SNAP at 40, Part IV: Mis/Adventures in Re/Production
oral history of the Society of Northern Alberta Print-artists (SNAP), compiled from artist statements, reviews, articles from SNAP's newsletter, and interviews with members of the Edmonton printmaking community
copies of the publication are available here; the text on these pages contains additional photos and text cut from the print publication due to space and budget constraints
Introduction • Part I • Part 2 • Part 3 • Part 4 • Part 5 • Part 6 • Part 7 • Part 8
oral history of the Society of Northern Alberta Print-artists (SNAP), compiled from artist statements, reviews, articles from SNAP's newsletter, and interviews with members of the Edmonton printmaking community
copies of the publication are available here; the text on these pages contains additional photos and text cut from the print publication due to space and budget constraints
Introduction • Part I • Part 2 • Part 3 • Part 4 • Part 5 • Part 6 • Part 7 • Part 8
Above: Scenes from outside of the Great West Saddlery Building in the late 1980s: 1. Exterior view of the Great West Saddlery Building in 1989, then home to SNAP on floors 4 & 5, and Latitude 53 on the first floor.; 2. Left to right: Marc Siegner, Anthony Pavlic, Susan Menzies, and Greg Swain outside the Great West Saddlery Building during the installation of Derek Besant’s sculptural prints, 1989; 3: Anthony Pavlic and Greg Swain juggling outside the Saddlery Building; 4. Anthony Pavlic wraps Susan Menzies in fabric in the alley; 5. Mary Joyce outside the Saddlery Building, photo courtesy Mary Joyce; 6-8. Installation of Derek Besant’s print constructions mounted on the outside wall of the Great West Saddlery Building
Angus Wyatt: At the time there was what felt like an established orthodoxy to art in the city (Abstract painting and constructivist steel sculpture and a particular type of printmaking aesthetic echoing Japanese and East European aesthetics). In many ways SNAP was a place that allowed younger artists to work and exhibit outside of this orthodoxy. To this end the history of SNAP was (for a time) oppositional or at least a reaction to/against an established order that was represented by a limited number of active artists (mostly working at the University itself). It was kind of a place for the newer emerging artists to ‘rebel’ against the ‘establishment.’ SNAP (and Latitude 53) were important to the growing number of artists wishing to develop and exhibit contemporary art that fell outside of certain conventions. There was also a sense that collectively we could challenge expectations as to what printmaking and Art could be, we could investigate contemporary ideas and strategies that we weren’t seeing within the city. We wanted something different and the only way was to make it happen ourselves.
David LaRiviere: There was this sort of triumvirate of power between the university (and here I am speaking more about the painting faculty than printmaking), the commercial galleries, and the public galleries—especially coming out of the Terry Fenton years [at the Edmonton Art Gallery]—there was a sort of consolidation, where there wasn’t a lot of diversity getting through, and the stigma that that produced for people who felt they were outside of it, it produced a sort of resentment that was a little bit crippling. We were always trying to overcome what we saw as monolithic, instead of just getting on with things. So I do think with a few of us at SNAP and at Latitude there was this sort of capacity we had to simply ignore it all, that it didn’t really matter, and to get on with things. Being at SNAP, being with fellow artists who were thinking in different ways, was infectious and really positive and generative at the end of the day.
Walter Jule: There were times when SNAP, as is natural, as the presidents would change, the attitude between SNAP and the University would also change. So in some cases, SNAP’s policy would suddenly be to be as independent from the University as possible—not to reject the university, but to offer another alternative within the print scene, and widen it that way.
David LaRiviere: SNAP’s relationship with the University of Alberta is integral and always present, but there’s also this sort of push and pull in that relationship. I’d say my generation is the one that wandered off the furthest.
Loren Spector: We weren’t that picky. Even like with the newsletter, when we asked for prints there were a lot of people who said ‘Well what about…?’ A lot of people gave us limited editions that weren’t all the same, that were variable, or hand painted, or manufactured, or die-cut, because we were trying to explore what that meant. Like I remember Anthony said ‘what about a tape recording?’
Anthony Pavlic: One issue of the SNAP Newsletter, which came with a print, my submission was a cassette tape with the very flimsy and tentative argument that this tape qualifies as print. What that cassette tape documented was a series of playable musical sculptures that I created and installed on the second floor of the Saddlery Building, which was vacant for a long time. It sounds like a bit of a technicality, because it didn’t really have anything to do with printmaking, but it did have everything to do with the whole Great West Saddlery Building environment and the fondness for experimentation. But we were all interested in pushing the boundaries, and maybe guilty of pushing them a little too far…
Angus Wyatt: At the time there was what felt like an established orthodoxy to art in the city (Abstract painting and constructivist steel sculpture and a particular type of printmaking aesthetic echoing Japanese and East European aesthetics). In many ways SNAP was a place that allowed younger artists to work and exhibit outside of this orthodoxy. To this end the history of SNAP was (for a time) oppositional or at least a reaction to/against an established order that was represented by a limited number of active artists (mostly working at the University itself). It was kind of a place for the newer emerging artists to ‘rebel’ against the ‘establishment.’ SNAP (and Latitude 53) were important to the growing number of artists wishing to develop and exhibit contemporary art that fell outside of certain conventions. There was also a sense that collectively we could challenge expectations as to what printmaking and Art could be, we could investigate contemporary ideas and strategies that we weren’t seeing within the city. We wanted something different and the only way was to make it happen ourselves.
David LaRiviere: There was this sort of triumvirate of power between the university (and here I am speaking more about the painting faculty than printmaking), the commercial galleries, and the public galleries—especially coming out of the Terry Fenton years [at the Edmonton Art Gallery]—there was a sort of consolidation, where there wasn’t a lot of diversity getting through, and the stigma that that produced for people who felt they were outside of it, it produced a sort of resentment that was a little bit crippling. We were always trying to overcome what we saw as monolithic, instead of just getting on with things. So I do think with a few of us at SNAP and at Latitude there was this sort of capacity we had to simply ignore it all, that it didn’t really matter, and to get on with things. Being at SNAP, being with fellow artists who were thinking in different ways, was infectious and really positive and generative at the end of the day.
Walter Jule: There were times when SNAP, as is natural, as the presidents would change, the attitude between SNAP and the University would also change. So in some cases, SNAP’s policy would suddenly be to be as independent from the University as possible—not to reject the university, but to offer another alternative within the print scene, and widen it that way.
David LaRiviere: SNAP’s relationship with the University of Alberta is integral and always present, but there’s also this sort of push and pull in that relationship. I’d say my generation is the one that wandered off the furthest.
Loren Spector: We weren’t that picky. Even like with the newsletter, when we asked for prints there were a lot of people who said ‘Well what about…?’ A lot of people gave us limited editions that weren’t all the same, that were variable, or hand painted, or manufactured, or die-cut, because we were trying to explore what that meant. Like I remember Anthony said ‘what about a tape recording?’
