Collections

Archives

• 1962-1994

  Al Neil collection

  19 audio and moving image recordings

  The collection consists of audio and moving image recordings of performances by Al Neil and various musical ensembles that performed with him (Al Neil Trio, Al Neil Jazz Probe, Al Neil Quartet, and solo efforts). They include performances at the Vancouver School of Art, Simon Fraser University, The Western Front, and other locations. This collection contains CD and DVD copies (not the original recordings) of performances between 1962 and 1989.

  The copies were produced as part of the Al Neil Project, a 2005 collaborative effort between the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, New Orchestra Workshop, Coastal Jazz and Blues Society, and the grunt gallery.

  History / Biography

  Al Neil is a writer, jazz musician, composer, visual artist, and performance artist. He was a prominent figure in the Vancouver arts scene and was particularly influential on the post-war literary, jazz, and visual arts communities from the 1950s to the 1970s. He is considered one of Canada’s great interdisciplinary pioneers.

  Neil was born on March 26, 1924 in Vancouver, British Columbia. He received music lessons as a child, and began creating artworks as a young man while stationed in Port Hardy when working as a surveyor for the Department of Transportation. Neil later joined the army as a surveyor and saw action during the 1944 D-Day invasion of Normandy. After he left the army and returned to Vancouver, Neil continued music lessons, with a strong interest in the jazz scene. At the same time, he was also interested in the arts and literature.

  In 1958, Neil, along with four others, opened the Cellar, a jazz club at Main Street and Broadway, with his group as the house band. His music from this period has been described as experimental, avant-garde, and bebop. The Cellar also brought a number of prominent jazz artists to Vancouver, such as Art Pepper, Ornette Coleman, and others. The influence of these performers on Neil and the Vancouver jazz scene was profound. Dropping out of public performance for a few years, Neil re-emerged in the mid-sixties with a more experimental form of music-making incorporating Dada elements, and moving from jazz to sound-works integrating mixed tape and toy instruments among other elements.

  Neil published books, magazine articles, poetry, and short stories. In the 1970s he also began exhibiting his artworks. By the early 1990s, Neil had withdrawn from the public eye. In 2003 he received an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. Neil continues to live in Vancouver.

• 1948-1992

  Alvin Balkind fonds

  1.93 m of textual records. 17 photographs. 1 audiocassette

  The fonds reflects Alvin Balkind’s career as an art gallery curator, art critic, and active participant in the art community of Vancouver. Records relating to Balkind’s professional career include: research notes, notebooks, clippings, drafts and typescripts for his unpublished biography, short stories, articles, and critical art reviews; promotional posters; and materials relating to his founding of the New Design Gallery. The fonds also includes materials and correspondence relating to his work with the Vancouver Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Ontario, The University of British Columbia Fine Arts Gallery, and a proposed museum curation course at UBC entitled ‘Museum Philosophy and Practice’.

  Personal records include: correspondence and memorabilia accumulated during trips to Europe (which always included the Venice Biennale), and Balkind and Rogatnick’s three-month journey in China (1987/1988); medical records; notes documenting his fight against lymphoma; photographs; and small pieces of art created by Balkind.

  History / Biography

  Alvin L. Balkind (1921-1992) was an art curator, critic, and essayist. Balkind was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and served in the navy in World War II. He began his university studies at Johns Hopkins University, receiving a Bachelor of Arts with a focus in literature and theatre, and pursued further studies at the Sorbonne.

  In 1954, Balkind and his partner Abraham Rogatnick moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, where Balkind went on to play a vital role in the development of the avant-garde art scene. Soon after moving to Vancouver, Balkind and Rogatnick established The New Design Gallery. It was the only gallery in Vancouver showing contemporary art at that time and was a hub of creativity for the small but vibrant art scene. The gallery hosted a wide variety of art exhibitions, performance pieces, and other events, including: live theatre, visual art, films, concerts, lectures, and poetry readings. Balkind was involved in running the New Design Gallery until 1962. In 1958 Balkind and Rogatnick opened the Vancouver Arts Club (now the Arts Club Theater), which acted as a venue for Marshall McLuhan’s first lecture.

  From 1962 until 1973 Balkind held the position of curator of the University of British Columbia Fine Arts Gallery. He also taught classes in the Fine Arts Department of UBC, which was closely associated with the gallery. Under the direction of Balkind, the UBC Fine Arts Gallery moved in an innovative and creative direction, and the meager resources of the gallery were used to experiment with art, design, and curation. By taking such an approach, he attracted influential artists such as Ray Johnson. Balkind also curated the first shows of many artists who were later prominent in the Vancouver scene. Artists such as Jeff Wall, Ken Lum, and Ian Wallace got their start with Balkind as mentor and curator. Balkind also exhibited and promoted the work of female artists, such as Gathie Falk, whenever the opportunity arose.

  Balkind became a Canadian citizen in 1969. In 1973, he left his position at the Fine Arts Gallery and continued his career in the arts first as curator at the Art Gallery of Ontario, then head curator of the Vancouver Art Gallery (1975-1978), and later as the head of the visual arts studio at the Banff School of Fine Arts (1985-1987). In addition to his work as a curator at these institutions, Balkind also worked as an independent curator. In 1992, as a testament to his long and active career, Balkind was the first recipient of the $50,000 Vancouver Institute for Visual Art (VIVA) Award.

  After a two-year fight with cancer,  Balkind died in December 1992.

• 1997-1998

  APEC Alert collection

  3 cm of textual records + 1 sign : purple paint on chipboard ; 87 x 97 cm

  The collection consists of two files containing APEC Alert posters, newsletters, stickers, and ephemera relating to the group’s advocacy of resistance to the APEC agenda. Also includes newsletters and similar material from other groups opposed to APEC, and one protest sign with text “APEC spells greed.”

  History / Biography

  APEC Alert was a grassroots group formed at the University of British Columbia, consisting of students, former students, faculty, staff, and others who were opposed to the Asia Pacific Economic (APEC) Summit on the UBC campus and to the entire APEC agenda. They formed in January 1997 after outgoing UBC President, David Strangaway, announced his unilateral decision to host the APEC leaders summit on campus November 24-25, 1997. Their mandate, in conjunction with other similar anti-APEC groups, was to raise awareness of APEC among students, staff, and faculty, advocating political action and creative resistance to APEC with a diverse range of activities.

  APEC Alert was created in the belief that the APEC summit was held not to foster free trade, but to impose changes to benefit corporations at the expense of people, governments, and the environment. The group considered APEC to be undemocratic, complicit in the erosion of human rights, promoters of environmental destruction, and fostering a society of consumption. 

• 1984-2004

  Artropolis fonds

  5.4 m of textual records and other material

  The fonds consists of records relating to the planning, administrative, fundraising, promotional, documentary, and curatorial activities of the Artropolis exhibitions. These materials include: budgets, grant applications, proposals, research files and site plans; correspondence, financial statements, fundraising letters, logos, licenses and contracts, employee and volunteer files, minutes and reports; press releases and sponsorship agreements, banners, brochures and posters; and artists’ résumés and applications, attendance records, comment books, exhibition catalogues, scrapbooks, photo albums, photographs, video recordings, and artwork.

  History / Biography

  The Artropolis exhibitions were held in Vancouver in the years 1987, 1990, 1993, 1997, 2001, and 2003. Atropolis’ purpose was to feature the works of contemporary British Columbia artists in non-traditional exhibition spaces. Artropolis’ impetus came from the success of the October and Warehouse Shows in 1983 and 1984. These predecessors to Artropolis began in the tradition of “salons des refuses”, as a reaction to the Vancouver Art Gallery’s plans for the show “Art and Artists: 1931 to 1983.” Intended to celebrate the gallery’s re-opening in new facilities (the former court house at 750 Hornby Street), the exhibition was considered too exclusive by members of the Vancouver art community, who felt the gallery should expand their exhibition programming to include emerging local artists. In response, the October Show was conceived and organized collaboratively, and featured over 120 artists. It also gave rise to the formation of the Vancouver Artists League. The Warehouse Show followed in 1984; it took place on seven floors of 522 Beatty Street, featured artwork by approximately 190 artists, and drew 10,000 visitors.

  The first Artropolis took place in 1987 and was held at 788 Beatty Street. Artropolis 90 took place at what is now the Roundhouse Community Centre. Artropolis 93 was held in the former Woodward’s building at 100 West Hastings Street. The 1997 version of Artropolis was entitled Browser. It again took place at Roundhouse Community Centre, but in a smaller exhibition space. Both Artropolis 2001 and 2003 were held in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Broadcasting Centre at 700 Hamilton Street.

  The Vancouver Artists League and the Unit 306 Society organized Artropolis 87. In 1988, the non-profit A.T. Eight Artropolis Society was created to undertake future exhibitions in the tradition of the earlier shows. The Board of Directors failed to register the society with the British Columbia Registrar of Companies, and in 2004, grant applications for a proposed 2005 exhibition were rejected. As a result of these setbacks, the A.T. Eight Artropolis Society ceased to exist in 2005.

• 1972-2016

  Belkin Archives collection

  6.5 m of multiple media

  The collection consists of materials that have been acquired by the Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery Archives through various means such as donation, purchase, gift, mailing, etc. These materials include: artist’s books, magazines, photographs, sound recordings, buttons, catalogues, ephemera, and other materials that are unrelated to any other fonds or collection.

  History / Biography

  The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery is mandated to research, exhibit, collect, publish, educate and develop programs in the field of contemporary art and in contemporary art approaches to the practice of art history and criticism. The Belkin houses the University’s growing collection of over 4,000 works of art—one of the largest public collections of art in the province—as well as an archive with over 30,000 archival items relating to the post-war history of art in Vancouver and its connections to a developing international avant-garde network during the 1960s and 1970s.

