Lucy Lippard

Lucy Lippard is no stranger to Vancouver. Between January 13 - February 8, 1970, she mounted one of her Numbers exhibitions here (955, 000 appeared at the VAG and at other locations). She was also a reader of the Western Front's defunct Front magazine, where, in its Summer, 1992 issue, she came upon Renee Rodin's "We Are Cultivating Tolerance" and mentioned it in her groundbreaking book Lure of the Local (1997).

The picture up top was taken by Christos Dikeakos in December, 1969 -- a documentation of Robert Smithson's Glue Pour performance. To Smithson's right are Dennis Wheeler and Ilya Pegonis; to his left, Lucy Lippard. Click here for Adam Lauder's recent re-appreciation of Smithson's "Vancouver Sojourn" in Canadian Art.

Lippard's most recent "visit" to Vancouver is her contribution to Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun's Unceded Territories catalogue, to be published on the occasion of his Museum of Anthropology survey (due to open May 10). I am hoping Lippard will come to town for this, give a talk, meet with us as she has in the past. She is such a generous person, and a big reason why Vancouver art looks and feels the way it does.

WNDW Gallery

Although I had committed to both days of Cutting Copper: Indigenous Resurgent Practice, I just didn't have it in me to take that second trip to UBC, especially after reading what I thought to be the most intriguing of the press releases on Instant Coffee's March listserve: Jasmine Baetz and Christian Vistan's ongoing Cactus Packing Project, mounted this time through artist Lexie Owen's WNDW curatorial project.

The long window at the bottom left of the house is the exhibition space where the travelling cacti are displayed.

Here is the press release that appeared on Instant Coffee's listserve:

Jasmine Baetz + Christian Vistan : The Cactus Packing Project
WNDW gallery @ 943 10th Ave E
FEB 20 - MAR 6

CURATOR'S TOUR MAR 5 @ 1130am

This WNDW is at 943 10th Ave E, Vancouver + will be showing The Cactus Packing Project, a joint initiative of emerging artists Christian Vistan and Jasmine Baetz.

Baetz and Vistan are interested in their nomadic identities and personal histories. The Cactus Packing Project is an ongoing collaboration that grew out of the time Vistan and Baetz spent in Vancouver together, and is inspired by the sculptural assemblage forms that Baetz's cactus, Jorge, took when packed for a move.

In 2014, Baetz and Vistan started sending cacti to each other in the post, observing and documenting the symptoms and logistics of border-crossing transactions and transitory bodies, such as the cacti.

Baetz, originally from Ontario has resided in Mexico, British Columbia, and the United States, and is currently based in Boston; while Vistan, originally from Bataan, Philippines, currently resides in Vancouver. Both Baetz and Vistan are interested in how this jumble of locations and their specific histories relate to their respective identities. In confronting this puzzle of identity, Baetz and Vistan are considering how locales and local histories relate to their work and to the larger issues of displacement, nomads and nomadism(s).

https://www.facebook.com/events/1017541344950632/

About WNDW:

WNDW is an itinerant gallery space that inhabits residential windows. The project aims to bring contemporary art out of self-selecting high culture areas placing it directly into the quotidian life of the residential street. The project supports Vancouver's emerging artists, providing them with an innovative space to display their work as well as supporting them financially through the payment of artist fees.

WNDW is administered as part of the Parks Board Fieldhouse Studio Residency Program, at Burrardview Park, where project director Lexie Owen is Artist-in-Residence. This project is also made possible by generous funding from the BC Arts Council and The City of Vancouver.

www.wndwgallery.com

Here is a picture of Owens (left) and Vistan (right), as interviewed by Lito Howse (middle) during Owens's curatorial tour yesterday afternoon:

And what the hell, here is a picture of Lucy Lippard. She would love this project!

Voy a Recuerda Berta Cáceres

Berta Cáceres was a leader of the Lenca people. Recently she spoke out against the damming of the Gualcarque River, and everyone -- including the ten families that run Honduras -- knew it. Two days ago "thieves" broke into her home and "robbed" and killed her.