Anthony Pavlic: One issue of the SNAP Newsletter, which came with a print, my submission was a cassette tape with the very flimsy and tentative argument that this tape qualifies as print. What that cassette tape documented was a series of playable musical sculptures that I created and installed on the second floor of the Saddlery Building, which was vacant for a long time. It sounds like a bit of a technicality, because it didn’t really have anything to do with printmaking, but it did have everything to do with the whole Great West Saddlery Building environment and the fondness for experimentation. But we were all interested in pushing the boundaries, and maybe guilty of pushing them a little too far…
Above: Gerry Dotto, Fruit of the Loon, screenprint, hand-colouring, 1985
Elizabeth Beauchamp: An uncurated annual exhibition of recent work by an informally connected group of young contemporary artists shows the scope, not to mention nerve, of Latitude 53. [1]
’Barry Kleber’: It was a varied exhibition of works representing several artists who share space in the Saddlery Building. That the artists share space was not reason enough to mount this exhibition. Overall the show was uneven and disappointing. Greig Rasmussen’s We Are Not Romans seemed to sum the show up for me. You’re so right Greig—not even close. [2]
Laura Fizell: I came looking for something more trustworthy than Jerry Falwell yet less expensive than a Robert Bateman (or vice versa). Something for my bedroom where nothing hangs but my old skirts. Searching for something redder and snakier than the Safeway S. Something for my bedroom where nothing moves me but the 7 a.m. alarm. […] “Something older than the bible, something more senseless than prayer.” [3]
’Barry Kleber’: One local reviewer went to the show looking for something “redder and snakier than the Safeway S.” Something for her bedroom where nothing moved her but “the 7am alarm.” She found figurative works which “dealt with the darker side of humanity.” I'm still not sure we're reviewing the same exhibition but it is certain she should look elsewhere for that “something for my bedroom.” […] Anthony Pavlic’s untitled creation was the highlight of the show. The sound-activated construction drew people to it like bees to honey, as the pendulum swung a large feather over the base, swishing condensed soup letters (B and E) over the surface, while overhead a geared wooden arm plucked at the bass strings and wonderfully sustained notes hung in the air. [4]
Elizabeth Beauchamp: This piece is a large sensory delight which embodies many of the founding traits of modern art: a child-like naïveté and spontaneity coupled with sophisticated ambiguity, humour and fun taken to the point of absurdity and the stimulation of the viewer’s natural curiosity and involvement in completion of the work. Gerry Dotto’s work would seem to fall into the same category; and fall it does—flat. While Marcel Duchamp and Jasper Johns elevated the pun to fine art, Dotto’s A Woman with a Good Idea, which shows a woman lying on her back with her legs spread open and in place of a vagina and womb there is a lightbulb (get it?), is nothing but a silly school-boy cartoon. [5]
’Barry Kleber’: Another local reviewer had a tough time with Gerry Dotto’s A Woman With A Good Idea, a hand-coloured cut-and-stamped serigraph of a woman holding a lit lightbulb between her legs. I had a tough time with most of the show but for different reasons. I went looking for art, not to work out my phobias. [6]
Gerry Dotto: There’s this notion of artists suffering for their art. […] Is the artist who hasn’t been subjected to a variety of traumatic events or conditions less likely to pour whatever ‘passion’ is needed into their art to make it great? Do they even have that same passion? […] Does an artist who dies from being poisoned by cigarette paper glue count as suffering for his art? [7]
Bente Roed: Humour and puns are integral components of Dotto's art and they appear in many ways in his images. One example is Things are Looking Up where directional arrows orient, direct the subjects’—and the viewers’—eyes, and where the arrows also form part of the subjects’ faces. The pun may also be in the work’s title and Dotto emphasizes that “my titles are important and must be read.” Examples are Fruit of the Loon (complete with jockey shorts, a phallic banana, a flyswatter, probably included so it can be used against an insect with a loon’s head placed opposite it) and Ohn the Jon (Dotto’s spelling) where the viewer is provided with a taken-from-the ceiling view of a male seated on the toilet. [8]
Gerry Dotto: In the end, though, this print is not meant to be taken too seriously. It’s fun and it’s funny and let’s go with that. [9]
Anthony Pavlic: I had been working in the gallery one day and there was a mom and a couple of small children walking around looking at the art. One of the kids was raising his voice going ‘Mommy, Mommy what’s this!?’ and the mom started going ‘Shhh, shhh! Be quiet!’ And I started thinking jeez, this is an art gallery, not a church. Why aren’t you allowed to make noise in an art gallery. So that inspired me in the 3D print show to create an audience participation piece.
Elizabeth Beauchamp: An uncurated annual exhibition of recent work by an informally connected group of young contemporary artists shows the scope, not to mention nerve, of Latitude 53. [1]
’Barry Kleber’: It was a varied exhibition of works representing several artists who share space in the Saddlery Building. That the artists share space was not reason enough to mount this exhibition. Overall the show was uneven and disappointing. Greig Rasmussen’s We Are Not Romans seemed to sum the show up for me. You’re so right Greig—not even close. [2]
Laura Fizell: I came looking for something more trustworthy than Jerry Falwell yet less expensive than a Robert Bateman (or vice versa). Something for my bedroom where nothing hangs but my old skirts. Searching for something redder and snakier than the Safeway S. Something for my bedroom where nothing moves me but the 7 a.m. alarm. […] “Something older than the bible, something more senseless than prayer.” [3]
’Barry Kleber’: One local reviewer went to the show looking for something “redder and snakier than the Safeway S.” Something for her bedroom where nothing moved her but “the 7am alarm.” She found figurative works which “dealt with the darker side of humanity.” I'm still not sure we're reviewing the same exhibition but it is certain she should look elsewhere for that “something for my bedroom.” […] Anthony Pavlic’s untitled creation was the highlight of the show. The sound-activated construction drew people to it like bees to honey, as the pendulum swung a large feather over the base, swishing condensed soup letters (B and E) over the surface, while overhead a geared wooden arm plucked at the bass strings and wonderfully sustained notes hung in the air. [4]
Elizabeth Beauchamp: This piece is a large sensory delight which embodies many of the founding traits of modern art: a child-like naïveté and spontaneity coupled with sophisticated ambiguity, humour and fun taken to the point of absurdity and the stimulation of the viewer’s natural curiosity and involvement in completion of the work. Gerry Dotto’s work would seem to fall into the same category; and fall it does—flat. While Marcel Duchamp and Jasper Johns elevated the pun to fine art, Dotto’s A Woman with a Good Idea, which shows a woman lying on her back with her legs spread open and in place of a vagina and womb there is a lightbulb (get it?), is nothing but a silly school-boy cartoon. [5]
’Barry Kleber’: Another local reviewer had a tough time with Gerry Dotto’s A Woman With A Good Idea, a hand-coloured cut-and-stamped serigraph of a woman holding a lit lightbulb between her legs. I had a tough time with most of the show but for different reasons. I went looking for art, not to work out my phobias. [6]
Gerry Dotto: There’s this notion of artists suffering for their art. […] Is the artist who hasn’t been subjected to a variety of traumatic events or conditions less likely to pour whatever ‘passion’ is needed into their art to make it great? Do they even have that same passion? […] Does an artist who dies from being poisoned by cigarette paper glue count as suffering for his art? [7]
Bente Roed: Humour and puns are integral components of Dotto's art and they appear in many ways in his images. One example is Things are Looking Up where directional arrows orient, direct the subjects’—and the viewers’—eyes, and where the arrows also form part of the subjects’ faces. The pun may also be in the work’s title and Dotto emphasizes that “my titles are important and must be read.” Examples are Fruit of the Loon (complete with jockey shorts, a phallic banana, a flyswatter, probably included so it can be used against an insect with a loon’s head placed opposite it) and Ohn the Jon (Dotto’s spelling) where the viewer is provided with a taken-from-the ceiling view of a male seated on the toilet. [8]
Gerry Dotto: In the end, though, this print is not meant to be taken too seriously. It’s fun and it’s funny and let’s go with that. [9]
Anthony Pavlic: I had been working in the gallery one day and there was a mom and a couple of small children walking around looking at the art. One of the kids was raising his voice going ‘Mommy, Mommy what’s this!?’ and the mom started going ‘Shhh, shhh! Be quiet!’ And I started thinking jeez, this is an art gallery, not a church. Why aren’t you allowed to make noise in an art gallery. So that inspired me in the 3D print show to create an audience participation piece.
Above: Anthony Pavlic, installation included in "The Greatest Great West Saddlery Show," cast plaster, cast paper, tin ceiling tile, sod, lightbulb, embedded microphone and speaker, 1989
Susan Menzies: Mimicry and calculated accident featured in Pavlic's next piece, in which a corner of a gallery was laid with a 9-foot square of sod. Suspended over the sod, just above adult head height, was a bank of 8 plaster casts taken from one of the embossed-tin ceiling tiles that still grace the Saddlery, among them the original matrix. […] Below them hung another cast tile, this one made of paper mulched from ancient shirt cardboards found in the building. Behind it, a small refrigerator bulb. The coup de grâce (sorry about that) however, was a tiny speaker embedded in the sod and wired to a hidden microphone which picked up sounds within the immediate vicinity. A digital delay relayed the sound through the speaker after a 5 or 6 second pause, so that the grass effectively "talked back", like an audio mirror. [10]
Anthony Pavlic: That really got a lot of attention, because people would walk by, make a comment, move on to the next piece, and then hear their own words coming back at them. There was a tangible interaction between the viewer and the piece, which is what I was going for. And I’ll always remember the opening, because I had my two youngest cousins attend—little girls, like 4 and 5 years old, wearing matching dresses and matching hats. One was Francophone, and one was English. And they really took to my piece, to the point where they went and they sat on the grass, and they were having so much fun making noise and then having the sound repeat back to them, and it was bilingual. It took my piece to a whole other level, almost like performance art. Having these two matching little girls, one French, one English, sitting inside of my piece and operating it, that was a really kind of a happy unexpected outcome at the opening.