  The Belkin’s archival holdings are a resource for exhibitions, teaching and learning, and scholarly research. The archives include the papers of artists, art historians, and collectors, and contain materials in a wide range of media such as textual records, photographic and other visual records, sound and moving image records (including audio and video tape and film), and objects. The materials are especially related to contemporary art since the 1960s, with a strong thematic focus on concrete poetry, mail art, performance art, social art history, and cultural history.

• 1994-1998

  BOO Magazine fonds

  34 cm of textual records

  The fonds consists of materials accumulated during the editorial process of creating Boo. Includes letters to the editor, general correspondence, essays, articles, poems, commentaries, edited works, interviews, invoices, logo design, illustrations, photographs, mailing lists, flyers, brochures, grant guidelines, newspaper clippings, and issues no. 1 to no. 11 of the publication itself.

  Contributors to the magazine, in addition to the editors, include Gerald Creede, Michelle Normoyle, Brice Canyon, Keith Wallace, Andrew Klobucar, Andrea Fatona, Janis Bowley, Melissa Wolsak, billy little, Arni Haraldsson, Judy Radul, Colin Smith, Susan Schupli, George Stanley, Scott Watson, Janet Lakeman, Dodie Bellamy, Peter Culley, Kevin Killian, Robert Ballantyne, Myfanwy MacLeod, Peter James Hudson, Erin O’Brien, Keith Higgins, Geoffrey Topham, Peter Cummings, Michael Turner, Naomi Foyle, Andrea Anderson, Jeff Deby, Clint Burnham, Bob Perelman, Dorothy Trujillo Lusk, Kevin Davies, Louis Cabri, Wayne Arsenault, Zainub Verjee, Zhao Tie Hai, Hank Bull, Robin Peck, Lucy Hogg, Wayde Compton, Tim Davis, Sharla Sava, Warren Murfitt, Jacqui Nolte, Gerry Gilbert, Patrik Anderson, Shannon Oksanen, Erin Moure, Sianne Ngai, G.B. Jones, David Bromage, Rob Manery, Miles Champion, Neil Wedman, Gerald Creede, Aaron Shurin, Brian MacNevin, Caroline Bergvall, Kathy Slade, Bruce Andrews, Tim Atkins, Glenn Alteen, Mark Klobucar, Stuart Blackley, Christine Corlett, Mair Dumett, Tom Raworth, Damon Crain, Geoffrey Farmer, and Brian Jungen.

  History / Biography

  BOO Magazine was started in 1994 out of frustration over the lack of a vehicle for critical and cultural discourse in Vancouver. After the collapse of the publication Vanguard in 1989 there were limited venues where writing about art and experimental writing in general could find a voice. A core group, which included Deanna Ferguson, Philip McCrum, Reid Shier, Dan Farrell, Michael Barnholden, and Mina Totino, decided to launch BOO as a cheaply produced tabloid that would provide an arena for predominantly local cultural writing, reviews, and criticism. Over time, some founding members left (Dan Farrell, Michael Barnholden, and Mina Totino) and others joined (Melinda Mollineaux). Each individual was responsible for bringing ideas for articles to meetings, where they were discussed and consensus was reached on whether they would be included in the next issue. At first BOO was funded through the sponsorship of various artist run centres, who distributed them for free in exchange for a small notice in the back. When this proved unfeasible, the editors began soliciting advertisements. The magazine folded in 1998, with a print run of 11 issues. 

• 1982-1988

  Coburg Gallery fonds

  38 cm of textual records and graphic material

  The fonds consists of records relating to the administrative and curatorial activities of the Coburg Gallery and its director, Bill Jeffries. The materials include local and international correspondence with artists, as well as other galleries’ directors and curatorial staff. The fonds also includes artwork sales information, financial records, exhibition invitations, and other promotional and documentary records produced and collected by the gallery.

  History / Biography

  The Coburg Gallery operated from 1983 to 1987 at #2 – 314 West Cordova Street in Vancouver, British Columbia. The name given to the gallery by its founder, Bill Jeffries, referenced his desire to foster cooperation between artistic communities living in different cities. The Coburg Gallery was instrumental in supporting and promoting Vancouver’s emerging photo-conceptualist art scene. Photographic works by local and international artists were primarily featured, although shows exhibiting artwork in other media were occasionally produced.

  Bill Jeffries was the Coburg Gallery’s Director, principal curator, and sole paid employee during its five-year existence. Operations and administrative activities were occasionally performed by artist volunteers. Due to the wider public’s lack of interest in its exhibitions, financial difficulties, and the stress of single-handedly operating and curating a gallery, Jeffries closed the Coburg Gallery in 1987.

• 1963-2000

  Concrete Poetry collection

  15 m of textual records and other material

  The Concrete Poetry collection consists of monographs, limited edition books and artists’ books, drawings, posters, prints, cards, boxes, wrappers, video recordings, and various small sculptures. The collection contains the following series: the Concrete Poetry series and the Peter Day series.

  The collection encompasses a growing number of concrete poems and material related to concrete poetry from a large number of artists and it is intended that this collection will continue to accrue examples of concrete poetry and scholarship about the genre.

  History / Biography

  Concrete Poetry is a form of poetry typified by its intermediality. It derives its meaning from both the content and style of the poetry as well as the visual arrangement of the poetry. It originated, in its modern form, from the experimental atmosphere of the post World War II era. Many of the forefathers of the genre, such as Rühm, Oswald Weiner, Max Bense, Eugen Gomringer and Decio Pignatari, came out of the German-speaking areas of Europe and the “Noigandres” group of Brazil. These artists aligned concrete poetry with post-war urbanity and often had ties to other disciplines such as industry and architecture.

  The movement expanded to encompass a much larger group of geographically dispersed poets when Eugen Gomringer opened a press in Frauenfeld, Switzerland in 1958 for publishing concrete poetry and, under the editorship of Max Bense and Elisabeth Walther, the published series “rot” began in Stuttgart, Germany in the early 1960s. Both Gomringer’s press and “rot” published concrete poetry from a wide variety of international sources and, as a result, were two of the major catalysts for the movement and its international expansion, which grew to include artists such as bill bissett, Ian Hamilton Finlay, and Oyvind Fahlstrom.

• 1966-1968

  David Farwell collection

  8 posters ; 91.2 x 53.2 cm or smaller

  The collection consists of posters, predominantly political in nature, collected by David Farwell.

  History / Biography

  David Farwell is a therapist in Vancouver. He was the partner of Vancouver poet Robin Blaser for more than thirty years.

• 1950-1999

  Eric Metcalfe fonds

  1.47 m of textual records and graphic material

  The fonds consists of textual and graphic materials relating to the development of Metcalfe’s art projects and themes, including Leopard Realty and Banal Beauty Inc.; photographs and clippings documenting Metcalfe’s works; and materials sent and received through Metcalfe’s participation in several mail art networks, including Fluxus West, General Idea, and Image Bank.

  History / Biography

  Eric William Welton Metcalfe was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, in 1940 and raised in Victoria, British Columbia, where his family moved in 1943. He began drawing, cartooning, and printmaking while attending St. Michael’s school in Victoria and later studied drawing and sculpture under Czech artist Jan Zack. After travels in Europe, Metcalfe returned to Victoria in 1963 to resume studies in art at the University of Victoria under Joan Brown, Denis Bowen, and Dana Atchley.

  In the late 1960s, Metcalfe became involved with Michael Morris and Vincent Trasov in the Image Bank correspondence network. The movement was based on an aesthetic of ephemerality, with artists adopting alter egos, and forming fictional companies or building archives of collected images. It was during this time that Metcalfe developed the persona of Dr. Brute. In 1969, Metcalfe married artist Kate Craig (who adopted the alias Lady Brute) and, together, they collected materials with a leopard theme. Mail art correspondants contributed found images incorporating leopard imagery.

  Dr. Brute was “an urban sadist meant to caricature the secret passions that smouldered underneath the veneer of genteel society in Brutiful British Columbia.” Brute occupied Brutopia, a fictional world that incorporated leopard-spot imagery in every possible way. Metcalfe’s Leopard Realty research, begun in 1970, was aimed at discovering and revealing the ubiquitous nature of ordinary exotica, synonymous with pornography and kitsch as well as a certain expression of sexual power.

  Metcalfe also produced and performed in film and video extensively from 1972 onwards. He is a founding member of the Western Front artists’ centre in Vancouver and, from 1978, curated its performance program. His works have been exhibited and collected at numerous local, national, and international institutions.

  Metcalfe was awarded the Audain Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Visual Arts in 2006, he received the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2008, and an Honorary Doctorate from Emily Carr University of Art + Design in 2015.

• 1962-2007

  Fluxus collection

  81 cm of multiple media

  The collection consists of Fluxus artworks in the form of cards, games, postcards and other media by various artists, including George Maciunas, Ben Vautier, Ken Friedman, Robert Filliou, George Brecht, and others. It also contains material related to Fluxus artwork such as catalogues and Fluxus ephemera.

  History / Biography

  Fluxus was an experimental art movement that emerged in the United States in the late 1950s. The movement later expanded to include artists from Europe and Japan such as Yoko Ono, Joseph Beuys, Nam June Paik, Meiko Shiomi, and Milan Kníz��k. The movement itself resists definition, but appears to have developed in opposition to high modernist art practice, and in many ways harkened back to Dada art of the early twentieth century. These characteristics were reflected in the movement’s resistance to the art market and their close connection with the ideas of composer John Cage.

