Practices Within an Artist-run Culture 1969-2005
By Clive Robertson
Sunday 11 March until Saturday 14 April 2007

Thursday 12 April 2007
Reception at 7pm
Panel Discussion at 8pm
Reception continues at 9pm

A Living Archive: This project began in 1999 as an attempt to assemble and organize a personal and fragmented art production archive of print documents (photos, scores, programs, posters, correspondence, etc.) and audio and video recordings. The latter includes video art and documentary productions, audio art and alternative music, documentation of performances, curatorial projects, symposia, etc. The audiotape portion of the archive contains some 200 hours of material including many interviews with artists, curators, critics and arts administrators. The terminal goal of this organizing and digitizing process is to deposit the collection into a public archive.

Kingston’s Clive Robertson is in our main space with his Then +Then Again retrospective until Saturday 14 April. Clive’s show is an overview of his work at artist-run centres over the last thirty some years. There’s a ton weight of stuff: projections of video work, music to listen to, borrow and burn, and plenty of print materials. We’ll be hosting a panel discussion with Clive “The Glide” and our own Elizabeth “The Chitster” Chitty, Tobey “The Krammen Fuhrer” Anderson on Thursday 12 April. Another Kingstonite, Dave “Da Wei” Gordon will also be joining the panel and showing down the street at CRAM. Dorene “Mimi” Inglis, also from Kingston, completes the friendly take-over with a show in NAC’s DTMG. Get all the details in this especially compelling and robust edition of the eNews.

With the cooperation and collaboration of Kingston’s artist-run centre, Modern Fuel, Then + Then Again is developed as an archival retrospective exhibition of individual and collaborative projects made between 1969-2005, including never before circulated projects “Speaking of our Culture” (1982) – Video interviews about cultural politics with Chris Bearchell and Gerald Hannon (The Body Politic), Krisantha Sri Bhaagiyadatta (Domestic Bliss Press) and Jesse Daniel (Gayap Rhythm Drummers), and “Sprechen Sie Beuys?” (1979) - Clive Robertson and Lisa Steele’s video interview with Joseph Beuys in Düsseldorf about the Green Party and new social movements. Large format multi-panel compositions display samplings from the archive, including: Events & Festivals, Performances, Video Art, Exhibitions, and Panels and Symposia presented between 1970 – 2005 at The Western Front, W.O.R.K.S., Parachute Center for Cultural Affairs and Arton’s, The New Gallery, Syntax, ACA Galleries, Neutral Ground, Plug-In, NAC, A Space, CEAC, v/tape, Art Metropole, Trinity Square Video, YYZ, The Funnel, The Music Gallery, FADO, 7a*11d, Galerie 01, Galerie SAW Vidéo, Ottawa Art Gallery, KAAI/Modern Fuel, Agnes therington Art Centre, Boréal ultimedia, Véhicule Art, Oboro, Articule, Studio XX, Optica, Obscure, Le Lieu, Struts, Eye Level, and he Centre for Art Tapes.

Exhibition Tour funded through the 2006 Touring & Collaborations Program of the Ontario Arts Council.