Susan Menzies: Mimicry and calculated accident featured in Pavlic's next piece, in which a corner of a gallery was laid with a 9-foot square of sod. Suspended over the sod, just above adult head height, was a bank of 8 plaster casts taken from one of the embossed-tin ceiling tiles that still grace the Saddlery, among them the original matrix. […] Below them hung another cast tile, this one made of paper mulched from ancient shirt cardboards found in the building. Behind it, a small refrigerator bulb. The coup de grâce (sorry about that) however, was a tiny speaker embedded in the sod and wired to a hidden microphone which picked up sounds within the immediate vicinity. A digital delay relayed the sound through the speaker after a 5 or 6 second pause, so that the grass effectively "talked back", like an audio mirror. [10]
Anthony Pavlic: That really got a lot of attention, because people would walk by, make a comment, move on to the next piece, and then hear their own words coming back at them. There was a tangible interaction between the viewer and the piece, which is what I was going for. And I’ll always remember the opening, because I had my two youngest cousins attend—little girls, like 4 and 5 years old, wearing matching dresses and matching hats. One was Francophone, and one was English. And they really took to my piece, to the point where they went and they sat on the grass, and they were having so much fun making noise and then having the sound repeat back to them, and it was bilingual. It took my piece to a whole other level, almost like performance art. Having these two matching little girls, one French, one English, sitting inside of my piece and operating it, that was a really kind of a happy unexpected outcome at the opening.
Above: Scenes from SNAP events at the Great West Saddlery Building in the mid-late 1980s: 1. Left to right: Patricia McEvoy, Mario Trono, Marlene MacCallum, and Greg Swain; 2. Left to right: Izabella Gustowska, Liz Ingram, Michelle Jensen, Lyndal Osborne, Patricia McEvoy, and Mario Trono; 3. Left to right: Mary Joyce, Bill Emes, and Richard Yates; 4. Steven Dixon and Anthony Pavlic among others in wild-west regalia outside the Saddlery Building; 5. Visiting artist Jose Manuel Springer and Marc Siegner; 6. Left to right: Tina Cho, Karen Dugas, Deirdre Smart, and others at an event following the exhibition Edmonton Prints: Brazil; 7. Clockwise from upper left: Walter Jule, Lyndal Osborne, Mary Joyce, Karen Dugas, Darci Mallon, unidentified, and Tina Cho
Nick Dobson: My first experience of SNAP came after an invite to attend a party at the Great West Saddlery Building in 1987, going with a friend, Anthony Pavlic. Arriving at the building we climbed a dark stairway, treadles creaking, to the fourth floor. There to receive us were Pat McEvoy, Sue Menzies, Marna Bunnel, Robin Smith-Peck and Marc Siegner, sharing beers around a small table supporting what, in the dim light, looked to be a brain, pinioned with a variety of tidbits. [11]
Marc Siegner: At one point, while in the Great West Saddlery Building, we initiated a cocktail hour. […] The parties were organized around a theme drink, vodka or gin, and various classic nibbles were prepared a-la-potluck, including such favs as the “cocktail orb” and appropriate fancy attire was insisted upon. The event started at 4pm and lasted until most were unconscious, a few hours later. At one particular event I noted with great amusement that towards the end of the party that some of the women, who’s names will forever be kept safe and secret, had passed out in such a way that only their feet were visible from under their studio doors. [12]
Nick Dobson: People came and went through the evening making merry and extolling the virtues of artist run centres. Everyone probably had a bit too much to drink but, even as neophytes, Anthony and I could feel the great sense of community, an aspect of the organization assuring our involvement for many years. To my relief, the hosts revealed the brain to be a cauliflower. [13]
Loren Spector: One of the things that our board did that I’m most proud of was we started the Open Studios. There was a while where we had three or four hundred people come through our studios that night, it was huge. And gallery owners like Doug Udell came through, just to see what these young artists were doing, which was huge. What a win for or tenants that we could get these kind of people into the gallery, and into their studios.
Mario Trono: Open Studio presented people with a personal side of the collective. […] At one point during the evening, everyone assembled in the printshop, leaning on presses and munching bagels, or eyeing works from the SNAP Archives. Robin Smith-Peck presented a slide show of work by SNAP artists past and present, and recounted the society's genesis and subsequent history. Loren Spector, the person who made manifest this evening of art and information, spoke next about SNAP, telling about the Visiting Artist Program and the Summer Scholarship that the society now offers to a local art student each year. Marc Siegner and Steve Dixon then performed a spirited printmaking demonstration. All of the “formal” events met with nods of approbation, laughter, and applause, and by the time the bar opened for business it was clear to all in attendance that Open Studios ought to be an annual event. [14]
Nick Dobson: My first experience of SNAP came after an invite to attend a party at the Great West Saddlery Building in 1987, going with a friend, Anthony Pavlic. Arriving at the building we climbed a dark stairway, treadles creaking, to the fourth floor. There to receive us were Pat McEvoy, Sue Menzies, Marna Bunnel, Robin Smith-Peck and Marc Siegner, sharing beers around a small table supporting what, in the dim light, looked to be a brain, pinioned with a variety of tidbits. [11]
Marc Siegner: At one point, while in the Great West Saddlery Building, we initiated a cocktail hour. […] The parties were organized around a theme drink, vodka or gin, and various classic nibbles were prepared a-la-potluck, including such favs as the “cocktail orb” and appropriate fancy attire was insisted upon. The event started at 4pm and lasted until most were unconscious, a few hours later. At one particular event I noted with great amusement that towards the end of the party that some of the women, who’s names will forever be kept safe and secret, had passed out in such a way that only their feet were visible from under their studio doors. [12]
Nick Dobson: People came and went through the evening making merry and extolling the virtues of artist run centres. Everyone probably had a bit too much to drink but, even as neophytes, Anthony and I could feel the great sense of community, an aspect of the organization assuring our involvement for many years. To my relief, the hosts revealed the brain to be a cauliflower. [13]
Loren Spector: One of the things that our board did that I’m most proud of was we started the Open Studios. There was a while where we had three or four hundred people come through our studios that night, it was huge. And gallery owners like Doug Udell came through, just to see what these young artists were doing, which was huge. What a win for or tenants that we could get these kind of people into the gallery, and into their studios.
Mario Trono: Open Studio presented people with a personal side of the collective. […] At one point during the evening, everyone assembled in the printshop, leaning on presses and munching bagels, or eyeing works from the SNAP Archives. Robin Smith-Peck presented a slide show of work by SNAP artists past and present, and recounted the society's genesis and subsequent history. Loren Spector, the person who made manifest this evening of art and information, spoke next about SNAP, telling about the Visiting Artist Program and the Summer Scholarship that the society now offers to a local art student each year. Marc Siegner and Steve Dixon then performed a spirited printmaking demonstration. All of the “formal” events met with nods of approbation, laughter, and applause, and by the time the bar opened for business it was clear to all in attendance that Open Studios ought to be an annual event. [14]
Above: Scenes from SNAP’s 1991 Open Studio event; 1. Open Studio poster designed by Grant Elston; 2. Robin Smith-Peck gives a slide show of SNAP ‘Then and Now;’ those present include Loren Spector, Steven Dixon, Marc Bovey, Sean Caulfield, Elaine Jeong, and others; 3. Steven Dixon demonstrates intaglio processes; 4. Blair Brennan; 5. Left to right: Greg Swain, Jerzy Gawlak, and Tommie Gallie; 6. Left to right: David LaRiviere, Marc Siegner, and Steven Dixon; 7. David LaRiviere points enigmatically at a newsletter print by Gwen Curry
Sherri Ritchie: Each floor unveiled its vast array of artists, styles, and ideas with vigour and one was struck by the great variety housed in this maze of chambers. I began to feel I was looking through a hundred different sets of eyes. Indeed, it was overwhelming for the uninitiated. I noticed the eyes of those around me begin to bulge, divide, develop facets to take in the multiple images. They darted from room to room, their mouths sucking sweet nectar. I think I heard someone buzzing. Perhaps another glass of wine. [15]
Loren Spector: We all went to university together and hung out at Dewey’s with the Big Rock Brewery reps—they weren’t reps at the time, they were just friends, but they became the reps. They wanted to find something different to do with their beer, so they gave us so much beer for our open studios, so those turned into huge parties that lasted until 5am. And that was kind of a neat thing, because as avant-garde as we thought we were, we were part of this mainstreaming of weird art. Before that, art events were just wine and cheese and people standing there; that was the impression everyone had. But it got really loose during that time. My husband and I were asking each other what we remembered about that time, and one of the things we remember is the Big Rock reps saying ‘This is groundbreaking! Beer involved with arts and culture instead of sports!’ It was nice to see art expand into some of that space that sports traditionally owned. Edmonton could be about the Oilers or the Eskimos, or it could be about the awesome theatre scene, or this group of artists. We were trying to think that way.