  From 1956 to 1960, Cage taught classes in experimental composition at the New York School for Social Research. Cage’s pedagogical practice focused on encouraging students to experiment with mixed media, chance processes, and performance. The influence of Cage laid the groundwork for Fluxus art practice, which is reflected in the movement’s incorporation of everyday objects, anti-intellectualism, and playfulness in their works. Cage’s classes were attended by several Fluxus artists, including: George Brecht, Allan Kaprow, and possibly George Maciunas, although his name does not appear on the school’s list of registered students.

  Nevertheless, Maciunas is widely considered to be the father of the Fluxus movement and to have coined the movement’s name. As in the case of many other Fluxus artists, Maciunas was influenced by Cage’s ideas on the integration of art and everyday life; however, Macuinas is considered to have taken these ideas further towards a more total blending of the two, where art no longer constituted a separate activity from daily life.

  The art practice of Fluxus artists was fluid, incorporating elements of mixed media and performance, and moved freely between the visual and non-visual. Works included cards giving lists of instructions, small boxes consisting of games, and numerous happenings and performances of routine or predefined actions, such as eating lunch at the same time everyday. Fluxus art often included ephemeral objects such as handbills and loose pieces of paper. Many Fluxus objects were handmade assemblages of mass-produced items, including the hand bound Fluxus publications by Maciunas.

  Due to the influence that Maciunas had on the movement, some scholars consider that Fluxus ended with his death in 1978. However, many artists who themselves identify with the movement, or have been grouped under this category by others, continued to create work under the Fluxus rubric.

• 1964-1998

  Gary Lee-Nova fonds

  24 cm of textual records and graphic material

  The fonds consist of Gary Lee-Nova’s correspondence. Includes letters received and sent to friends, artists, and institutions; correspondence between Art Rat and Dr. Brute (Eric Metcalfe); The Dead Letter Funeral mail art project; and, Gary Lee-Nova’s copy of the Space Ace Atlas mail art project. Also includes photographs of Michael Morris and Vincent Trasov at Image Bank. 

  History / Biography

  Gary Lee-Nova was born in Toronto on June 26, 1943. He studied at the Vancouver School of Art and at Coventry College, England.

  Lee-Nova was an important figure in the “West Coast scene” of the late 1960s and early 1970s and is known as a painter, sculptor and filmmaker. He was a co-founder of Image Bank (with Michael Morris and Vincent Trasov) and active in the Sound Gallery (circa 1965) and Intermedia (1967-1972). His use of the spectrum as a motif would begin the Image Bank’s ambitious Colour Bar Research project. In addition, Lee-Nova was involved with the New York Corres-Sponge Dance School of Vancouver, and worked under the pseudonym of Art Rat.

  Lee-Nova continues to be active as an artist, working on single projects—often with others—that take years to execute. He is currently an instructor at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. 

• 1978-1981, 2010

  The Gina Show fonds

  3.1 m of multiple media

  The fonds consists of 63 episodes of The Gina Show on original ¾-inch tapes, DVD access copies, Betacam Master copies, Betacam Sub-Master copies, flyers used to advertise the television show, and descriptions of each episode (preserved as original hand-written and typed episode logs), as well as materials relating to a 2010 exhibition at the Or Gallery featuring The Gina Show and related archival materials.

  Because of the inherent instability of the ¾-inch tapes only 63 of the episodes (approximately 28 hours) survived well enough to be transferred from the original format to archival or digital preservation/viewing formats.

  History / Biography

  The Gina Show was a Vancouver based local television art project produced by John Anderson (a.k.a. J.A. Genius) and hosted by Gina Daniels. It aired on public access cable, Vancouver Cable 10. The Gina Show began in 1978, at the height of the punk and media DIY movement and ran for four years. The show was closely associated with the artist run centre PUMPS. Over a three-year period over 90 episodes were made.

  Each episode is between 20 and 30 minutes long. Content in each episode consists of a mix of feature segments ranging from video art and performance art documentation to interviews with artists and bands, poetry readings, promotions for art galleries and exhibitions, as well as music videos and early digital animation.

  Some of the artists and groups who participated in The Gina Show in some capacity over the years include: Ken Kuramoto, Fabio Auri, Margaret Dragu, Kate Craig, Sanja Ivekovic, Liza Bear, David Enblom, Bill Shirt, Pete Lipski, Elizabeth Vander Zaag, Mike MacDonald, Chris Reed, Ken Lum, Roy Arden, Government, Ephemerealities, Hank Bull, Lenore Coutts, Byron Black, Taki Bluesinger, Eric Metcalfe, Ian Murray, Paul Wong, D.O.A., Ewan McNeil, Neal Livingston, Vincent Trasov, Paul Hyde, Gary Bourgeois, Mary Jane Kopechne, The Young Marble Giants, Stan Douglas, David Ostrem, Al McLauchlin, Glenn MacDonald, Kim Tomczak, and Matthew Harley.

• 1950-2007

  Glenn Lewis fonds

  3.06 m of textual records and graphic material

  Fonds consists of textual and photographic material created or collected by artist Glenn Lewis. Includes records pertaining to and reflecting Lewis’ travels, employment, study, artist collectives and associations, and artistic projects from 1950 to 2007. Records consist of photographic materials (prints, slides and negatives), journals/day-planners, postcards, letters, lecture notes, manuscripts, articles, notes and miscellaneous writings, published books and catalogues, exhibition pamphlets and brochures, grant and commission information, legal documents, artwork and drawings, 1 CD and 1 DVD, and 3 ceramic pieces.

  History / Biography

  Glenn Lewis was born in Chemainus, British Columbia in 1935. He studied at the Vancouver School of Art, obtaining an Honours degree in 1958, and then a teaching degree from the University of British Columbia in 1959. He continued his studies in art under Bernard Leach in Cornwall, England, studying ceramics from 1961 to 1963. He then taught ceramics at the University of British Columbia from 1964 to 1967. Although an intensely important part of his artistic repertoire, his work with traditional pottery was replaced with an interest in the progressive avant-garde, including conceptual and performance art, in the 1960s. Always questioning the dialectic between conventional objects and art, social obligation and natural instinct, function and beauty, his past experience with sculpture played an important role in his new projects.

  Much of his work between the 1960s and the 1980s included some aspect of sculpture or positioning as a questioning of the dichotomy between the static and the transient. He was fascinated with seeking commonality and human links revealed by conventional items and popular myth. He experimented with photography, film, and even horticulture, becoming increasingly interested in nature and topiary. He was involved in a number of artists’ collectives and artist-run centres, including the New Era Social Club in 1968 and the Western Front in 1973. Many of his works were collaborative and included members of these collectives, often questioning the perception of reality by a public manipulated by the media. New media in all types became the catalyst for much of his work through the 1980s and 1990s, an investigation into its power to influence and broadcast, and yet limit perception at the same time. This attention to new media eventually led to his appointment as Head of Media Arts at the Canada Council from 1987 to 1990. He was awarded with five Canada Council grants throughout his life. He was also awarded the prestigious “Emily” award from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in 2000, and the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2017.

  Glenn Lewis currently lives and works in Vancouver.

• [1964-2002, predominant 1970-1990]

  Henry Greenhow fonds

  65.5 cm of textual records and graphic material

  The fonds is reflective of Greenhow’s relationships, involvement at the Western Front, and artists network he participated in primarily throughout the 1970s and 1980s. The fonds consists of a diverse collection of personal records including correspondence in the form of letters and postcards to friends and associates, photographic material, personal project research, exhibition invitations, performance programs, and related ephemera.

  History / Biography

  Cecil Henry (Hank) Greenhow is a Vancouver-based teacher and co-founder of the Western Front Society. Greenhow was involved throughout the 1970s in successfully developing the Western Front as “a space for the exploration and creation of new art forms” and a Canadian new media artist-run centre. Greenhow worked under the pseudonyms ‘Estelle Friend’ and ‘S.S. Tell,’ and the projects ‘Borderline Studios’ and ‘Butch Bank.’ Greenhow is best known for his published work Ziggurats (1974) and collaborative work the extended Western Front community.

  Greenhow was born in Walkerville, Ontario January 27, 1935. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English at the University of Windsor in 1959, and a Master of Arts degree (cum laude) in 1963. From 1959 to 1967, Greenhow held various positions teaching English Literature at the secondary and post-secondary level across Ontario and divided his time between Ontario and Detroit, Michigan where he shared an apartment with life-long friend Dr. J. Norman Austin.

  In 1967, Greenhow moved from Ontario to Vancouver, British Columbia to pursue further graduate studies. He continued working in the field of education as a teaching assistant at the University of British Columbia (1967 to 1968) and finally as a long-term instructor at Vancouver City College Langara (1969 to 1998). Through connections made at UBC and his interests, Greenhow developed a network of friends and colleagues associated with Vancouver’s emerging avant-garde art and poetry movements.

  In 1973, Michael Morris, Vincent Trasov, Maurice (Moe) van Nostrand, Martin Bartlett, Glenn Lewis, Eric Metcalfe, Kate Craig, and Greenhow purchased the former Knights of Pythias Hall at 303 East 8th Street in Vancouver. The purchase was aided greatly by the fact that Greenhow, then teaching in the English department and Langara College, and Lewis were the only two founding members with a steady income. Named after the iconic look of buildings in Hollywood Western movies, the Hall was transformed into the Western Front Society, conceived as a centre for artists, writers, musicians, and various creative types. The Western Front operated in relation to, and each founding member’s practice was guided by, the ethos of the ‘Eternal Network.’ Together, the eight founding members established the artist-run centre as an important node in Western Canada for the collective, and ultimately collaborative, approach to art creation that defined the 1970s and 1980s.

