    1. THE ARTIST MAY CONSTRUCT THE WORK

    2. THE WORK MAY BE FABRICATED

    3. THE WORK NEED NOT BE BUILT

    EACH BEING EQUAL AND CONSISTENT WITH THE INTENT OF THE ARTIST

    THE DECISION AS TO CONDITION RESTS WITH THE RECEIVER UPON THE OCCASION OF RECEIVERSHIP

    “Statement of Intent,” in January 5–31, 1969, exh. cat. (New York, Seth Siegelaub, 1969)

    1] Lawrence Weiner, Cat. No. 487, 1982. Collection Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. Gift of Marie LeSueur Fleming in memory of her father, Richard V. LeSueur,1989.

    SHAPED UP SUFFICIENTLY TO ASSUME SOME SHAPE (EJUSDEM GENERIS)

    See also: Lawrence Weiner, Cat. No. 649, 1990. Collection Vancouver Art Gallery (semi-permanent installation, building exterior, Robson Street):

    PLACED UPON THE HORIZON (CASTING SHADOWS)

    2] L’ilw’at (Interior Salish) / English text: translation by Mary Williams, Ts’il / Mount Currie, British Columbia.

    See also: Lawrence Weiner, Cat. No. 071, 1969 (Collection Public Freehold):

    A TRANSLATION FROM ONE LANGUAGE TO ANOTHER

    3] Inner red cedar bark hat (traditionally constructed by Melvin Williams, Ts’il / Mount Currie, British Columbia) Private Collection.

    IAN WILSON

    “As far as I’m concerned, time is just a vast illusion…. The word, when said, is like a sound; it vanishes in its moment of execution. The sound vanishes, just like time.”

    Artist’s statement in “Time: A Panel Discussion,” The New York Shakespeare Theater, March 17, NYC, 1969.

    4] Ian Wilson, Circle on the Floor, 1968. White china marker (6ft. diam.) Collection Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. Purchase, 1983.

    5] Ian Wilson, Circle on the Wall, 1968. 4H graphite (2 ft. diam.) Private Collection.

    6] Ian Wilson, Section 53, 1989. Private Collection.

    7] Ian Wilson. [Please inquire] Private Collection.

    Part 3

    IAIN BAXTER&
    October 26–November 12

    NEW (NOMADIC) WORKS:
    1969/2011
    __________________________

    “Art has poisoned our life.”
    Theo Van Doesburg, “The End of Art,” De Stijl, series XII, no. 9, Leiden, 1925.
    ___________________________

    1. BLOCK.

    Aluminum letters on wall. (Installation variable.)

    First exhibited in the exhibition N.E. Thing Co. Ltd., National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 1969.

    2. A word is worth 1/1000th of a picture.

    Wall text. (Installation variable.)

    First exhibited in the exhibition N.E. Thing Co. Ltd., National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 1969.

    3. This statement is actually a mural.

    Wall text. (Installation variable.)

    First exhibited in the exhibition N.E. Thing Co. Ltd., National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 1969.

    Note: The fourth work in the exhibition can be located by contacting the Artspeak office at 604 688 0051.

Talks & Events

Finite + Inifinite Exhibition Tour

IAIN BAXTER&,
November 12, 2011

Artspeak gratefully acknowledges the support of the Vancouver Foundation, The Canada Council, the Province of BC through the BC Arts Council, the City of Vancouver, our volunteers and our members. Panel discussion presented in partnership with the Audain Gallery and Vancity Office of Community Engagement at Simon Fraser University.