Anthony Pavlic: The whole Saddlery Building scene was really special, because it was just a fantastic art scene—not only SNAP, but Latitude 53, when they occupied the main floor with their gallery, and when SNAP eventually got a gallery too. So it was basically a whole building with nothing but artists. It was just a great place to be back then. So much went on.
Loren Spector: It wasn’t as playful when I first started. I felt it was a ‘serious endeavour.’ And you have to work really hard to get something like that off the ground, and be serious. But it was all off the ground—or we were just young and foolish—so we could just sit back and kind of put our feet up and smoke and drink and say ‘well, what’s our next project?’ So we had a lot of leeway and luxury, our little band, to do things like the Dada party at the Masonic Temple, and the wrapping the library. Probably ten years earlier people would have just said ‘no, you’ll never get away with any of that stuff.’ But it was a good time for it.
Anthony Pavlic: Linda Wedman approached me and said ‘we want to make this Dada party part of the Works,’ and I went ‘no way, that’s not in the spirit of Dada, we’re doing it on our own!’ That whole idea was that we wanted to get away from what we considered the Works to be, which was more of the establishment. So we would do things like that, much to her annoyance… I’m sure she wasn’t too happy about that. But we went ahead and did that anyway and had a really successful night.
Sherri Ritchie: Each floor unveiled its vast array of artists, styles, and ideas with vigour and one was struck by the great variety housed in this maze of chambers. I began to feel I was looking through a hundred different sets of eyes. Indeed, it was overwhelming for the uninitiated. I noticed the eyes of those around me begin to bulge, divide, develop facets to take in the multiple images. They darted from room to room, their mouths sucking sweet nectar. I think I heard someone buzzing. Perhaps another glass of wine. [15]
Loren Spector: We all went to university together and hung out at Dewey’s with the Big Rock Brewery reps—they weren’t reps at the time, they were just friends, but they became the reps. They wanted to find something different to do with their beer, so they gave us so much beer for our open studios, so those turned into huge parties that lasted until 5am. And that was kind of a neat thing, because as avant-garde as we thought we were, we were part of this mainstreaming of weird art. Before that, art events were just wine and cheese and people standing there; that was the impression everyone had. But it got really loose during that time. My husband and I were asking each other what we remembered about that time, and one of the things we remember is the Big Rock reps saying ‘This is groundbreaking! Beer involved with arts and culture instead of sports!’ It was nice to see art expand into some of that space that sports traditionally owned. Edmonton could be about the Oilers or the Eskimos, or it could be about the awesome theatre scene, or this group of artists. We were trying to think that way.
Anthony Pavlic: The whole Saddlery Building scene was really special, because it was just a fantastic art scene—not only SNAP, but Latitude 53, when they occupied the main floor with their gallery, and when SNAP eventually got a gallery too. So it was basically a whole building with nothing but artists. It was just a great place to be back then. So much went on.
Loren Spector: It wasn’t as playful when I first started. I felt it was a ‘serious endeavour.’ And you have to work really hard to get something like that off the ground, and be serious. But it was all off the ground—or we were just young and foolish—so we could just sit back and kind of put our feet up and smoke and drink and say ‘well, what’s our next project?’ So we had a lot of leeway and luxury, our little band, to do things like the Dada party at the Masonic Temple, and the wrapping the library. Probably ten years earlier people would have just said ‘no, you’ll never get away with any of that stuff.’ But it was a good time for it.
Anthony Pavlic: Linda Wedman approached me and said ‘we want to make this Dada party part of the Works,’ and I went ‘no way, that’s not in the spirit of Dada, we’re doing it on our own!’ That whole idea was that we wanted to get away from what we considered the Works to be, which was more of the establishment. So we would do things like that, much to her annoyance… I’m sure she wasn’t too happy about that. But we went ahead and did that anyway and had a really successful night.
Above: From SNAP’s 1991 fundraising collaboration with Latitude 53, LatiDaDa, emcee Marc Siegner wrestlesfellow host Anthony Pavlic to the ground.
Right: Lainna Wolanski in a costume made of records, co-created with Jill Fischer |
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Loren Spector: Everyone was like ‘Dada Party!’—whatever that meant! It was just an excuse right? I don’t think anybody knew what a Dada party was, or was supposed to be, but we had this great old venue, we had some great music. So we put out an invitation for everyone to buy tickets, first of all, and it was jamb-packed. But then we also put out a call for people to do performance art through the night. And I remember that really clearly because it was so good. There was this one woman who just sat on the edge of the stage potting and un-potting potted plants the whole time. And she was all gardener-y, and I don’t know what it meant, in retrospect, but at the time it seemed like really important work!
Angus Wyatt: The line between who is actually performing becomes blurred. There will be performances by visual artists, magicians, hair stylists, dancers and non-poetry poetry for five or 10 minutes every hour. [16]
Elizabeth Beauchamp: The cabaret-style evening will also include bally-hooing, chaos, dancing, flying, laughing, tantrums, politics, protest, yelling, music, weirdness and excitement. [17]
Marc Siegner: We’re encouraging audience participation. They will be involved voluntarily or non-voluntarily. The MC Trinity [Pavlic, Siegner, and Wyatt] will be roaming throughout to ensure that. [18]
Anthony Pavlic: One of the most absurd nights I think I can ever recall. It was unexpected.
Loren Spector: There was way too much drinking, there were people walking on the balcony on the second floor on the railing, dancing. Nick Dobson did a burning in the parking lot of a sculpture, so it was just really good fun.
Elizabeth Beauchamp: Why? Well, hearing Dobson explain his “happening,” it began to make an unusual sort of poetic sense. […] Sedan, his latest sacrificial piece, was a beautifully proportioned, house-like structure reminiscent of a medieval lady's sedan chair. It also had the grace, delicacy and rich surface texture of a roadside Buddhist shrine set above the ground on stakes. Small double doors on either end opened to reveal a wasp's nest of matches in the interior. As Dobson lit each side in turn, lines of flames licked upwards until the whole thing was a roaring inferno. At that point, the audience mood changed from a sort of curious reverence to a tension-releasing, fireworks excitement that comes with such an entrancing spectacle of destruction. When the smoke cleared, a blackened skeleton of the sculpture was left standing.[…] While the original sculpture had a marvellous texture and evocative air of mystery, the remaining shell has a very different, harsh and poignant beauty. Dobson, like all printmakers is “very interested in the process” of making—and in his case destroying art. “I started doing this in order to get images for my prints. This one is meant to be burned over and over again.” [19]
Angus Wyatt: The line between who is actually performing becomes blurred. There will be performances by visual artists, magicians, hair stylists, dancers and non-poetry poetry for five or 10 minutes every hour. [16]
Elizabeth Beauchamp: The cabaret-style evening will also include bally-hooing, chaos, dancing, flying, laughing, tantrums, politics, protest, yelling, music, weirdness and excitement. [17]
Marc Siegner: We’re encouraging audience participation. They will be involved voluntarily or non-voluntarily. The MC Trinity [Pavlic, Siegner, and Wyatt] will be roaming throughout to ensure that. [18]
Anthony Pavlic: One of the most absurd nights I think I can ever recall. It was unexpected.
Loren Spector: There was way too much drinking, there were people walking on the balcony on the second floor on the railing, dancing. Nick Dobson did a burning in the parking lot of a sculpture, so it was just really good fun.