Cáceres, who would have turned 43 yesterday, was on my mind during Dana Claxton's Friday afternoon performance of Follow the Red Sinew, where, among the things that I could see, the artist unspooled a length of red string around the Belkin Art Gallery (to consecrate it and its contents? to protect herself from the building and what's inside?), before leading us indoors where she tossed down some bells, wrapped and unwrapped herself in and from approximately 15 yards of red cloth, cut and folded the cloth into nine sections, then distributed its sections amongst those gathered.

I was among those to receive a section of that cloth. And although I offered it to a friend who has worked closely with Dana, I was told by my friend to keep it with me because it was given to me, not her. So yes, I will keep this cloth with me -- in memory of Dana's performance, in memory of my friend's insistence, and in memory of the great Berta Cáceres.

Towards a More Patient Form of Purple

So now what? Is there a show worth reviewing? Always. Do I want to? Not particularly. Or at least not excessively.

Instead, a more economical (modern?) form of art review consistent with the decline in what those who write reviews are paid, a decline that parallels a decline in the publication of art reviews (because the robots at places like Canadian Art are telling their employer that not enough people are reading reviews within the first fifteen minutes of their publication), not to mention an overall decline in the attendance of the exhibitions that generate reviews (see Ben Davis's latest article).

Something like this: three questions. And from each, a brief response.

What is it?

It is a “propaedeutic device” (same as a hermeneutic device?), an online graphic from an article by Ben Davis that professes to explain something called the Art World.

How is it made?

It is made with a software program like Excel.

What does it mean/How is it relevant?

It means people are still holding to distracting categories like “Mass Culture” and “Art World” when they could be attempting more intuitive or indeed telepathic forms of communicating the kinds of sensations that are lost in that most reified form of thought: not so much knowledge but its spawn -- information. 

Hands up all those who have for some time now committed themselves to the transmission and reception of sensation. Hands up all those who don't mind the wait.

Audain Art Museum

The media tour of the new Audain Art Museum at Whistler is an hour from now. Had the weather turned out better, I would have driven up for it. Instead, some pictures I took last fall.

The entrance to the museum begins with a long gangplank, similar to the one God instructed Noah to build. A vestibule separates the front door from the lobby. The interior panelling is hemlock.

Here is a picture of artist Paul Wong telling people how to install his commissioned lobby piece, No Thing Is Forever (2015). Standing with his hands behind his back is museum curator Darrin Martens.

Here is the main hallway as you step from the lobby and look north. The first gallery complex (to your left) is a story of BC art that features a room dedicated to the paintings of E.J. Hughes. The galleries at the end of the hallway are larger and, in the spirit of NAFTA, are scheduled to open with paintings by Mexican moderns Orozco, Rivera and Siqueiros, and a sculpture by Rufino Tamayo.

Just Visiting

Lots of visitors to Vancouver this week. Some for Michael Audain's $450-a-plate opening night dinner, others immune to the obligation.

Although National Gallery of Canada director Marc Mayer is scheduled to give a talk at ECUAD tomorrow evening, the purpose of his trip is to attend the March 5th opening of the Audain Art Museum (Audain is a former Chair of the NGC's Board of Trustees).

Documenta 14 curatorial associates Candice Hopkins and Monika Szewczyk are also visiting. Not to attend Audain's dinner/opening, but to headhunt artist Beau Dick. It is no secret that the Kwakwaka'wakw social sculptor has renounced his ID; but if he is to take his mischief to Germany next summer, as Team Documenta wants him to, he will need a valid passport.

Kunsthalle Wien Artistic Director Nicolaus Schafhausen is another visitor. Schaufhausen is here to further his work with Fogo Islander and IT retiree Zita Cobb and her ongoing experiment in corporate community building.

Spring Issue

Speaking of magazines, Canadian Art's new editor David Balzer is in Vancouver this week to help launch the publication's Spring issue. Included in the issue is a feature I wrote for recently retired Canadian Art editor Richard Rhodes on the people behind GreyChurch and Rancho Rasdoul -- Jane Irwin and Ross Hill.