  Of note is Greenhow’s 1974 show Ziggurats at the Western Front Ziggurats. Sponsored in part by the Vancouver Art Gallery’s Pacific Vibrations exhibition, Ziggurats was a display of slides featuring the Image Bank’s Colour Bar Research project, Eric Metcalfe’s Leopard Realty, and the accompanying text by Greenhow, Ziggurats. The show is evidence of the collaborative, social, and jovial approach to art production and work by members of the Western Front. Greenhow’s involvement also included curatorial work in the mid-1970s and the publication of Ziggurats by Air Press in 1976.

  The publication Ziggurats was part of a varied and ongoing exploarion of ziggurat forms by Greenhow. Developed at ‘Babyland’—Morris’ summer cabin near Gibsons, British Columbia—the ziggurats project developed alongside Morris and Trasov’s colour bars project. Of note as well is Butch Bank, Greenhow’s personal exploration of conceptions and depictions of masculinity and collaborative art project.

  Greenhow lived at the Western Front from February 1974 to mid-1977 and again from July 1986 to December 1989 and was one of the first members of the Board of Directors, sitting on the board almost every year from 1974 to 1989. He was also in close contact with affiliated artists and collectives including Dana Atchley, General Idea, Opal L. Nations, Lowell Darling, Willoughby Sharp, and Robert Filliou. Finally, in 1996 Greenhow sold his eighth of the share in the property to Peter Bingham. He retired from Langara College in 1998.

  Henry Greenhow died July 7, 2017.

• 1965-2010

  Hermann Nitsch collection

  48 cm of multiple media

  The collection consists of Nitsch’s books, catalogues, posters, letters, framed items, objects, videocassettes, and reel audio relating mostly to performances by Nitsch with some material relating to his geräuschmusik and paintings.

  History / Biography

  Hermann Nitsch was born in 1938 and received training in painting at the Wiener Graphische Lehr-und Versuchanstalt in Vienna, Austria. The media of Nitsch’s work is varied, but he has focused on abstract splatter paintings and performances, mostly his Aktion series of performances and Das Orgien Mysterien Theater series of performances. Nitsch is also a musician.

  Nitsch is often associated with the Viennese Actionists, a group of loosely affiliated artists working with action art, a composite term for performance related activities including Fluxus, Happenings, Performance Art, and Body Art.

  Viennese Actionism, as it has been described, developed in conjunction with Performance Art and Fluxus and, similar to these movements, it shared the rejection of object-based art. It was focused on the aesthetics of destruction, violence, and in the case of Hermann Nitsch, blood. Many Vienna Actionist art projects involved the simulation of violence, the use of nudity, and animal carcasses. Nitsch views this movement, not as cohesive, but as “a number of artists react[ing] to particular situations that they all encountered, within a particular time period, and with similar means and results.” The movement was active between 1960 and 1971, but some of the artists have, like Nitsch, continued to work in a similar vein. A number of the artists, including Nitsch, served jail time as a result of the moral outrage generated by their work.

  Most of Nitsch’s work is characterized by a theme of controlled violence, an aestheticization of that violence and ritualism. His paintings are usually composed of colours reminiscent of blood and violence through the application of greys, maroons, and bright reds. His early performances focused on simulating violence on human bodies, but moved towards the use of animal carcasses as a medium. Most of his performances are referred to as Aktion and denoted by a sequential number (eg. 16. Aktion).

  In Nitsch’s performances, animal carcasses are often mutilated and crucified ritualistically, in combination with the addition of other ceremonial elements such as red fruit, music, dancing, and active participants. Many of his performances are also accompanied by his geräuschmusik or noise music that uses an assortment of atonal sounds to create music.

  Later in his career, Nitsch became significantly more accepted by the Austrian establishment and was commissioned to do set and costume design for the opera Hérodiade in 1995. He continues to live and work in Vienna releasing music and doing performances.

• 1970-1990

  Jerry Pethick fonds

  7 notebooks ; 29.5 x 24.5 cm or smaller

  The fonds consists of notebooks used by Jerry Pethick to record thoughts, ideas for new art works, lists, addresses, and poems.

  History / Biography

  Jerry Pethick, a sculptor and multimedia artist, was born in London, Ontario in 1935. In 1957 he left Canada to study at the Chelsea College of Art in the UK and subsequently became an associate of the Royal College of Art. In 1968, he moved to the United States to study holography in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and later cofounded a holography school in San Francisco before settling on Hornby Island with his wife and son in 1975.

  Pethick first became known for his pioneering work with holography during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The disruption of visual perception and the experiential nature of art remained central to his work throughout his career, which culminated in large-scale photographic arrays and playful sculptures through the 1990s and early 2000s. He often incorporated found objects from the recycling depot on Hornby Island, juxtaposing their junkyard qualities with a sophisticated and rigourous fascination with science, technology, and art history in works that are both visual and conceptual.

  Pethick lived and worked on Hornby Island until his death, July 7, 2003.

• 1992-1993

  John Gilmore collection

  2 cm of textual records and audio recordings

  The collection consists of materials created and collected by John Gilmore for the purpose of writing “Virtual Reality” for Saturday Night. It includes notes, drafts, transcriptions, and the original tapes of interviews with Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun conducted by Gilmore.

  History / Biography

  John Gilmore was born in Montreal in 1951. In 1972 he graduated from Sir George Williams University Collège d’enseignement général et professionnel program. He spent two years in Bridgend, Wales training to be a journalist. When he returned to Montreal he worked for The Gazette  and began to study saxophone.

  In 1978 he became a full time student at Concordia University in their jazz program, graduating in 1981 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Music. While a student at Concordia he developed an interest in local jazz history. With the help of a Canada Council grant he researched and wrote two books Swinging in Paradise: The Story of Jazz in Montreal (1988) and Who’s Who of Jazz in Montreal: Ragtime to 1970 (1989).

  In 1992 John Gilmore was commissioned by Saturday Night (a Canadian general interest magazine, which ceased publishing in 2005) to write an article about Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun’s piece Inherent Rights, Vision Rights created in 1992 as a visiting artist to the Banff Centre for the Arts working in their Virtual Reality Laboratory. The resulting article was published in the April 1993 issue of Saturday Night and entitled “Virtual Reality.”

  Gilmore has worked as an author, journalist, editor, and ESL teacher.

• 1973-1976

  John Mitchell collection

  The collection consists of records generated by John Mitchell, including drawings, collages, letters and an artist book, as well as various records, predominantly photographic, created or collected by Keith Donovan that capture John Mitchell’s 1974 campaign performance and the PUMPS and Vancouver art scenes in the 1970s.

  History / Biography

  John Mitchell was a founding member of the artist-run PUMPS group. He often used the pseudonym “Mitchelangelo.” Mitchell’s oeuvre includes video, writing, sculpture, drawing, and performance pieces. He ideated the mayoral campaign of Vincent Trasov as Mr. Peanut in the 1974 Vancouver civic election, and also acted as Mr. Peanut’s campaign manager and spokesperson in the 20-day performance.

• 1951-2004

  John Reeve/Donna Balma fonds

  33.25 cm of textual records and graphic material

  The fonds consists of correspondence, photographs, manuscripts, memoirs, and ephemera relating mainly to John Reeve and Donna Balma’s work and life in England at St. Ives.

  History / Biography

  John Reeve, born in Barrie, Ontario in 1929, married Donna Balma, born 1934 in Victoria, British Columbia. They were both artists—Reeve a potter and Balma a self-taught painter and writer. Reeve studied sculpture and later ceramics at the Vancouver School of Art in 1955. He and Balma went to England in 1958 so that Reeve could study ceramics under Bernard Leach and his wife, Janet in the Cornish fishing village of St Ives. Along with the other British Columbian artists studying and working there (including Glenn Lewis and Michael Henry) they became known for the sort of artist collective and modern poetry movement that developed out of this study under Bernard Leach. They had two children, Hanna, while at St. Ives and Soledad, born in Victoria upon their return to Canada.

  At this time in art history in Canada, pottery began to be considered as art and not merely as functional craft. After the two-and-a-half-year apprenticeship at St. Ives Pottery, Reeve and Balma returned to Canada and Reeve taught at UBC. They returned to England in 1962 where he established a pottery with Glenn Lewis and Warren Mackenzie called Longlands, which was closed a few years later due to financial difficulties. In 1966, Reeve and Balma again returned to England upon invitation from Janet Leach to oversee the Leach Pottery.

  During the 1970s, Reeve taught at the Vancouver School of Art and published two pivotal books on pottery glazing. Later he commuted from California to Vancouver to a Granville Island pottery studio which he shared with two of his former students, Sam Kwan and Ron Vallis. During this time, Reeve’s work was featured in many Canadian galleries.

  Reeve and Balma separated shortly after November 1974, when they left England for the last time and returned to the Sunshine Coast, BC, where both worked at Michael Henry’s Slug Pottery. Reeve then moved to New Mexico to work as a lecturer and a teacher, and transitioned from creating functional ceramics to large sculptures. Balma, a registered massage therapist and self-taught artist, continued live on the Sunshine Coast, producing bold, complex, illustrious and dreamlike paintings (often dubbed surreal in genre), and publishing works of fiction and art history.

• 1952-2002

  Kate Craig fonds

  3.7 m of textual records and other material

  Fonds reflects Kate Craig’s career as a multi-media artist in Vancouver and involvement in the Western Front Society.

  The fonds includes records relating to Craig’s career as an artist: correspondence with other artists, art project planning files and notebooks, documentation of exhibitions, collected ephemera (including postcards), financial records of the Western Front, grant applications, and collected published materials. Personal records in the fonds include: letters to friends and family, appointment diaries, journals, financial records and family photographs.     