Elizabeth Beauchamp: Why? Well, hearing Dobson explain his “happening,” it began to make an unusual sort of poetic sense. […] Sedan, his latest sacrificial piece, was a beautifully proportioned, house-like structure reminiscent of a medieval lady's sedan chair. It also had the grace, delicacy and rich surface texture of a roadside Buddhist shrine set above the ground on stakes. Small double doors on either end opened to reveal a wasp's nest of matches in the interior. As Dobson lit each side in turn, lines of flames licked upwards until the whole thing was a roaring inferno. At that point, the audience mood changed from a sort of curious reverence to a tension-releasing, fireworks excitement that comes with such an entrancing spectacle of destruction. When the smoke cleared, a blackened skeleton of the sculpture was left standing.[…] While the original sculpture had a marvellous texture and evocative air of mystery, the remaining shell has a very different, harsh and poignant beauty. Dobson, like all printmakers is “very interested in the process” of making—and in his case destroying art. “I started doing this in order to get images for my prints. This one is meant to be burned over and over again.” [19]
Above: Nick Dobson, A Lexicon for Deliverance, inkjet, relief, stitching, 2012
Nick Dobson: When I was very young I was interested in writing and, like most children, wanted to tell stories about things I felt were exciting: the wild west, space travel, and adventuring. My mother would read what I had written and ask me why I didn't write about affairs I knew. This was disappointing for me as I wanted to discover new things through my creative efforts. I realize now that although the creative act requires a step into the unknown it should be an action taken from familiar ground. [20]
Gilbert Bouchard: The mechanical inner workings Alberta's petrochemical industry have inspired Nick Dobson's […] new series of woodcuts, [featuring] semi-abstracted representations of the towers, generators, exchangers and furnaces Dobson works on in his other career as a boilermaker. [21]
Nick Dobson: For the longest time, I used to keep the two things completely separate. I never made art about work. But then you realize your life is a complete thing, it's hard to keep what you do for a living out of your art. [22]
Patrycia Chalupczynska: Just like the intricate workings and linkages of the exchangers and pipes of the boilermakers that he builds, Nick Dobson's art has provided him with a connection between the two very different worlds he inhabits. [23]
Nick Dobson: A focus of this endeavour is the belief that although life rests on a material base, the physical world stands as an obstacle to self realization. Appropriating an object by depicting it and playing with it in a process allows me to achieve a manner of intellectual ownership, in effect rendering the object transparent. Consequently, I select subject matters for interpretation in order to give them a personal context. [24]
Elizabeth Beauchamp: Dobson in turn, carries those observations over into his fascination with the imagery of life cycles. And when he starts on a project, it carries a life cycle of its own—the making, burning and photographing of the burned sculpture in order to make a print “is another kind of cycle. I find that I'm doing a lot of growing up right now and burning these things is like saying goodbye to another part of my life.” [25]
Nick Dobson: When I was very young I was interested in writing and, like most children, wanted to tell stories about things I felt were exciting: the wild west, space travel, and adventuring. My mother would read what I had written and ask me why I didn't write about affairs I knew. This was disappointing for me as I wanted to discover new things through my creative efforts. I realize now that although the creative act requires a step into the unknown it should be an action taken from familiar ground. [20]
Gilbert Bouchard: The mechanical inner workings Alberta's petrochemical industry have inspired Nick Dobson's […] new series of woodcuts, [featuring] semi-abstracted representations of the towers, generators, exchangers and furnaces Dobson works on in his other career as a boilermaker. [21]
Nick Dobson: For the longest time, I used to keep the two things completely separate. I never made art about work. But then you realize your life is a complete thing, it's hard to keep what you do for a living out of your art. [22]
Patrycia Chalupczynska: Just like the intricate workings and linkages of the exchangers and pipes of the boilermakers that he builds, Nick Dobson's art has provided him with a connection between the two very different worlds he inhabits. [23]
Nick Dobson: A focus of this endeavour is the belief that although life rests on a material base, the physical world stands as an obstacle to self realization. Appropriating an object by depicting it and playing with it in a process allows me to achieve a manner of intellectual ownership, in effect rendering the object transparent. Consequently, I select subject matters for interpretation in order to give them a personal context. [24]
Elizabeth Beauchamp: Dobson in turn, carries those observations over into his fascination with the imagery of life cycles. And when he starts on a project, it carries a life cycle of its own—the making, burning and photographing of the burned sculpture in order to make a print “is another kind of cycle. I find that I'm doing a lot of growing up right now and burning these things is like saying goodbye to another part of my life.” [25]
Above: Loren Spector, Bedlam Beckons, collagraph, hand-colouring, 1991
Mario Trono: Experiencing the work of Edmonton-based artist Loren Spector is like visiting the salon of Uncle Albert, the free-floating zany of Mary Poppins fame who, by inciting a laugh riot, encouraged spontaneous, group levitation. […] The joke in her work—be it Mary Tyler Moore donning a nun's habit for an Elvis movie […] or a new age pope proclaiming, “Abortion? Hey, no problem!” encourages us to hover for a hearty guffaw or two before descending to confront those of a Poppins-esque demeanour, folk who have serious plans in mind for us. [26]
Loren Spector: I remember it was written on my studio wall that humour was serious business, so I always tried to be funny, but I tried to always have a reason too. I still use a lot of text, and I still use a lot of humour, and these abstract shapes are still in my work now. Those shapes I started doing when I was a kid, and I come back to them all the time, and I don’t really know why. That’s a whole other exploration of unconscious stuff.
Gilbert Bouchard: Thematically speaking, Spector has set out to deconstruct the unconscious motivations that move an artist to produce work, as well as how shapes and colours come together over the years to produce a visual “vocabulary.” [27]
Loren Spector: Art, when it pulls itself up to its full height and ignores the alphabetic accompaniment to it (the language of criticism, theory and gallery promotion that helps it out sometimes when it can't pay rent), doesn't illustrate theory at all. [28]
Gilbert Bouchard: Underlining that she used to do art that illustrated various art and critical theories, she ultimately found that intellectual approach rather unsatisfying. [29]
Loren Spector: I was obsessed with these pictures and shapes before I knew about Lacan or Freud. Freud sees the unconscious mind as a picture. It is a picture of the chaotic realm of constantly shifting drives and desires. Lacan says no, see it not as a picture, but as a language. Okay, fine then. “Read” my pictures. They came from my unconscious. For me, Freud and Lacan came after my images. All three of us just happen to muse about the unconscious and its contents. So, you see, I don't do art that illustrates theory. Theory just happens to illustrate me. [30]
David LaRiviere: Art can be made antagonistic towards theory (its eventual articulation) when seeing is segregated from understanding what is seen, as if language should or could be cordoned off into another camp. […] Vision, as a mental operation, is augmented by multiple perspectives and thereby resists assignment or labelling that would spell out its final assimilation. In this way the active artwork may collapse assumptions that are made of it. Throughout my life I have maintained faith in a set of edicts or values. Although the specific beliefs are constantly shifting, there exists a constant sense of faith that cuts across the changes. I would say (at this moment) that much of my faith is centred on the notion that things are never as they appear, a notion that ties into the premise that things are always shifting. The dumb art object confounds us because it does not behave as art should. It foils our assumption that the art object should transcend itself and then its dumbness reclaims a space for discourse with its abject presence. Finally, the dumb object does not set out the terms of edicts or values, rather it simply sets into motion the shifting. [31]
Angus Wyatt: To my mind the reproducibility of print, the fact that things existed as multiples, was what defined an idea of printmaking. To this end we began to experiment with questioning what could fall under the definition of ‘multiples’ (e.g. we did a show with artist designed iron on decals for t-shirts——which we applied to t-shirts in the gallery) to find a way of moving beyond identifying ‘print’ as being solely defined by process.
Cindy Baker: If the embroidered cresting I do is printmaking, then is a mass-produced t-shirt not also in itself a print? Assuming, as SNAP has done in disseminating my Pilldeer print in their newsletter, that machine embroidery is a form of printmaking, then it is no real stretch to suggest that an article of clothing created in the same way (die-cut, pre-programmed and computer-sewn) is also a print. […] Seeking new ground for their discussion about printmaking as an art form, SNAP runs the risk of being subsumed by the mass-produced clothing subculture when they realize that there is a hierarchy to even this, the most egalitarian and accessible of forms of mass/popular communication. The 2 images I have included for your approval are variations on the idea of an abstracted and simplified sex object. Each is an absolute fetish object—not only because it is a sexual object, but because it is fetishized through printing, through detailing, through production, placement, and even wearing—it is a very private image made public and then abstracted; obscured except to those who recognize it, because they are familiar with the code. Both images are based on a life-sized representation of my own clitoris. [32]
Mario Trono: Experiencing the work of Edmonton-based artist Loren Spector is like visiting the salon of Uncle Albert, the free-floating zany of Mary Poppins fame who, by inciting a laugh riot, encouraged spontaneous, group levitation. […] The joke in her work—be it Mary Tyler Moore donning a nun's habit for an Elvis movie […] or a new age pope proclaiming, “Abortion? Hey, no problem!” encourages us to hover for a hearty guffaw or two before descending to confront those of a Poppins-esque demeanour, folk who have serious plans in mind for us. [26]
Loren Spector: I remember it was written on my studio wall that humour was serious business, so I always tried to be funny, but I tried to always have a reason too. I still use a lot of text, and I still use a lot of humour, and these abstract shapes are still in my work now. Those shapes I started doing when I was a kid, and I come back to them all the time, and I don’t really know why. That’s a whole other exploration of unconscious stuff.
