TRAFFIC: Conceptual Art in Canada 1965-1980
June 25-September 25, 2011
Theodore Wan
Bridine Scrub (For General Surgery), 1977
Silver Gelatin Print
Raymond Gervais
12 + 1=, 1976
Image Courtesy of the Artist
Programming
TRAFFIC: The Panel
June 16, 2011, 7:00 pm
Engineered Air Theatre
Epcor Centre for the Performing Arts
205 8 Avenue SE in Calgary
Free
TRAFFIC: Conceptual Art in Canada 1965 – 1980 is the first major exhibition to track the influence and diversity of Conceptual Art as it was produced in Canada during the 1960s and 1970s. The exhibition considers the ways that conceptually driven art practices emerged in different regions of the country, influenced by the interests of individual artists, collectives and communities and their interconnections with and differences from each other. An important component of the exhibition looks at artistic production in Calgary in the 1970s, and how that decade played a critical role in shaping the foundations of the city’s current art scene. This panel will address these pivotal years and focus on some of the era’s key people, events and histories and the nature of the engagement with the premises of Conceptual Art.
The panel will be moderated by Catherine Crowston, one of the curators of the TRAFFIC exhibition, and the AGA’s Deputy Director/Chief Curator. Panelists will include: Rita McKeough, Ron Moppett, Nancy Tousley and Paul Woodrow. The panel at the Epcor Centre will be followed by a reception at nearby Centini Restaurant & Lounge.
A Day of Traffic
June 25, 2011, 12:00 pm
It’s a full-day of programming centred on the exhibition Traffic: Conceptual Art in Canada 1965 – 1980! From curator’s tours, an engaging lecture, performance for Paul Woodrow and – for good measure – a barbecue on the deck, this promises to be an exciting day at the AGA.
12:30 pm Curators’ Tours: TRAFFIC (Free with Admission)
Featuring Barbara Fischer from University of Toronto’s Justina M. Barnicke Gallery and the AGA’s Catherine Crowston
2 pm Performance: Paul Woodrow’s Tadpole Quartet (Free)
2:30 pm Lecture: Dr. William Wood on Warhol and Conceptualism (Free)
3:30 – 5 pm Barbecue on the Terrace; interactive projects (Free with Admission)
The Montreal and Halifax portion of TRAFFIC, located on Level 1, closes September 11, 2011. The Vancouver, Ontario and Prairies portion located on Level 2 closes September 25, 2011.
TRAFFIC: Conceptual Art in Canada 1965–1980 is the first major exhibition in Canada to track the influence and diversity of Conceptual Art in works produced across the country, placing emphasis on the intensely artist-driven involvement in the emergence of this global phenomenon.
The most transformative art movement of the late twentieth century, Conceptual Art became a global phenomenon during the 1960s post-war political unrest that gave birth to anti-war protests and the student, women’s, civil rights and gay liberation movements.
Also informed by the emergence of new information technologies such as the television, the fax machine and the computer, Conceptual Art rebelled against the idea that art is merely a matter of individual expression, special skill, or visual and formal concerns. It became a kind of meta-art both in taking the form of statements and writings about art itself and by virtue of its critical engagement with the new systems of meaning-making in the age of mass media through the deployment of print media and formats now identified as precursors of digital networks. Asserting that a work no longer even needed to actually be produced in order to exist, conceptual artists embraced the notion that the idea itself is art.
There have been numerous historical studies and exhibitions on the global impact of Conceptual Art, focusing on its developments in Latin America, Asia and Europe, but its various manifestations in Canada have remained a limited concern. As demonstrated by the works in this exhibition, Conceptual Art was taken up across the country in a multitude of forms with its development influenced by the particular local and geographic needs and interests of the individual artists, collectives and art communities.
Presenting works by over seventy Canadian and international artists, TRAFFIC: Conceptual Art in Canada 1965–1980 also offers a glimpse of some of the movement’s most energetic institutions in the form of the artist-run centres and networks. Concerned with language, body, place and geography—all constitutive elements and primary interests of Conceptual Art internationally—TRAFFIC is organized around urban and regional centres in Canada but seeks to capture the effervescent, and often contentious, lines of traffic between them.
Organized by the Art Gallery of Alberta, Justina M. Barnicke Gallery (Hart House, University of Toronto) and the Vancouver Art Gallery, in partnership with the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery (Concordia University), Halifax, INK and with the support of the University of Toronto Art Centre, Blackwood Gallery (UTM) and Doris McCarthy Gallery (UTS).
Curated by Grant Arnold, Catherine Crowston, Barbara Fischer, Michèle Thériault with Vincent Bonin, and Jayne Wark. Produced with the assistance of the Museums Assistance Program of the Department of Canadian Heritage.
