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Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery

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18 Jun – 22 Aug 2021

Belkin Outdoor Screen

Outdoor Screen: Image Bank

  • Glenn Lewis

    Artist

    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.

     

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  • Michael Morris

    Artist

    Michael Morris (1942-2022) was a painter, photographer, video and performance artist and curator. His work is often media based and collaborative, involved with developing networks and in the production and presentation of new art activity. In his roles as curator and, primarily, as an artist, Morris was a key figure of the West Coast art scene during the 1960s. Morris studied at the University of Victoria and then at the Vancouver School of Art (now Emily Carr University), followed by graduate studies at Slade School of Fine Art at the University College London, during the 1960s. There he became interested in the work of Fluxus and the European avant-garde, which had a profound influence on his work and on the Vancouver experimental art scene in general. In 1969 he founded Image Bank with Vincent Trasov, a system of postal correspondence between participating artists for the exchange of information and ideas. The intention of 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. Morris was acting curator of the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Centre for Communications and the Arts at Simon Fraser University and has had many guest curatorships at other institutions. In 1973, he co-founded the Western Front—one of Canada’s first artist-run centres—and served as co-director for seven years. In 1990 he and Trasov founded the Morris/Trasov Archive, housed at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, to research contemporary art. He has established a strong international reputation and worked for many years in Berlin. Morris has participated in artist-in-residence programs both in Canada at the Banff Centre (1990) and at Open Studio (2003) and internationally at Berlin Kustlerprogramm (1981-1998). Morris has had numerous solo and collaborative exhibitions nationally and internationally, and is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2015 Audain Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Visual Arts, the 2011 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts and an Honorary Doctorate in 2005 by Emily Carr University of Art + Design.

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  • Wibke von Bonin

    Videographer

This summer, the Belkin’s Outdoor Screen includes works related to the exhibition in the gallery, with a special one-day summer solstice screening of Jumana Manna’s Wild Relatives (2018) . Installed in the summer of 2021, the 4×2 metre digital screen extends the exhibitions and programs from inside the Belkin to the outside through video, sound and animation, supporting a more porous encounter for visitors. Transforming the grassy area in front of the gallery into an informal and flexible lounge space, with the boardwalk from Holly Schmidt’s Fireweed Fields as a functioning viewing platform, the screen creates a space for engagement and conversation. Alongside curated works, the screen also highlights upcoming programs and events, and is often a site for facilitated conversations, class visits and workshops.   

In 1973, Dr. Wibke von Bonin, a producer of art and architecture features for West German television (WDR), filmed Kunst Heute, a documentary on Canadian art. For its part, Western Front hosted a banquet and performance on September 15, 1973 consisting of a German dinner for German guests. Filming also took place at the New Era Social Club on the painting of the colour bars.

Glenn Lewis and Michael Morris’s Taping Up The Critics (1973) was created from the documentation of a 1970 performance outside the Vancouver Art Gallery that saw a group of international art critics literally taped up – or wrapped – with blue tape by Lewis and Morris.

Michael Morris with Vincent Trasov created Dot Depth of Field (1970), a film that explored their early colour-bar spectrum research through dots photographed on beaches, in parks, with or without models. In Image Bank vocabulary, the terms “painting” and “sculpture” were replaced by the term “prop” to describe the colour bars and dots, implying that an art object was not at all autonomous, but rather something that needed to be activated by a situation – called a “set” – which was always best realized as a film, photograph or video.

Image (above): Michael Morris, Dot Depth of Field (still), 1970

 

  • Glenn Lewis

    Artist

    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.

     

    Read More

  • Michael Morris

    Artist

    Michael Morris (1942-2022) was a painter, photographer, video and performance artist and curator. His work is often media based and collaborative, involved with developing networks and in the production and presentation of new art activity. In his roles as curator and, primarily, as an artist, Morris was a key figure of the West Coast art scene during the 1960s. Morris studied at the University of Victoria and then at the Vancouver School of Art (now Emily Carr University), followed by graduate studies at Slade School of Fine Art at the University College London, during the 1960s. There he became interested in the work of Fluxus and the European avant-garde, which had a profound influence on his work and on the Vancouver experimental art scene in general. In 1969 he founded Image Bank with Vincent Trasov, a system of postal correspondence between participating artists for the exchange of information and ideas. The intention of 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. Morris was acting curator of the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Centre for Communications and the Arts at Simon Fraser University and has had many guest curatorships at other institutions. In 1973, he co-founded the Western Front—one of Canada’s first artist-run centres—and served as co-director for seven years. In 1990 he and Trasov founded the Morris/Trasov Archive, housed at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, to research contemporary art. He has established a strong international reputation and worked for many years in Berlin. Morris has participated in artist-in-residence programs both in Canada at the Banff Centre (1990) and at Open Studio (2003) and internationally at Berlin Kustlerprogramm (1981-1998). Morris has had numerous solo and collaborative exhibitions nationally and internationally, and is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2015 Audain Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Visual Arts, the 2011 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts and an Honorary Doctorate in 2005 by Emily Carr University of Art + Design.

    Read More

  • Wibke von Bonin

    Videographer

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