  History / Biography

  Kate Craig was a Canadian multi-media artist, whose work spanned the areas of costume, film, performance, and photography. Craig collaborated with many different artists throughout her career, working on various projects and assuming many different artistic personae, most notably ‘Lady Brute’.

  Kate (Catherine) Shand Craig was born September 15, 1947 in Victoria, British Columbia, to Sidney Osborne Craig (nee Scott) and Charles Edward Craig. In 1960 after her divorce from Charles Craig, Craig’s mother married Douglas Shadbolt and the family moved to Montreal, Quebec. They spent one year in Montreal before moving to Halifax, Nova Scotia. In 1964, Craig enrolled in the Bachelor of Arts and Science program at Dalhousie University but dropped out in 1966 and moved to Montreal to work in the costume department of Le Theatre du Nouveau Monde.

  In 1967, Craig moved to Victoria, and began studying at the University of Victoria, where she met the artist Eric Metcalfe. Craig and Metcalfe began living together, and were married in 1969. Craig also met Dana Atchley while at the University of Victoria, and became involved in several mail art networks, including: Image Bank, International Image Exchange Directory, and the first International Satellite Exchange Directory. During 1970 and 1971, Craig travelled with Metcalfe around Europe. Upon returning to Canada, they moved to Vancouver, British Columbia. At this time they assumed the personas of Doctor Brute and Lady Brute.

  In 1973, Craig co-founded the Western Front Society with artists Martin Bartlett, Henry Greenhow, Glenn Lewis, Eric Metcalfe, Michael Morris, Vincent Trasov, and Moe Van Nostrand. The location of the Western Front Society at 303 East 8th Avenue was a focal point and source of collaborations throughout her career. Craig was on the board of directors of the Western Front, working full time in its administration from 1973 to 1993. In 1977, Craig established the Artist in Residence at The Western Front, and curated the media program until 1993. Craig continued to be involved as a volunteer at The Western Front after 1993.

  In 1973, Craig met artist Hank Bull, and they started living together. In 1974, Craig performed _Flying Leopard_ in Cates Park and Hornby Island. In 1975, Craig produced her first video Skins: Lady Brute Presents Her Leopardskin Wardrobe. Also in 1975, Craig and Metcalfe exhibited Dr. and Lady Brute Present Spots Before Your Eyes at Western Front and A Space. In 1976, Craig co-founded The Canadian Shadow Players with Hank Bull, Patrick Ready, and Martin Bartlett. In the years after 1976, Craig spent around eight weeks during each summer at her cabin in Storm Bay, a wilderness camp in the Sechelt Inlet north of Vancouver.

  From the late 1970s through the 1980s, Craig produced many films, including: Backup (1978), Still Life: A Moving Portrait (screened 1979), Straight Jacket (1980), Delicate Issue (screened 1981), Ma (1986), and Mary Lou (1989). In 1980 and 1981, Craig travelled around the world with Hank Bull, visiting many countries. In 1986, Clay Cove was exhibited as part of Luminous Sites, at Park Place, Vancouver. In 1990, Craig married Hank Bull. In her later life she was involved in the Fragrant Flora nursery with Glenn Lewis, and remained active in the Vancouver art community. Skin, a retrospective exhibition of Craig’s work was held at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 1998.

  In 2002, Kate Craig died of cancer at her cabin at Storm Bay.

• 1937-1987; predominant 1952-1981

  Kenneth Coutts-Smith fonds

  4.27 m of textual records and other material

  The fonds consists of correspondence, notebooks, manuscripts, drafts and proofs of essays, articles, art reviews, and lectures, books, poetry, short stories and a novel, curricula vitae, drawings, prints, posters, audio and video recordings, films, photographic prints, negatives and transparencies, scrapbook, exhibition catalogues, newspaper cuttings and other periodicals, a collection of material about artists, and miscellaneous items.

  Some of the material in the fonds were added by Helen K. Wright, who organized posthumous shows and gave lectures on Coutts-Smith’s works, and gathered obituaries and other material relating to her deceased former husband.

  History / Biography

  Kenneth Coutts-Smith was a British artist, critic, and historian of art and culture, born September 1929 in Copenhagen, Denmark. He studied painting at Heatherley’s School of Fine Art (London) and the Grande Chaumiére (Paris). His first solo exhibitions in the United Kingdom and France in 1952 were followed by shows in Stockholm in 1953, Strasbourg in 1954, and several shows in London 1957 to 1965. As well as painting during these years, Coutts-Smith also wrote and published poetry, short stories, and a novel, Fuglefrith, and began a career as a journalist of art and society, publishing numerous reviews, articles, interviews, and catalogue introductions. He was also active as a gallery administrator in London from 1962 to 1969, as secretary of the Drian Gallery, London, managing the New Vision Centre gallery, and as organizing secretary of the Commonwealth Biennale of Abstract Art. Complementing his activity as an art critic dating from around 1963, Coutts-Smith began to lecture widely in England and accepted teaching appointments at Liverpool College of Art in 1967 and Harrow College of Art, London, in 1968. Critical study of art and society led to two books published in his lifetime, The Dream of Icarus and Dada, which appeared in 1970. A third, The Demise of the Avant-Garde, collected together essays from the decade 1970 to 1980, and is yet to be published posthumously. In the years after his death there was an effort made to publish the manuscript, and again in the early 1990s when the material was donated to the Belkin Art Gallery.

  In 1970 Coutts-Smith emigrated to Canada, teaching as a professor at the University of Calgary, University of Manitoba, York University in Toronto, and Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, continuing to be active as a curator, from 1974 at Gallery 111, Winnipeg, lecturing in Europe, North America and Australia, and producing film and video works as well as mail art and paintings, notably the series Artexts shown in Halifax in 1980. He took considerable interest in contemporary art of Eastern Europe, collecting works by Yugoslav artists, and traveled also to study Canadian Inuit artists in 1975 and Australian aboriginal communities in 1980.

  Coutts-Smith died in 1981 in Toronto, Canada.

• 1969-1976

  “Master of the West End” collection

  627 photographs : col. slides ; 35 mm

  The collection consists of colour slides, mainly depicting the West End of Vancouver. A number of themes run throughout the collection: sunsets, street scenes, buildings in the West End, gardens, and most notably, homoerotic images of nude and semi-nude males. There are also a small number of slides taken in other locations, such as Toronto. 

  History / Biography

  The photographer of this collection is unknown, although they likely lived in the West End of Vancouver during the period the images were captured. The slides were purchased at a flea market by Alex Morrison, and gifted to Vancouver artist Roy Arden.

• 1935-2000; predominant 1952-2000

  Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery fonds

  13.4 m of textual records and other material

  The fonds consists of records relating to the history and administration of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery. These materials include: budgets, correspondence, memorandums, agendas, minutes, pamphlets, booklets, catalogues, list of works, appraisals, newspaper clippings, magazines, reports, terms of reference, renderings, plans, videos, sound recordings, photographs, slides, negatives, proposals, invoices, requisitions, condition reports, application forms, inventory sheets, purchase orders, plaques, donation remittances, handwritten notes, newsletters, artists statements, biographies, and invitations.

  History / Biography

  The University Art Centre opened December 4th, 1948 as a result of the efforts of the University Fine Arts Committee, the Visual Arts Committee and thanks to a gift from the University Hill of the I.O.D.E (Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire). The University Hill gift was meant not only to create the University Art Centre but also for the purpose of establishing a memorial to the late Dean Mary L. Bollert who was an Honorary Regent of the Chapter. It was hoped that:

  “With this Art Gallery and Art Workshop providing the stimulus, new artistic sensibility will be developed and new creative gifts will be uncovered that will enrich and heighten the repute of the University, the City and the Province. And in due course, that will enrich life and improved fame will create fresh demand for further artistic growth—for, first, a University Chair in Art and, ultimately, a University Department of Fine Arts.”

  The Centre was located in the basement of the North Wing of the Main Library and operated under the direction of the University Fine Arts Committee. It served as an exhibition space and educational centre until the Fine Arts Department was established in 1955, when it became the UBC Fine Arts Gallery. After the Department’s creation it assumed responsibility for the Gallery, and in 1962 Alvin Balkind became curator. Balkind focused resources on a program to experiment in art, design and curating. His tenure (1962-1973) coincided with the emergence of Vancouver’s awareness of international contemporary art, and he was integral in fostering this awareness by bringing a number of influential contemporary artists to the city such as Ray Johnson. When he left, the gallery almost closed, because it had flourished through his energy and not through university funding.

  However, in 1975 Glenn Allison became director and he initiated a program of asking artists to conceive site-specific installations for the space. He also continued Alvin Balkind’s initiative of focusing on contemporary art. In 1989, Scott Watson, the current gallery director was appointed and has continued the legacy established by Balkind and Allison, making Vancouver a premier centre for contemporary art in Canada.

  Between 1950-1987 there were many attempts to have a gallery built on University grounds but none up to that point were ever realized. This changed in 1987 when, Helen Belkin presented the university with a considerable monetary gift. The university matched her gift in order to create the building budget, which was put towards the construction of a new gallery. In 1995, construction was completed and the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery was opened. The building itself was designed by Vancouver architect Peter Cardew and has received international acclaim for its architectural innovation.

  The gallery is not comprised of any Board or legislated advisory committee, but operates as an academic unit of the University. Before 1990, the official director of the gallery was the Head of the Fine Arts Department, although in practice the curator was responsible for the direction and operation of the gallery. The realities of the situation initiated a process through which the gallery became an independent unit, monitoring its own budget and answering directly to the Dean of Arts rather than to the Fine Arts Department. After 1990, the gallery curator officially became Director and an independent entity from the Fine Arts Department.

