The exhibition Documentary Protocols I is the first of a two-part exhibition project with accompanying publication, curated by Vincent Bonin.

Between 1969 and 1975, certain prominent figures of the Canadian conceptual art scene appropriated documentary procedures associated with bureaucratic functions (reports, seals, letterheads, notary acts, etc.) in order to become self-appointed cultural workers. In 1969, Iain and Ingrid Baxter registered the N.E. Thing Co., whose activities generated a proliferation of administrative documents. Also during that period, Joyce Wieland subverted nationalist propaganda tools to express her ambivalent relationship to her Canadian identity; for the catalogue of her retrospective at the National Gallery of Canada in 1971, Wieland appropriated and modified a government periodical on northern flora. From 1969 to 1974, Vincent Trasov and Michael Morris operated Image Bank, an alternative communication network between artists via the postal system. Beyond their pragmatic dimension, the strategies utilized by Morris/Trasov to administrate the correspondance received by their peers represents both a parody and a utopian reversal of existing models (image banks, address directories). Simultaneously, N.E. Thing Co. and Image Bank also formed extensive archives where the residue of their projects overlapped with the remains of day-to-day transactions. These archives are now housed within the collections of public museums and university galleries. Documentary Protocols 1 juxtaposes the strategies adopted by these artists with this new institutional context.

The Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery’s contemporary exhibition program is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.