Glenn Lewis (Canadian, b. 1935) is a contemporary conceptual artist based in Vancouver. Lewis became a central figure within Vancouver’s prolific avant-garde art scene of the late 1960s. Initially trained in ceramics, his practice expanded to include photography, sculpture, performance and video, and is often grounded in collaborative projects or approaches. Lewis’s work questions the dualities of the social and the natural, the conventional and the mythical, as well as the static and the transient. Over time he has become increasingly inspired by paradise myths, nature and topiary, which motivated his travels around the world photographing gardens. These interests intersect in his commitment to preserving rare and regional botany. Lewis received a degree from the Vancouver School of Art in 1958 (now Emily Carr University) and later a teaching degree from the University of British Columbia. He went on to study ceramics under artist and potter Bernard Leach at St. Ives in Cornwall, England from 1961 to 1963. Upon returning to Vancouver, Lewis became involved in numerous artists’ collectives and artist-run centres, including Intermedia (1970) and the New Era Social Club (1968). In 1973, he co-founded the Western Front Society with Martin Bartlett, Mo van Nostrand, Kate Craig, Henry Greenhow, Eric Metcalfe, Michael Morris and Vincent Trasov. As an educator, arts administrator and arts programmer, Lewis has curated numerous exhibitions and programs, including the Performance Art Program at the Western Front (1977-79), the Exhibition Program at the Western Front (1986-87) and the Western Front Historical Exhibition at the Künstlerhaus Stuttgart, Germany (1983). Lewis has served on numerous boards and councils, including the Vancouver Art Gallery Board of Directors and the Western Front Board of Directors. His work has been exhibited extensively across Canada and abroad.
Three major institutions are about to embark on a groundbreaking arts initiative in the heart of downtown Vancouver. The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Museum of Anthropology and Presentation House Gallery—with the generous support of the Michael O’Brian Family Foundation—will open the doors to Satellite Gallery on Saturday, October 23rd. This is a new, shared project space devoted to exploring the boundaries of artistic and institutional practices.
“In addition to the opportunities provided by established art institutions in Vancouver,” said Michael O’Brian of the Michael O’Brian Family Foundation, “there is a need and desire for practitioners and students to have exhibition spaces to try out new projects and engage in meaningful dialogue with the public. Satellite Gallery is an ideal space for experimentation, learning and engagement in the arts.”
Satellite Gallery opens with a significant nod to Vancouver’s own history of experimental art, presenting an early video installation by Vancouver-based artist Glenn Lewis. Exhibited here for the first time in a completed state, 4 Intersections depicts a performance that took place in 1969, only a few blocks away from Satellite Gallery, marking the block bordered by Dunsmuir and Homer, Hamilton and Pender streets.
Glenn Lewis was born in Chemainus in 1935 and studied at the Vancouver School of Art, UBC (where he also taught), and with the ceramicist Bernard Leach in England. Initially working in ceramics, by the mid-1960s he began developing a remarkably expansive art practice that has been widely exhibited, performed and screened.
4 Intersections is a part of the exhibition Flakey: The Early Works of Glenn Lewis at Presentation House Gallery in North Vancouver, through November 14th, 2010. It is curated by Reid Shier and Helga Pakasaar and organized by the staff of Presentation House Gallery.
Special opening-night performance, 7 pm:
Petroglyphs, a new performance work by Victoria-based artist Peter Morin, will help to inaugurate the Satellite Gallery. Peter uses a six-square-metre button blanket and new petroglyphs to explore connections between Indigenous knowledge, community and urban spaces. Organized by the UBC Museum of Anthropology.
Glenn Lewis (Canadian, b. 1935) is a contemporary conceptual artist based in Vancouver. Lewis became a central figure within Vancouver’s prolific avant-garde art scene of the late 1960s. Initially trained in ceramics, his practice expanded to include photography, sculpture, performance and video, and is often grounded in collaborative projects or approaches. Lewis’s work questions the dualities of the social and the natural, the conventional and the mythical, as well as the static and the transient. Over time he has become increasingly inspired by paradise myths, nature and topiary, which motivated his travels around the world photographing gardens. These interests intersect in his commitment to preserving rare and regional botany. Lewis received a degree from the Vancouver School of Art in 1958 (now Emily Carr University) and later a teaching degree from the University of British Columbia. He went on to study ceramics under artist and potter Bernard Leach at St. Ives in Cornwall, England from 1961 to 1963. Upon returning to Vancouver, Lewis became involved in numerous artists’ collectives and artist-run centres, including Intermedia (1970) and the New Era Social Club (1968). In 1973, he co-founded the Western Front Society with Martin Bartlett, Mo van Nostrand, Kate Craig, Henry Greenhow, Eric Metcalfe, Michael Morris and Vincent Trasov. As an educator, arts administrator and arts programmer, Lewis has curated numerous exhibitions and programs, including the Performance Art Program at the Western Front (1977-79), the Exhibition Program at the Western Front (1986-87) and the Western Front Historical Exhibition at the Künstlerhaus Stuttgart, Germany (1983). Lewis has served on numerous boards and councils, including the Vancouver Art Gallery Board of Directors and the Western Front Board of Directors. His work has been exhibited extensively across Canada and abroad.
Classical Toy Boat (1987) by Vancouver artist Glenn Lewis is the most recent outdoor artwork to be installed at UBC. This sculpture was initially located outside of the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery on the Toronto waterfront in 1987 as part of the exhibition From Sea to Shining Sea. It was purchased by the Belkin Art Gallery in 2009 for the University Art Collection and restored in anticipation of its new location. Classical Toy Boat will be celebrated in conjunction with the opening reception on Thursday, June 23 for the Belkin’s upcoming exhibition, Becoming Animal/Becoming Landscape: Works from the Collection (June 24-August 14, 2016).
[more]Thrown brings together essays by curators, first hand accounts by potters, archival documents, photographs and letters from the personal collections of seven highly respected potters who began to throw pots in the Vancouver west coast area during the 1960s. The book is inspired by the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery’s ground breaking exhibition, Thrown: Influences and Intentions of West Coast Potters. Selected by Matthew Higgs as one of the “Top 10 shows of 2004” (Artforum International) for its unconventional and compelling approach to the studio pottery movement, the exhibition featured over 600 pots by John Reeve, Glenn Lewis, Michael Henry and Ian Steele—the four Canadian apprentices of English potter Bernard Leach—and their like-minded contemporaries Tam Irving, Charmian Johnson and Wayne Ngan. Fresh from their studies at the Vancouver College of Art, each of the four travelled to St. Ives in Cornwall, England and completed a two-year apprenticeship: Reeve, 1958-61; Lewis 1961-63; Henry 1963-65; and Steele 1963-65. When they returned to Vancouver, they found themselves in the swirl and experimentation of the 1960s Vancouver art scene.
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