  The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery’s mandate is to research, exhibit, collect, publish, educate and develop programs in the field of contemporary art and in contemporary approaches to the practice of art history and criticism. The gallery is not limited to a particular media or disciplines. However, it places special emphasis on the areas of the Canadian avant-garde of the 1960s and 1970s, the international network developed at the time and its role in the art of today; emerging artists; Vancouver’s post-war history; practices and projects that challenge the status quo including exhibition concepts initiated by artists. The gallery, since 1992, is also responsible for the University Art Collection.

  The Gallery’s operations, exhibitions, programs and acquisitions are funded in part by the UBC Faculty of Arts, the Belkin Family Foundation Operating Endowment, the Belkin Gallery Endowment for Acquisitions and Exhibitions, private and corporate sponsorship and government arts funding agencies.

• 1932-1990, predominant 1969-1974

  Morris/Trasov Archive

  80 m of graphic and other material

  The collection consists of material created and collected by Michael Morris and Vincent Trasov, including their collaborations as Image Bank. The materials relate to exhibitions such as 1984 (1972), Post Card Show (1971 and 1977), to projects such as Colour Bars, Cultural Ecology, and to events such as Art’s Birthday, Decca Dance, and the Miss General Idea Pageant (and Pavilion).

  The collection also documents collaborative encounters with artists such as Robert Filliou, General Idea, Robert Fones, Robert Cumming, Ray Johnson, John Dowd, Anna Banana, Bill Gaglione, Eric Metcalfe, Kate Craig, John Jack Baylin, Hervé Fischer, Victor Cavellini, Hermann Nitsch, and Fluxus artists. The Archive documents the mayoralty campaign by Mr. Peanut and the establishment of the Western Front—one of the first artist run centres in Western Canada. The Archive also contains numerous publications such as FILE Megazine, catalogues and artists’ books, and editions of cards.

  Further, the Archive includes an extensive collection of material complementing Morris’ and Trasov’s personal fonds, such as books, periodicals, and other published material as well as art in multiple forms and media, including artist books, moving image and sound recordings, collages, correspondence, ephemera, exhibition catalogues, found objects, mailings, magazines, multiples and editions of cards, photographic prints, negatives, slides and transparencies, postcards, posters, drawings, and prints.

  History / Biography

  Established in 1992, the Morris/Trasov Archive is an extensive collection related to the art practices of Michael Morris and Vincent Trasov. Conceived and initiated as Image Bank in 1969 and subsequently re-named the Morris/Trasov Archive, it encompasses both the collaborative art practice of Michael Morris and Vincent Trasov and material generated by Morris and Trasov individually, as well as other items collected by the artists.

  Morris and Trasov founded the Image Bank in 1969. The Image Bank was a system of postal correspondence between participating artists for the exchange of information and ideas. Since 1967, Morris (and later Trasov) corresponded with Ray Johnson, considered to be the founding father of mail art. Johnson had founded the New York Correspondence School in 1962, and this no doubt influenced Morris and Trasov’s establishment of the Image Bank. In fact, the artists were included in Johnson’s 1970 New York Correspondence School exhibition at the Whitney Museum, New York. The Image Bank commenced sending lists of participants and their image requests, published first in monthly Image Bank mailings and later in FILE Megazine—a reference and antidote to LIFE Magazine—as directories and request lists, and maintained files of artists’ correspondence and research.

  The intention of the Image Bank was to create a collaborative, process-based project in the hopes of engendering a shared creative consciousness—in opposition to the alienation endemic to modern capitalist society—through the deconstruction and recombination of its ideological forms. Ultimately, “Image Bank never officially closed its doors. The end came in 1978 after the publication of the Image Bank Postcard Show. This was a box of postcards that could be conceived of as an exhibition destined for the mail. Just as LIFE magazine sued FILE Megazine to cease and desist the appropriation of its logo, a New York company called Image Bank threatened suit against Image Bank, stalling distribution of the postcards through bookstores and gallery shops.” (Scott Watson, Hand of the Spirit: Documents of the Seventies form the Morris/ Trasov Archive, Vancouver: University of British Columbia Fine Arts Gallery, 1992.)

• 1970-

  Mr. Peanut collection

  5.5 cm of graphic material and objects

  The collection contains materials generated by Vincent Trasov relating to the Mr. Peanut character in general and to the 1974 mayoralty campaign, and materials generated by others relating to the same subject. The collection contains predominantly graphic materials in the form of ephemera, as well as objects such as ceramic peanuts and a commemorative plate.

  History / Biography

  Between 1969 and 1974 the artist Vincent Trasov (b. 1947) appropriated the persona (and appearance) of the iconic advertising mascot, Mr. Peanut. As Mr. Peanut, Trasov, with the assistance of artist John Mitchell, orchestrated a performance art event running for mayor in the Vancouver mayoralty campaign of 1974. During the twenty day race, Mr. Peanut appeared at candidates meetings and similar events with the other mayoral hopefuls. During these events, Mitchell spoke for Mr. Peanut who remained silent, but managed to shake up the usually staid election process and also brought increased media attention to the city. Mr. Peanut ran on a platform of P for performance, E for elegance, A for Art, N for nonsense, U for uniqueness, and T for talent and served as a symbol for artists and their aspirations. Mr. Peanut lost the race, but won 3.4% of the vote. After 1974, Trasov retired the Mr. Peanut costume, but Mr. Peanut imagery and the “Mr. Peanut for Mayor” campaign continued to inform his artistic practice. 

• 1978-1994

  Peter Schuyff fonds

  20 cm of graphic material

  The fonds consists of mail art received by Peter Schuyff from Ray Johnson, including collages, clippings, assemblages, photocopied works, and other graphic material.

  History / Biography

  Peter Schuyff was born in Baam, Holland in 1958. He and his family moved to Vancouver in 1967 where he spent the remainder of his childhood. After high school, he enrolled at the Vancouver School of Art, where he studied for a year and a half. After leaving school he painted in Vancouver, where artist Michael Morris became a friend and mentor. In 1981 Schuyff moved to New York to pursue his career as an artist. Schuyff’s paintings have since evolved to depict biomorphic forms and vibrantly colored, light filled grids and template patterns.

  While in New York, Schuyff corresponded with artist Ray Johnson, the founder of the New York Correspondance School and the father of mail art. Schuyff’s correspondence with Johnson dates back to the late 1970s but became most intense after his move to New York. In a 1989 letter to Michael Morris, Schuyff notes “Ray Johnson and I have been corresponding a lot too, as much as three times a week.”

  Schuyff is a well-known artist in his own right. He has shown his paintings in a number of solo exhibitions in New York, in addition to Los Angeles, Geneva, Cologne, Paris, Rome Amsterdam and other cities. His work has also been shown at group exhibitions at the Drawing Centre in New York, the Milwaukee Art Gallery, and many others. His work has also been highlighted in numerous fine arts periodicals, including Artforum, Flashart, Art in America and others. Peter Schuyff currently lives and works in New York and Vancouver.

• 1950-1997

  Peter White’s It Pays to Play collection

  2.33 m of textual records

  The collection consists of material collected and generated in the process of curating an exhibition of postcards at Presentation House Gallery in North Vancouver. The collection is divided into three series: It Pays to Play postcards, It Pays to Play gallery files (including catalogue), and postcards collected as source material in the research process, but not exhibited.

  History / Biography

  The It Pays to Play exhibition presented a history of British Columbia as represented in popular, photographic colour postcards from the early 1950s through the emergence in the 1980s of the present post-industrial, global economy. One of the primary concerns of the project was the interplay of history and representation—how the way a subject is known and understood is integrally related to the manner of its representation. To this end, the exhibition was conceived to provide reflection on how optimistic values of the era and aspects of public identity were constructed and entrenched in popular culture and how its ideological biases were calculated by the stereotypical, promotional, and repetitive imagery of the common postcard.

  The exhibition originated at Presentation House Gallery, and was curated by Peter White, with funding provided in part by the Canada Council. The exhibition toured to other venues across Canada, including the following:

  Presentation House Gallery, North Vancouver, February 24 – March 31, 1996

  Dunlop Art Gallery, Regina, June 29 – September 14, 1996

  Oboro, Montreal, February 22 – March 23, 1997

  Kamloops Art Gallery, Kamloops, April 17 – June 1, 1997

  Plug In Gallery, Winnipeg, November 13 – December 13, 1997.

• 1975-1980

  PUMPS fonds

  31 cm of graphic material and textual records

  The fonds consists of material documenting and advertising events at PUMPS, and to some extent the private lives of those living and working in the space. Material includes slides, photographs, cards, leaflets and posters, and other textual material, as well as the photographs and artwork of PUMPS artist David Larson.

  History / Biography

  “PUMPS Centre for the Arts” opened in 1975 in a building previously occupied by the “Pumps and Power” company, on East Cordova St. in the Gastown area of downtown Vancouver. Its founders included Kim Tomczak, Rick Hambleton, Sandra Janz, Chris Reed, David Larson, John Mitchell, and other former members of the Downtown Artists Association, which had formed in 1974. Emerging from the tradition of communal activity and performance associated with Intermedia and the Western Front, with whom they existed cooperatively, PUMPS nonetheless operated on a somewhat different wavelength than its predecessors. Determined to act as a more oppositional force in the art world and society, and to reach a wider audience, it was more closely aligned with the urban, edginess of the punk rock scene.

  In 1976, PUMPS began to function as an artists’ resource centre, with studios, residences, a library, and a sizable gallery devoted to exhibitions, screenings and performances by its members and other guest artists. With no specific curatorial policy, the gallery was instead committed to exhibiting the work of younger artists in the downtown core. Eventually, the group developed facilities for the creation of music, film and video productions, fostering the collaboration of artists on multidisciplinary projects. Notable endeavors included Gordon Kidd’s experimental film series in 1977, as well as various exhibitions of multimedia and performance art by Roy Kiyooka, Eric Metcalfe, Robert Young, Roy Arden, Hank Bull, and others.