Gilbert Bouchard: Thematically speaking, Spector has set out to deconstruct the unconscious motivations that move an artist to produce work, as well as how shapes and colours come together over the years to produce a visual “vocabulary.” [27]
Loren Spector: Art, when it pulls itself up to its full height and ignores the alphabetic accompaniment to it (the language of criticism, theory and gallery promotion that helps it out sometimes when it can't pay rent), doesn't illustrate theory at all. [28]
Gilbert Bouchard: Underlining that she used to do art that illustrated various art and critical theories, she ultimately found that intellectual approach rather unsatisfying. [29]
Loren Spector: I was obsessed with these pictures and shapes before I knew about Lacan or Freud. Freud sees the unconscious mind as a picture. It is a picture of the chaotic realm of constantly shifting drives and desires. Lacan says no, see it not as a picture, but as a language. Okay, fine then. “Read” my pictures. They came from my unconscious. For me, Freud and Lacan came after my images. All three of us just happen to muse about the unconscious and its contents. So, you see, I don't do art that illustrates theory. Theory just happens to illustrate me. [30]
David LaRiviere: Art can be made antagonistic towards theory (its eventual articulation) when seeing is segregated from understanding what is seen, as if language should or could be cordoned off into another camp. […] Vision, as a mental operation, is augmented by multiple perspectives and thereby resists assignment or labelling that would spell out its final assimilation. In this way the active artwork may collapse assumptions that are made of it. Throughout my life I have maintained faith in a set of edicts or values. Although the specific beliefs are constantly shifting, there exists a constant sense of faith that cuts across the changes. I would say (at this moment) that much of my faith is centred on the notion that things are never as they appear, a notion that ties into the premise that things are always shifting. The dumb art object confounds us because it does not behave as art should. It foils our assumption that the art object should transcend itself and then its dumbness reclaims a space for discourse with its abject presence. Finally, the dumb object does not set out the terms of edicts or values, rather it simply sets into motion the shifting. [31]
Angus Wyatt: To my mind the reproducibility of print, the fact that things existed as multiples, was what defined an idea of printmaking. To this end we began to experiment with questioning what could fall under the definition of ‘multiples’ (e.g. we did a show with artist designed iron on decals for t-shirts——which we applied to t-shirts in the gallery) to find a way of moving beyond identifying ‘print’ as being solely defined by process.
Cindy Baker: If the embroidered cresting I do is printmaking, then is a mass-produced t-shirt not also in itself a print? Assuming, as SNAP has done in disseminating my Pilldeer print in their newsletter, that machine embroidery is a form of printmaking, then it is no real stretch to suggest that an article of clothing created in the same way (die-cut, pre-programmed and computer-sewn) is also a print. […] Seeking new ground for their discussion about printmaking as an art form, SNAP runs the risk of being subsumed by the mass-produced clothing subculture when they realize that there is a hierarchy to even this, the most egalitarian and accessible of forms of mass/popular communication. The 2 images I have included for your approval are variations on the idea of an abstracted and simplified sex object. Each is an absolute fetish object—not only because it is a sexual object, but because it is fetishized through printing, through detailing, through production, placement, and even wearing—it is a very private image made public and then abstracted; obscured except to those who recognize it, because they are familiar with the code. Both images are based on a life-sized representation of my own clitoris. [32]
Above: David LaRiviere, The Navel’s Gaze, laserjet on heat-transfer paper, 1999
David LaRiviere (1996): To contemplate your navel is to be guilty of over-intellectualizing matters. It is a self indulgence of the highest order, the kind of act that obscures the goings on of the outside world in the name of elucidation. It is a cogito, a retreat into the ego, which Jacques Lacan described as the realm through which everything must pass but a realm comprised of méconnaissances (mis-recognitions). I came to the navel in an intuitive way, based on the premise that navel gazing, handled in a capably dumb way, might unbalance the artist/subject, which typically casts the artist as estranged, being misunderstood by an insensitive society. Perhaps navel gazing is a necessary condition of formulating the self as the subject/object of your work. What if the probing nature of my gaze terminated at the surface of the belly button; nothing withheld and nothing beyond? [33]
David LaRiviere: There was this sort of suggestion when the print went out that people could frame it and venerate it, or they could take an iron out and put it on a t-shirt and wear it until it falls apart—which is kind of my preferred suggestion, don’t bother framing it! I did actually iron on one for myself, and I had that t-shirt for the longest time, so I did actually wear it out. I put the belly button right where my belly button is, so it had the full effect of being a cutaway.
Angus Wyatt: I think the driving force behind this questioning spirit was a desire to celebrate possibility and occasionally challenge orthodoxy. It was very DIY and very immediate.
Loren Spector: That’s why that library project, we wanted something that everybody walking to work would see that and ask ‘what is that?’ And kind of the weirdness of the images of that project, and how they were just put onto tarps. We wanted to see a big public art project, but we also wanted to ask ‘what is printmaking? Why is this here?’ I’d have to look at pictures… I remember what I was wearing that day. It was such a little project, there were about six of us, and we phoned Mario, my husband, because it was Cam, Angus, me, Marc, and Nick. And we had these huge 500 lb tarps and ropes. And you know this is a building where if these fall it could kill somebody walking by. We had to take it seriously, and I don’t think we knew what we were doing.
David LaRiviere (1996): To contemplate your navel is to be guilty of over-intellectualizing matters. It is a self indulgence of the highest order, the kind of act that obscures the goings on of the outside world in the name of elucidation. It is a cogito, a retreat into the ego, which Jacques Lacan described as the realm through which everything must pass but a realm comprised of méconnaissances (mis-recognitions). I came to the navel in an intuitive way, based on the premise that navel gazing, handled in a capably dumb way, might unbalance the artist/subject, which typically casts the artist as estranged, being misunderstood by an insensitive society. Perhaps navel gazing is a necessary condition of formulating the self as the subject/object of your work. What if the probing nature of my gaze terminated at the surface of the belly button; nothing withheld and nothing beyond? [33]
David LaRiviere: There was this sort of suggestion when the print went out that people could frame it and venerate it, or they could take an iron out and put it on a t-shirt and wear it until it falls apart—which is kind of my preferred suggestion, don’t bother framing it! I did actually iron on one for myself, and I had that t-shirt for the longest time, so I did actually wear it out. I put the belly button right where my belly button is, so it had the full effect of being a cutaway.
Angus Wyatt: I think the driving force behind this questioning spirit was a desire to celebrate possibility and occasionally challenge orthodoxy. It was very DIY and very immediate.
Loren Spector: That’s why that library project, we wanted something that everybody walking to work would see that and ask ‘what is that?’ And kind of the weirdness of the images of that project, and how they were just put onto tarps. We wanted to see a big public art project, but we also wanted to ask ‘what is printmaking? Why is this here?’ I’d have to look at pictures… I remember what I was wearing that day. It was such a little project, there were about six of us, and we phoned Mario, my husband, because it was Cam, Angus, me, Marc, and Nick. And we had these huge 500 lb tarps and ropes. And you know this is a building where if these fall it could kill somebody walking by. We had to take it seriously, and I don’t think we knew what we were doing.
Above: Installation of the printed mural on the outside of the downtown Edmonton Library for "Literally the Great West Library Show," 1993
Mario Trono: It was Saturday, September the fourth, that day in history when the outdoor portion of Literally the Great West Library Show emerged from its misty origins in abstract thought and French roast coffee to become visceral, tangible art. […] In the early morning of that great day, an unflinching band of artists and volunteers braved the pluvial drenching. [34]
Loren Spector: We had been printing these tarps with some kind of special paint that Angus found that would never wear off and would last forever in the elements. Angus found it—it was like sticky tar, super toxic, couldn’t get it off if you got it on you, and it was probably carcinogenic so you didn’t want it on you. It was probably 4am the night before and we were still printing those tarps in the studio at SNAP, and then that day we had this limited amount of time to get them up.
Mario Trono: Backs bent and brows emboldened by belief, a storm of wood, rope, and tarpaulin swept over the building, supplanting the assault of rain. Finally, 33 tarps were suspended, a veritable scrabble board of artistic statement. Each had on it a single pictograph, but contained within the whole 33 was a single statement. It was a brilliant ascent, and as the clouds broke (the very moment we finished the work), artists and volunteers stood atop the library roof and raised a glass. [35]
Charles Mandel: If you find the 33 banners on the north face of the Centennial Library puzzling, don’t worry. The installation, which is three stories high and a city block long, is meant to be confounding. […] Pictograms are puzzles which substitute symbols for letters or phrases to form written messages. Five of the banners are blue, and Pavlic says they offer clues to a very common phrase. [36]
Loren Spector: It did! It meant something, it had a message… Mario, what was it?
