grunt gallery presents a retrospective and collaborative project based on Background / Vancouver, a photo-mapping expedition of Vancouver by Michael de Courcy with Taki Bluesinger, Gerry Gilbert, and Glenn Lewis on October, 30 1972. The project consists of the four artists walking three separate paths documenting their experiences in photographs. The project resurged in 2012 when Michael de Courcy launched the website Background / Vancouver project, exposing this unique perspective of Vancouver’s 1972 identity to new audiences online. grunt will be exhibiting the original photo mural conceived and produced by Michael de Courcy as part of an ongoing photographic documentary project of Vancouver’s artists collective, Intermedia society.
On October 30, 2012, Vancouver artists, Emilio Rojas, Guadalupe Martinez, and Igor Santizo, revisited this conceptual project. 40 years to the day, these three artists came together to forge a new, fourth path that intersects with the original paths which
revisits ideas about Vancouver’s identity and history. The retrospective project is entitled, ThisPlace / Vancouver.
The group explores the aspect of the social; through conversations, meetings and experiences with people met during the expedition on October 30, 2012. The artists document their experiences using video, sound, and still-based images. A new dialogue emerges that reflects on how choices about documentation, narratives and mapping, from the past to the present, inform a contemporary perspective of Vancouver. The artists question how one tells a story of identity and an ever-changing urban landscape that is inclusive to varied experiences based in history, people, and artists from the past and to the present. Several multi-media and performance-based projects by Emilio Rojas, Guadalupe Martinez, and Igor Santizo will be concurrently exhibited at grunt.
The opening reception will take place on May 10, 2013 (7-10pm) and will run until June 8, 2013.
Subsequent artist talks and panels will take place in May, following the opening exhibition, to help inform an ongoing discourse (Check grunt.ca for more details). Discussions held at these meeting will contribute to the web-based component of this project will be launched on October 30, 2013.
Tuesday May 14
Social Cartography: Am Johal and Sarah Shamash (7pm)
Saturday May 18
Background / Vancouver artists’ talk: Michael de Courcy, Glenn Lewis and Grant Arnold (2pm)
Thursday May 23
Sound walk (5pm) // Mapping and Sound Panel: Vincent Andrisani and Randolph Jordan (7pm)
Saturday May 25th
ThisPlace / Vancouver artists’ talk: Emilio Rojas, Igor Santizo, Guadalupe Martinez (2pm) // Potluck Dinner (5pm)
PDF Download – Background_ThisPlace PRESS RELEASE
Artists:
Michael de Courcy –
http://www.michaeldecourcy.com/background-vancouver/project.htm
Artist, educator, curator. Michael de Courcy was born in Montréal in 1944. He studied at the École des Beaux Arts in Montréal and the Vancouver School of Art (now Emily Carr University of Art + Design). In the late 1960s, during his formative years as an artist, de Courcy was a core member of the Vancouver artists collective known as the Intermedia Society. While there, he produced an extensive Intermedia photo documentary project which he has since developed into a web installation entitled The Intermedia Catalogue (2009). […read more]
Glenn Lewis –
Artist, educator. Born in 1935, Glenn Lewis graduated from the Vancouver School of Art (now Emily Carr University of Art + Design) (1958) with honors in painting, drawing, and ceramics. Subsequently, he received a teaching certificate from University of British Columbia (1959) and he studied ceramics under Bernard Leach in St. Ives (Cornwall, England) (1961-1964). Lewis has worked in video, performance, film, ceramics, photography, sculpture, and writing. He was an active member of the avant-garde art scene in Vancouver during the 1960s, producing work that blurred the boundaries between media and between viewer and artist. […read more]
Emilio Rojas –
http://www.performancero.com/
Emilio Rojas was born in Mexico City, (ca.1980s) ,he is an interdisciplinary artist, working primarily in performance, interventions, video, installation, and sculpture. His works explore the relation between the artist and his audience, interacting and exchanging roles, while involving the communities that surround the spaces he engages with. Rojas requires the participation of the viewer, in order to set in motion the metaphors that unveil the intricacy of his art. The intrinsic relation with the body has been both his subject matter and medium. Exploring the mental and physical limits of his being, Emilio re-evaluates language, gender, activism, traditions, identity, ritual, displacement, migration and sexuality. Emilio Rojas is currently living in Vancouver, Canada, where he is exploring collaboration, alternative exhibition spaces, with a focus in social practice and public interventions.
Guadalupe Martinez –
http://www.guadalupemartinez.com/
Guadalupe Martinez is an Argentine-born artist based in Vancouver. She obtained her BFA at the Instituto Universitario Nacional del Arte and is currently pursuing an MFA at University of British Columbia. Her research combines three-dimensionality, performance, and site-specificity by creating works that mnemonically activate found materials; reanimating their meaning into new structures of signification and resistance. Martinez has attended residencies at Hammock Residency (BC), The Banff Centre for the Arts (AB), The STAG (BC), Elsewhere Collective (NC), and The Vermont Studio Center (VT). Her work has been shown in Argentina, Mexico, US and Canada. She is currently working as a Teacher Assistant at the University of British Columbia and is a member of the LIVE Biennale’s Board of Directors.
Igor Santizo –
http://about.me/igor.santizo
Igor Santizo is a creative free agent living and working in Vancouver. He teaches & facilitates: creative process, foundational principles, cultural literacy and more … while encouraging students with their creative potential, emerging selves and budding art practices. By way of his artwork, he has sought a complimentary dialogue between: metaphysical principles & material forms. Currently, he is exploring through drawings: variations of an abstract motif, allusion to cthonic force.
Article:
Developed with the participation of British Columbia Film & Media and the British Columbia Arts Council.
A special thanks to Modo The Car Co-op for supporting the transportation component of ThisPlace / Vancouver.