  Sustained almost entirely by membership support, artists had to function cooperatively to assist in the maintenance of the gallery and other facilities, and the advertising and promotion of their activities. In 1980, cuts in Canada Council funding placed increased financial strain on the collective. Furthermore, critical founding members Tomczak, Janz, and Reed viewed the project as “a five-year experiment” which had accomplished all it could within the framework and locality in which they were functioning. When they left Vancouver to pursue other projects in 1980, PUMPS ceased its operations.

• 1987-1999

  Rodney Graham fonds

  9 cm of textual records and other material

  The fonds consists of records relating to Rodney Graham’s work Vexation Island and other projects. Includes photographs, financial records, audio recordings, correspondence, promotional materials, technical drawings and information, newspaper clippings, sketches, and other materials.

  History / Biography

  Born in 1949 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Rodney Graham studied fine arts at the University of British Columbia from 1968 to 1971 and at Simon Fraser University from 1978 to 1979.

  Beginning with a series of solo shows in the late 1980s, he has exhibited widely in North America and Europe, including at Documenta IX, 1992, and in the Biennale of Venice, 1997, where he represented Canada. Graham has gained international recognition for his work in both video and photography and has shown at Dia Center for the Arts, New York, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Kunsthalle Wein, Vienna, and Kunstverein Münster, Munster and many others. His work is found in a number of public collections, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Vancouver Art Gallery.

  Using film, literary texts, musical scores and repeated photographic images, Graham’s work is said to transcend the discourse of contemporary visual art, bringing other disciplines and time frames into its imaginative frame. 

• 1978-1997

  Roy Arden collection

  10 cm of textual records and other materials

  The collection consists of distinct groups of materials and ephemera all collected and donated by Roy Arden. The collection has therefore been divided into series separating the materials by where and by whom they were originally generated.

  The first series consists of materials relating to the PUMPS Gallery and associated artists, and the second series consists of materials associated with the artist Rodney Graham. The third series consists of posters by Lawrence Wiener and Felix Gonzales-Torres.

  History / Biography

  Roy Arden was born in Vancouver in 1957. He completed a diploma from the Emily Carr College of Art and Design in 1982 and received a Master of Fine Arts from the University of British Columbia in 1990. Since the early 1980s Arden has been exhibiting nationally and internationally. He remains very active in the Vancouver art scene, curating, writing, and showing his own work locally and globally. Arden has taught at the University of British Columbia, Emily Carr College of Art and Design, University of Art and Design in Helsinki, and the Visual Arts Academy or Hochschule fur Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig.

  Arden is one of Canada’s most respected artists. Along with Jeff Wall, Ian Wallace, Rodney Graham, and Stan Douglas, his work has contributed to Vancouver’s reputation as a vital centre for contemporary photographic art. The city of Vancouver is often the subject of his work. In his “the landscape of the economy” themed work he focuses on the constant transformations of urban Vancouver, documenting the social and economic history of his city.

• 1969-1993

  Roy Kiyooka fonds

  ca. 5700 photographs and other material

  The fonds consists of material created and accumulated by Roy Kiyooka over his artistic career, and includes photographs, prints, publications, artworks given to him by friends, cards and posters. The photographic material shot by Kiyooka covers a span of over three decades and is predominantly source material and personal photographs. None of the material in the fonds was used or should be considered as finished artworks, although similar images were incorporated into Kiyooka’s artwork. The photographic materials are in a wide variety of photographic media and dimensions, including colour and black and white prints of various sizes, 35mm negative strips, contact sheets, slides, transparencies and other formats. The fonds also includes a small number of prints (possibly lithographs, and 1 etching) and photographs that appear to be gifts from friends and acquaintances. Also included are catalogues and other publications that are by or about Kiyooka, and exhibition catalogues relating to Vancouver and BC artists he collected. 

  History / Biography

  Born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan in 1926, Roy Kiyooka grew up in Calgary during the pre-World War II years. He studied at the Alberta College of Art in the 1940s under Jock MacDonald and Illingworth Kerr. In 1955 he won a scholarship to the Institutio Allende in Mexico, where he studied under James Pinto. During the summers between 1956 and 1960, Kiyooka attended the Artists’ workshops at Emma Lake, Saskatchewan, where he worked under two American leading abstract artists: Will Barnet and Barnett Newman. In the early 1960s, Kiyooka moved to Vancouver and soon became a leader in the city’s emergent artistic community. In the next two decades, he embarked on a remarkable career as an artist, and traveled across Canada to Calgary, Regina, Halifax and made many trips to Japan.

  He became a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1965, and represented Canada at the Sao Paulo Biennial in Brazil, where he was awarded a silver medal. In 1967 his work was exhibited at Expo in Montreal and in every major centennial show across Canada.

  Moving to Halifax to teach at the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design also coincided with Kiyooka’s long-standing disaffection with the prevailing politics and morality of the art establishment, and his decision to distance himself from the studio. Kiyooka never did return to painting after 1969; he continued to teach painting and remained a visual artist in other media until his death in 1994. He also attained standing as a highly respected poet and was an influential figure in local and national art circles. His importance was recognized with membership in the Order of Canada in 1975 and with status as Professor Emeritus in the Department of Fine Arts of the University of British Columbia. In the course of his career, he generated a body of multimedia and interdisciplinary work that encompassed acrylic paintings, oil paintings, watercolours, prints, photography, collages, photomontages, sculptures, films, and poetry. 

• 1951-1978

  Russell FitzGerald fonds

  25 cm of textual records and other material

  The fonds consists of records generated by Russell FitzGerald during the course of his adult life and includes journals, sketchbooks, ephemera, art reproductions and originals, and photographs.

  History / Biography

  Russell Richard FitzGerald was an American artist born on December 29, 1932 Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

  FitzGerald studied at the Philadelphia Museum School of Art in the early 1950s and moved to North Beach, San Francisco in 1957 where he associated with the group of artists that defined the San Francisco Renaissance of the poetic avant-garde in the 50s and included poets Robert Duncan, Jack Spicer, Robin Blaser.

  Although he identified primarily as a homosexual and was involved with many men, including Jack Spicer in the 1950s, FitzGerald eventually married Dora Dull, the partner of poet Harold Dull, in 1963. The two acted as parents to Dora’s twin girls (fathered by Harold Dull) until FitzGerald’s death in 1978.

  FitzGerald was a Catholic and his art often incorporates religious iconography, reflecting his interests in alchemy, theology, spiritual life and mythology. Strong accompanying themes of sexuality and anti-racism create an interesting tension in many of the works. He was greatly influenced by William Blake and often combined imagery with literary texts. As an illustrator as well as a painter, FitzGerald’s work appeared on the covers of science fiction books and magazines and on the cover of Dora’s translation of Rainer Maria Rilke’s Das Marienleben (Life of the Virgin Mary), which appeared in The Capilano Review #26, 1983.

  FitzGerald also wrote prose and read widely including writers such as Oscar Wilde, Virginia Wolfe, James Joyce, Shakespeare, Marcel Proust, Rainer Maria Rilke, Andre Gide, Walt Whitman, Dante, Baudelaire, Jean Genet, Samuel Beckett, Graham Greene, Jean Cocteau, Lorca, Thomas Merton, and Margaret Lawrence.

  FitzGerald was financially supported by Dora as he worked on his art but his life and work were adversely affected by alcohol addiction and periods of drug abuse. During the 1960s FitzGerald lived in New York City until 1970 when he, Dora and the twins moved to Vancouver in an effort to end his heroin addiction. Despite many attempts to give up drinking, by the time of his death FitzGerald’s marriage was failing and he was in ill health with a severely damaged liver.

  Despite his efforts, FitzGerald did not enter the mainstream art world in San Francisco or New York. He remains virtually unknown outside of a few select circles and his visionary, anti-modernist work is not part of any artistic canon.

  FitzGerald’s final journal entry tells of a sudden trip from San Francisco to Vancouver and an ensuing “alcoholic fugue.” One month later he died at the age of 46 on March 30, 1978.

• 1983

  Sax Island collection

  13 cm of graphic material and textual records

  The collection consists predominantly of works by Eric Metcalfe, with two paintings by Hank Bull. Includes storyboards, original drawings, photocopies, props, and promotional materials.

  History / Biography

  Sax Island is a 12-minute colour video created by Eric Metcalfe and Hank Bull in 1984. It was commissioned by The Music Gallery (Toronto), and produced by the Western Front. The story focuses on a visit to Sax Island by international torturers and slavers for a secret meeting. Metcalfe created a storyboard of over 300 original drawings, which were subsequently shot on video, layered with actors and special effects, and sound added in a live recording session performance on October 29, 1983 in Toronto. The hand-painted sets and comic book dialogue are incorporated into the adventures of the inhabitants of the island. 

• 1964-2015

  Tom Burrows fonds

  58.6 cm of textual records and graphic materials

  The fonds reflects Burrows’ activities as an artist and his involvement in squatting, as well as his personal life. The fonds includes photographs; essays and other writing; personal and professional correspondence; exhibition materials including catalogues, pamphlets, and invitations; clippings; newsletters; sketches; design plans; and other various ephemera related to his life and work.

  History / Biography

  Tom Burrows is an artist, known primarily for his sculptural work in the medium of cast pigmented polymer resin. Burrows was born in Galt, Ontario in 1940 and moved to Vancouver in 1960 to begin pre-medical studies at the University of British Columbia. He quickly left the program, but returned to UBC in 1964 to gain a bachelor’s degree in Art History. At the time of his graduation in 1967, Burrows’ work focused on minimalist sculpture, and he went on to gain a post-graduate sculpture degree from St. Martin’s College in London, England in 1969.