Mario Trono: “A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words”
Loren Spector: There we go, “A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words”—Mario’s always been our sort of academic, intellectual, conceptual memory… I can’t imagine doing that today—you’d get some kind of grant, professional people involved, insurance to make sure it didn’t fall off the building! But this was how this stuff happened back then, we would sit around in one of the studios and someone would go ‘what about this?’ and then another person goes ‘yeah, what about that?’ We’d just start talking and then it would happen.
Mario Trono: It was Saturday, September the fourth, that day in history when the outdoor portion of Literally the Great West Library Show emerged from its misty origins in abstract thought and French roast coffee to become visceral, tangible art. […] In the early morning of that great day, an unflinching band of artists and volunteers braved the pluvial drenching. [34]
Loren Spector: We had been printing these tarps with some kind of special paint that Angus found that would never wear off and would last forever in the elements. Angus found it—it was like sticky tar, super toxic, couldn’t get it off if you got it on you, and it was probably carcinogenic so you didn’t want it on you. It was probably 4am the night before and we were still printing those tarps in the studio at SNAP, and then that day we had this limited amount of time to get them up.
Mario Trono: Backs bent and brows emboldened by belief, a storm of wood, rope, and tarpaulin swept over the building, supplanting the assault of rain. Finally, 33 tarps were suspended, a veritable scrabble board of artistic statement. Each had on it a single pictograph, but contained within the whole 33 was a single statement. It was a brilliant ascent, and as the clouds broke (the very moment we finished the work), artists and volunteers stood atop the library roof and raised a glass. [35]
Charles Mandel: If you find the 33 banners on the north face of the Centennial Library puzzling, don’t worry. The installation, which is three stories high and a city block long, is meant to be confounding. […] Pictograms are puzzles which substitute symbols for letters or phrases to form written messages. Five of the banners are blue, and Pavlic says they offer clues to a very common phrase. [36]
Loren Spector: It did! It meant something, it had a message… Mario, what was it?
Mario Trono: “A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words”
Loren Spector: There we go, “A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words”—Mario’s always been our sort of academic, intellectual, conceptual memory… I can’t imagine doing that today—you’d get some kind of grant, professional people involved, insurance to make sure it didn’t fall off the building! But this was how this stuff happened back then, we would sit around in one of the studios and someone would go ‘what about this?’ and then another person goes ‘yeah, what about that?’ We’d just start talking and then it would happen.
Above: Angus Wyatt, Hand Job, offset lithograph posters installed around Edmonton, 2001
”Dr. Andy LaBouche”: All of art is played out in a culture, insofar as the parameters of said culture ultimately render a gesture legible. This is the key premise underlying the notion that an artist cannot claim ownership of the images that s/he produces. […] The first objective of the practising artist is to recognize and grapple consciously with the foundations of his/her cultural circumstances. The ultimate objective is to build up some sense of recognition that renders art connected to the “now.” [37]
Angus Wyatt: I often say that the role of the artist that we choose to inhabit and perform in various ways (oh we’re so unconventional, we dress our own way, we don’t adhere to society’s rules, I am my own master I’m not a corporate sheep etc. etc.) is actually something proscribed to us (we are expected to be critical, to be innovative, to do what’s unexpected etc.). By being critical and wacky and unconventional we are actually doing exactly what is expected of us and therefore not being counter to anything (how to be radical when radical is what you are expected to be?). Is the artist merely a symbolic figure construct meant to embody the idea of free will? Is the ‘idea of the artist’ all that’s needed to fulfill its function?
”Dr. Andy LaBouche”: A wave of protest is expected to rattle the downtown offices of the Society of Northern Alberta Print-Artists on the occasion of the "Fit tO Print” exhibition. This show is presented by the F.O.P. Artist Collective in an attempt to address fetishistic tendencies in the field of printmaking. Many artists who have already fetishized this particular means of production are going to be pissed off firstly by the show's apparent lack of reverence for process, and secondly for drawing attention to such deep seated prejudices within the very sanctum the print-artists have established for worship. [38]
Nora Abercrombie: While everybody is perfectly aware of the individuals comprising FOP, no one is quite sure of the words behind their glitteringly suggestive acronym. [39]
████████: with ████████, we formed a anonymous artist collective called ‘FoP’ which stands for ‘Fit of Perversion;’ alternatively, it could stand for ‘Flight of Penguins,’ but we were open in that regard… we actually did a number of exhibitions where we insinuated ourselves into institutions in fairly absurdist, humorous, critical mode, and generated shows that were kind of critical of the institution in which we were. We had a show at SNAP called "Fit tO Print;" we also had a show at Harcourt House about being populist--
Allen Ball: It's nuts, I figured it's Christmas, it's a fun thing to give an anonymous bunch of anarchist artists the gallery for a show… but it’s actually really good. It's sort of like a member show that's gotten out of hand. It's floor to ceiling, literally. It's actually about a thousand times better than I thought it was going to be. [40]
████████:—and a show at the Edmonton Art Gallery about being elitist… and basically we were poking the bear in various ways.
██████████: You should actually have a copy of the FoP ‘newspaper’ that was the SNAP Gallery FoP project. Each page of the newspaper was displayed in a frame in the gallery. The content of the newspaper was a series of articles written about the collective and the exhibition itself. A copy of the newspaper was freely available to anyone that came in to the gallery. It was a ‘print’ that managed to be content, critique, review, promotion and catalogue all at once.
”Dr. Andy LaBouche”: All of art is played out in a culture, insofar as the parameters of said culture ultimately render a gesture legible. This is the key premise underlying the notion that an artist cannot claim ownership of the images that s/he produces. […] The first objective of the practising artist is to recognize and grapple consciously with the foundations of his/her cultural circumstances. The ultimate objective is to build up some sense of recognition that renders art connected to the “now.” [37]
Angus Wyatt: I often say that the role of the artist that we choose to inhabit and perform in various ways (oh we’re so unconventional, we dress our own way, we don’t adhere to society’s rules, I am my own master I’m not a corporate sheep etc. etc.) is actually something proscribed to us (we are expected to be critical, to be innovative, to do what’s unexpected etc.). By being critical and wacky and unconventional we are actually doing exactly what is expected of us and therefore not being counter to anything (how to be radical when radical is what you are expected to be?). Is the artist merely a symbolic figure construct meant to embody the idea of free will? Is the ‘idea of the artist’ all that’s needed to fulfill its function?
”Dr. Andy LaBouche”: A wave of protest is expected to rattle the downtown offices of the Society of Northern Alberta Print-Artists on the occasion of the "Fit tO Print” exhibition. This show is presented by the F.O.P. Artist Collective in an attempt to address fetishistic tendencies in the field of printmaking. Many artists who have already fetishized this particular means of production are going to be pissed off firstly by the show's apparent lack of reverence for process, and secondly for drawing attention to such deep seated prejudices within the very sanctum the print-artists have established for worship. [38]
Nora Abercrombie: While everybody is perfectly aware of the individuals comprising FOP, no one is quite sure of the words behind their glitteringly suggestive acronym. [39]
████████: with ████████, we formed a anonymous artist collective called ‘FoP’ which stands for ‘Fit of Perversion;’ alternatively, it could stand for ‘Flight of Penguins,’ but we were open in that regard… we actually did a number of exhibitions where we insinuated ourselves into institutions in fairly absurdist, humorous, critical mode, and generated shows that were kind of critical of the institution in which we were. We had a show at SNAP called "Fit tO Print;" we also had a show at Harcourt House about being populist--
Allen Ball: It's nuts, I figured it's Christmas, it's a fun thing to give an anonymous bunch of anarchist artists the gallery for a show… but it’s actually really good. It's sort of like a member show that's gotten out of hand. It's floor to ceiling, literally. It's actually about a thousand times better than I thought it was going to be. [40]
████████:—and a show at the Edmonton Art Gallery about being elitist… and basically we were poking the bear in various ways.
██████████: You should actually have a copy of the FoP ‘newspaper’ that was the SNAP Gallery FoP project. Each page of the newspaper was displayed in a frame in the gallery. The content of the newspaper was a series of articles written about the collective and the exhibition itself. A copy of the newspaper was freely available to anyone that came in to the gallery. It was a ‘print’ that managed to be content, critique, review, promotion and catalogue all at once.
