Get Hold of This Space — La carte de l’art conceptuel au Canada — 1ère partie — Centre culturel canadien — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: February 7 → April 25, 2014

The Canadian Cultural Centre presents, in two successive parts, a major exhibition on the conceptual art that developed in Canada, from the East Coast to West Coast but also in the Arctic Circle, between 1960 and 1980. Comprising works and archival documents from major museums, artists’ personal archives and private collections, this exhibition takes a fresh look at the diversity of Canadian contemporary art as well as the various centres and far flung places from where it originated.

Over fifty artists and collectives are featured, including Carole Condé and Karl Beveridge, General Idea, Raymond Gervais, Rodney Graham, Image Bank (Michael Morris and Vincent Trasov), Garry Neill Kennedy, N.E. Thing Co., Rober Racine, Michael Snow, Françoise Sullivan, Ian Wallace and Joyce Wieland, as well as American and European artists who had produced important works in Canada during this period (Lawrence Weiner, Hans Haacke, Dennis Oppenheim, John Baldessari, Jan Dibbets, David Askevold…).

The first part focuses on the criticism of institutions and the development of networks, particular via magazines and exhibition centres managed by the artists themselves. It shows various types of artistic practice that abandons the traditional forms of art, confronting both artist and viewer with reflection, performance, commitment, utopia and irony, not to mention ennui and humour. The second part of the exhibition, presented from May 17onward, will explore the political, cultural and social dimensions of the geographical distance specific to Canada.