  While attending St. Martin’s, Burrows was exposed to the European Student Movement of 1968, leading to a life-long interest in counter-culture resistance, and upon his return to Vancouver in 1970, Burrows joined the Maplewood Mudflats’ squatter community, the focus point for counter-culture in the area. In 1971, civic authorities burned down the community’s settlements, and squatting became a focus of Burrows’ work as his career continued. Burrows was hired to coordinate materials related to squatting for the United Nations’ Habitat Forum event that occurred in Vancouver in 1976, and from this, he was hired by the UN to document squatter communities in Europe, Africa and Asia in 1977. The materials he gathered from this research were later used in his sculptural work, Skwat Doc, which was shown throughout Canada and Europe during the late 1970s and the 1980s. Burrows continued his involvement with the squatter community of Vancouver in 2002, taking part in the squat held at the abandoned Woodward’s department store building, which protested the lack of affordable housing for the homeless in the area.

  For a brief period, Burrows abandoned minimalist sculpture and resin for new forms of sculpture in the 1980s, but he returned to resin in the 1990s. He has also experimented with painting, photography, and video art at various points throughout his career.

  Burrows’ first exhibition was a juried show at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 1965, and he has continued to have his work presented there, and at other galleries in Vancouver, throughout his career. His work has also been widely exhibited nationally, as well internationally in both group and solo exhibitions in locations including London, Italy, New Zealand, Paris, Argentina, Japan, and Germany. In 1995, Burrows entered a formal partnership with the Bau-Xi Gallery, resulting in yearly showings of his work in the gallery’s Vancouver and Toronto locations. In 2015, two major retrospective exhibitions of his work were mounted, including Tom Burrows, a survey of his work from 1965 to the present held at UBC’s Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, and Echo, held at the Bau-Xi Gallery’s Vancouver location, in which he reflected on his first exhibition there in 1970, his period of absence, and his yearly showings starting from 1995 to the present.

  In 1974, Burrows moved to Hornby Island and built his own combination home and art studio, which he continues to work in and maintain.

• 1994-1998

  Vancouver Association for Noncommercial Culture fonds

  81 cm of textual records and other material

  The fonds consist of records generated by the Vancouver Association for Noncommercial Culture in the process of fulfilling their stated objectives. Includes office files, minutes, grant records, project files, visual and multimedia records, and publications.

  History / Biography

  The Vancouver Association for Noncommercial culture formed out of the (N)oncommercial Gallery in 1986. It explored ideas of art, space, and community in a number of unique public art projects until its dissolution in 1998.

  In 1984, (N)oncommercial Gallery was opened as an independent artist-run space. It was funded by the directors and through private donations and staffed by volunteers. The mandate was to maintain a serious level of dialogue within the arts discipline while remaining attentive to the needs of the community. In the spring of 1986, the gallery closed and the founding artists, in conjunction with eight others involved in the gallery officially formed the non-profit society, The Vancouver Association for Noncommercial Culture. The association was funded by private sector businesses through donations in kind and special accommodation of exhibits; the City of Vancouver through donation of space, and in 1992 from a City of Vancouver Cultural Grant; Canada Council Exhibition Assistance Program grants; and the financial and labour contributions of the directors and the association’s members.

  The collective’s members shared a commitment to nonhierarchical organizational structure, skill sharing, and to fostering a critical awareness of culture and the possibilities for social change. Rather than run a gallery in a fixed location and within a protected artistic milieu, the association worked on a series of projects aimed at opening up and/or reclaiming portions of the public sphere for commentary from its constituents. In this way, the association wanted to help reformulate the idea of public space, and whose interest it serves. In addition, they sought to explore what constitutes public audiences and their own positions as both culture workers and as members of those publics. To serve these interests, the association decided to focus on non-traditional forums for artistic activity.

  Projects undertaken by the association to meet their goals include Objects of Labour in November 1986, an exhibition about work and the workplace. From 1986 through 1988, the collective operated the Window for Noncommerical Culture, a 24-hour lit viewing space in the urban core. The bus shelter project, AdVerse Practises was conceived as a way of further extending their mandate by using a private advertising venue in the public domain. Urban Subjects, which ran from September to October 1988, presented works installed in the commercial urban landscape lit and accessible 24 hours a day from the street. The Flyer Project in 1989 consisted of a newsprint tabloid in which 16 artists from Vancouver’s culturally diverse communities produced pages addressing the city’s shifting residential demographics, communities, and architectures. Other projects included Private Addresses in 1991, consisting of works produced by nine artists for outdoor residential locations, and Out of Place in 1992, in which works addressed the artists’ personal perspectives regarding issues of dislocation, migration, visibility, and community.  In 1993 and 1994, the association worked on Benchmarks and Bench(re)marks which featured rotating works by the association’s artists on selected bus benches throughout the Lower Mainland.

  The association decided not to apply for Canada Council funding beyond 1996 as members withdrew to pursue educational and other interests. The remaining members chose as their last projects (and with their remaining funds) to create a video documenting the history of the association. Begun in 1996, the video, entitled Non-Document, marked the end of the association, and was completed in 1998.

• 1967-1996 ; predominant 1967-1977

  Victor Doray fonds

  1.8 m of multiple media

  The fonds consists of records of two multimedia projects created by Victor Doray, Turn Off Delight and Pic a Mix, and records from the Intermedia Society. Includes textual records, audio cassettes, audio reels, photographs (slides, prints and negatives), 8 mm film reels, and video cassettes.

  History / Biography

  Victor Edward Doray was born in Montreal on July 29, 1930. He received a Bachelor of Arts from Loyala College (now Concordia University) in 1953, and a Diploma in Art as Applied to Medicine form the University of Toronto in 1956. In addition, Doray also attended fine arts classes in Montreal, Banff, New York, Paris, and Vancouver, and undertook two Medical Art internships at the Hôpital Saint-Antoine in Paris (1956) and the University College Hospital in London, England (1957).

  In 1957, Doray became the founding director of the Department of Biomedical Communications, at the University of British Columbia, the first department in British Columbia which combined the talents of medical artists, photographers, TV and AV personnel to serve the needs of the Health Sciences. In 1985, Doray left the UBC to become a full-time artist and media producer. Prior to 1985, Doray had engaged in these activities on a part-time basis.

  In 1973 Doray was awarded the Canada Council Senior Arts Award for the production of the multi media program, Turn Off Delight. Other achievements include a number of exhibits and multimedia events dating from 1965 to the 2000s. He was also awarded a life time achievement award by the Association of Medical Illustrators. His work has been exhibited at the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, the Burnaby Art Gallery, the Vancouver Art Gallery, Western Front, and others.

  Doray passed away on December 21, 2007. 

• 1969-1979

  Vincent Trasov collection

  19 cm of graphic material and textual records

  The collection consists of drawings, paintings, photographs, newspaper clippings, and other material relating to Vincent Trasov, the majority of which document Trasov’s Mr. Peanut works and fire-based works.

  History / Biography

  Vincent Trasov was born in 1947 in Edmonton, Alberta and he is a painter as well as a video and performance artist. He attended the University of British Columbia where he majored in languages and humanities. In 1969, influenced by the work of Group Zero and Yves Klein, Trasov began working with conceptual art and focusing on process and materiality in a series of paintings that used fire as an element in performance and a means to create work.

  In the same year, Trasov assumed the identity of Mr. Peanut, the anthropomorphized Planters peanut, after working on a drawing of the peanut and making a flipbook about the peanut that was later remade as a film. Trasov decided to run for mayor on the advice of sculptor John Mitchell and ran a full campaign, attending press conferences and other events in the iconic peanut suit. After his campaign, he retired his Mr. Peanut identity.

  In 1969, Trasov, along with lifelong collaborator Michael Morris, also founded the Image Bank. The Image Bank took inspiration from Ray Johnson’s New York Correspondence School, established in 1962, a project in which Trasov and Morris participated. Like Ray Johnson’s school, it was focused on mail art and was proposed as a method for the personal exchange of ideas. It was intended to create a collaborative, process-based project in the hopes of engendering a shared creative consciousness. Image Bank commenced sending lists of participants and their image requests, published first in monthly Image Bank mailings and later in FILE Megazine—a reference and antidote to LIFE Magazine—as directories and request lists, and maintained files of artists’ correspondence and research.

  Image Bank later evolved into a network of artists in-person and via mail who held meetings, set up clubs, produced a variety of artworks and publications. Image Bank retained documentation of all of these events as an artist’s archives to preserve the material accumulated from their activities. It was later renamed the Morris/Trasov Archive, partially at the threat of a lawsuit by a company that had copyrighted the name.

  Trasov and Michael Morris began experimenting with colour gradients and the visual and material relationship between nature and culture, the fluidity of the boundaries between them and their reciprocal effects on each other, in the 1970s. This entailed painting strips of a given colour in nine stages of gradient from light to dark and setting them against natural and other environmental backdrops. The project later developed into the creation of rainbow coloured bars and variations created by combining different colour bars.

  Trasov was one of the co-founders of the Western Front, one of the first artist-run centres in Canada, in 1973. The Western front focused on multidisciplinary art-making including painting, drawing, sculpture, video performance, music and literature and encouraged the subversion of the official art system. Trasov served as co-director until 1980.

  In 1981, Trasov was an artist-in-residence at the Berliner Künstlerprogramm or Berlin Artist Program with the Deutschen Akademischen Austausch Dienst (DAAD) or German Academic Exchange Service. In 1990, he participated in the Banff artist-in-residence program. He currently lives and works in Berlin and Vancouver.