Above: FOP Collective, Fit tO Print, offset lithograph publication, 1998
”Helmet von Goiter”: The FOP collective is born fuelled by the nihilism only so much senseless death and disaster can inspire. Meditating upon the meaninglessness of their existence, they adopt the attire of Regency-Savoy bell hops and find a loft in the village. It is here the full development of the “object du revolution” is brought to fruition. The death of the object is no longer a matter of simply destroying what is in order to liberate what will be. The object itself is dead. However, this death is not a senseless one, for the death of the objet signals a birth of the viewer. Unconstrained by weighty matter and inhibiting form, the spectator is liberated by the nul res. From now on, proclaims the troop now named FOP, art is only to be thought. For it is only in the realm of pure thought that it might find its full possibilities. Following their off-Broadway hit: "Fop the World, I Might Fall Off” a musical without sound or action, the group moves North, attracted to a locale where government shares a similar nihilist perspective on the arts. Nested in what they fondly refer to as their “frozen Yugoslavia of the North” the FOP collective carries on its revolutionary project of not making art, but, as Eric Bogosian says “keeping it in their heads, man, where nobody can get at it.” [41]
”Dr. Andy LaBouche”: Even if the issues that come to have resonance within an artist’s practice are larger than life, the show must go on. For these occasions, a modicum of “Patience” will be required. Almost any artist's practice may be humorously called an “Idiot's Delight.” [42]
Angus Wyatt: Insider, outcast, confidant and entertainer, the fool is afforded entrance to the high court but is denied social status. Sound familiar? [43]
████████: I probably have misspoken, because it was an anonymous artist collective. In fact we were once interviewed for television, and ████████ and I were wearing Archie masks and turtle necks and dancing around as we spoke.
Luke Johnson: I can redact your names if you’d like to keep up your anonymity?
████████: Redaction would be very appropriate.
”Helmet von Goiter”: The FOP collective is born fuelled by the nihilism only so much senseless death and disaster can inspire. Meditating upon the meaninglessness of their existence, they adopt the attire of Regency-Savoy bell hops and find a loft in the village. It is here the full development of the “object du revolution” is brought to fruition. The death of the object is no longer a matter of simply destroying what is in order to liberate what will be. The object itself is dead. However, this death is not a senseless one, for the death of the objet signals a birth of the viewer. Unconstrained by weighty matter and inhibiting form, the spectator is liberated by the nul res. From now on, proclaims the troop now named FOP, art is only to be thought. For it is only in the realm of pure thought that it might find its full possibilities. Following their off-Broadway hit: "Fop the World, I Might Fall Off” a musical without sound or action, the group moves North, attracted to a locale where government shares a similar nihilist perspective on the arts. Nested in what they fondly refer to as their “frozen Yugoslavia of the North” the FOP collective carries on its revolutionary project of not making art, but, as Eric Bogosian says “keeping it in their heads, man, where nobody can get at it.” [41]
”Dr. Andy LaBouche”: Even if the issues that come to have resonance within an artist’s practice are larger than life, the show must go on. For these occasions, a modicum of “Patience” will be required. Almost any artist's practice may be humorously called an “Idiot's Delight.” [42]
Angus Wyatt: Insider, outcast, confidant and entertainer, the fool is afforded entrance to the high court but is denied social status. Sound familiar? [43]
████████: I probably have misspoken, because it was an anonymous artist collective. In fact we were once interviewed for television, and ████████ and I were wearing Archie masks and turtle necks and dancing around as we spoke.
Luke Johnson: I can redact your names if you’d like to keep up your anonymity?
████████: Redaction would be very appropriate.
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Above, left to right: Mariann Sinkovics, silkscreen, 1998; Dana Holst, Beastly Baby, lithograph, 2002; Lisa Puopolo, spring time animals #2, lithography, stitching, 2004
continue to part five...
***
Footnotes, part 4:
[1] Elizabeth Beauchamp, “Works range from terrible to terrific,” Edmonton Journal, August 13, 1988, F.
[2] Barry Kleber, Edmonton Bullet, September 1, 1988, 25.
[3] Laura Fizell, “Every work unique,” Strathcona Free Press, August 4, 1988, 11.
[4] Barry Kleber, Edmonton Bullet, September 1, 1988, 25.
[5] Elizabeth Beauchamp, “Works range from terrible to terrific,” Edmonton Journal, August 13, 1988, F.
[6] Barry Kleber, Edmonton Bullet, September 1, 1988, 25.
[7] Gerry Dotto, “Spring Newsletter Print,” SNAPline, Spring 2009, 1.
[8] Bente Roed Cochran, “Dotto!,” Edmonton Bullet, vol. 4, no. 7, October 1, 1986, 7.
[9] Gerry Dotto, “Spring Newsletter Print,” SNAPline, Spring 2009, 1.
[10] Susan Menzies, “Anthony Pavlic,” SNAP Newsletter, October 1990, 1-2.
[11] Nick Dobson, statement for Looking In & Looking Back: Works and Reflections by SNAP Presidents, 2012.
[12] Marc Siegner, statement for Looking In & Looking Back: Works and Reflections by SNAP Presidents, 2012.
[13] Nick Dobson, statement for Looking In & Looking Back: Works and Reflections by SNAP Presidents, 2012.
[14] Mario Trono, “Open Studio Review,” SNAP Newsletter, May 1991, unpaginated.
[15] Sherri Ritchie, “Open Studio: A Review,” SNAP Newsletter, June 1994, 10.
[16] Elizabeth Beauchamp, “Entertained become entertaining in anti-art blur,” Edmonton Journal, June 25, 1992, D3.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Elizabeth Beauchamp, “New art emerges from flames,” Edmonton Journal, June 28, 1992, D3.
[20] Nick Dobson, “Self-centring: a personal re-definition of issues,” SNAP Newsletter, February 1996, 1.
[21] Gilbert Bouchard, “Oil industry inspires ‘very Alberta prints’,” Edmonton Journal, July 4, 2003, E6.
[22] Nick Dobson, quoted in Patrycia Chalupczynska, “Oil industry inspires artist,” Edmonton Examiner, July 23, 2003, 420.
[23] Patrycia Chalupczynska, “Oil industry inspires artist,” Edmonton Examiner, July 23, 2003, 420.
[24] Nick Dobson, artist statement for “Losing Sight of Blindness,” solo exhibit at SNAP Gallery, 2003.
[25] Elizabeth Beauchamp, “New art emerges from flames,” Edmonton Journal, June 28, 1992, D3.
[26] Mario Trono, “Loren Spector’s High/Low Critique, or Riding the Zipper with Uncle Albert,” SNAP Newsletter, February 1998, 1.
[27] Gilbert Bouchard, “Delving into a ‘visual vocabulary,'” Edmonton Journal, January 16, 2004, E10.
[28] Loren Spector, quoted in Gilbert Bouchard, “Delving into a ‘visual vocabulary,'” Edmonton Journal, January 16, 2004, E10.
[29] Gilbert Bouchard, “Delving into a ‘visual vocabulary,'” Edmonton Journal, January 16, 2004, E10.
[30] Loren Spector, at a bar, 11:37 PM, Wednesday, April 10, 2002; quoted in Loren Spector’s artist statement for "Spectronic Esperanto," solo exhibit at Latitude 53, 2004.
[31] David LaRiviere, “Contemplating the Navel,” Latitude 53 Society of Artists Newsletter, December 1996, 5.
[32] Cindy Baker, artist statement for "Fetish Object," group exhibition at SNAP Gallery, 2000.
[33] David LaRiviere, “Contemplating the Navel,” Latitude 53 Society of Artists Newsletter, December 1996, 4.
[34] Mario Trono, ‘Literally the Great West Library Show,’ SNAPNewsletter, October 1993, 9.
[35] Ibid.
[36] Charles Mandel, ‘Art you can 'read' adorns Centennial Library facade,’ Edmonton Journal, September 3, 1993, C10.
[37] ‘Andy LaBouche,’ LaBouche Speaks on Art (Slackjaw, America: President’s Choice Press, ‘in it's first and only pressing’) Verses 35-67:2000; as quoted in Angus Wyatt, ‘The Artist as Fool,’ SNAP Newsletter, May 1997, 2.
[38] ‘Andy LaBouche,’ ‘Scandal at SNAP Gallery,’ Fit tO Print, 1998, unpaginated.
[39] Nora Abercrombie, ‘Visual Arts,’ Vue Weekly, December 4, 1997, unpaginated clipping from SNAP archive.
[40] Allen Ball, quoted in ibid.
[41] ‘Helmet von Goiter,’ ‘Much Ado About Nothing: A Genealogical Excavation of the FOP Collective,’ Fit tO Print, 1998, unpaginated.
[42] ‘Andy LaBouche,’ LaBouche Speaks on Art (Slackjaw, America: President’s Choice Press, ‘in it's first and only pressing’) Verses 35-67:2000; as quoted in Angus Wyatt, ‘The Artist as Fool,’ SNAP Newsletter, May 1997, 1.
[43] SNAP’s Fifteenth Anniversary Portfolio, 1997
