Jean-Marie Delavalle, Unidentified student producing a Wall Drawing by Sol LeWitt in his classroom, Montreal / 1973. 126. P027-02-870. Concordia University Archives, Montréal.
In the early 1970s, a number of artist collectives and cultural producers incorporated as non-profit organizations in order to disseminate art practices that were still considered marginal (conceptual art, performance, etc.). In conjunction with the fulfillment of administrative tasks that their institutional existence required, they also created a shared mail-based network. In the same spirit, they utilized cable television and portable video cameras to circumvent communications media hegemony. Within these frameworks, the document represented both a vehicle for decentralized exchanges and the result of bureaucratic transactions.
Some of the organizations dating from these first instances of a self-management paradigm rapidly disbanded while others have survived, despite mandate changes and member rotation. Consequently, individuals with differing ideological views were united under a common corporate name. The historical trajectory of these organizations can be observed in their archival fonds, where the results of partially realized utopias exist alongside material evidence of the artists’ labour. Today, these archives are often entrusted to public museums or university collections.
Documentary Protocols II offers a fragmentary narrative relating to a pivotal period (1967-75) and also highlights the conflicting demands of both displaying archives according to museum standards and making them accessible as research material. The original documents are grouped into thematic clusters linked to the evolution of a structure in which artists developed information management systems. A free publication that includes a commentary, a list of the documents and chronological references accompanies this selection of original documents. A larger number of photocopied documents are presented without an interpretative apparatus.
This exhibition is the second part of a project conceived by Vincent Bonin. A book, the third part of this project, will be published in 2009.
EXPLORE
- The ways in which mimicry, irony, and humour function in many of the documents presented here
- The importance of the document and, by extension, the importance of the emulation of the administrative ethos in artistic practices of the 1960’s and 1970’s in Canada
- The tensions and conflicts that exist between archiving the types of documents presented here and making them accessible
A FEW QUESTIONS
- What led to artist collectives and cultural workers deciding to incorporate as non-profit organizations, and what did this allow them to achieve?
- Why did video become so important, both as a tool and as a medium, at this time?
- What were the relevance and the importance of the development of the network, in all its possible forms?
Produced with the support of the Frederick and Mary Kay Lowy Art Education Fund.
Curator: Vincent Bonin
Exhibition produced by the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
Curator's commentary
In 1966, engineers from Bell Telephone Laboratories and a group of avant-garde New York artists founded Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.). This international organisation acted as an intermediary between industry and the cultural field to promote interdisciplinary collaborations. To this end, it produced a variety of tools (forms, punch cards, directories) to gather, analyse and disseminate information on the individuals in each of the two groups. E.A.T. chapters were established in Toronto and Montreal in the late 1960s.
During this period, artists created the Art Workers Coalition (New York, 1969), whose political perspectives provided a counterpoint to a utopia of technological emancipation. The members of this collective criticised the collusion between cultural institutions and the military-industrial complex and forged new models of social engagement. Among its numerous pressure tactics, the AWC tried to organise a public discussion forum at the Museum of Modern Art. When MoMA refused to host this opportunity for self-critique, the group held the discussion forum at the School of Visual Arts. The participants’ speeches were then gathered together and distributed as a collective manifesto. The cover page of the document ironically evoked the effort to occupy the Museum by displaying the AWC logo on a MoMA membership card.
Founded in 1968 in London, Ontario, the Canadian Artists Representation (CAR) had espoused a similar mandate. However, its demands focused primarily on artist remuneration and recognition of intellectual property rights that did not question the ideological underpinnings of the art world.
Just a few years apart, Intermedia Society (1967) and the N.E. Thing Co. collective (1969), employing the services of the same Vancouver notary, incorporated their ventures as non-profit companies. Redirecting the process through irony, N.E. Thing Co. represented a fictional, albeit legal company (see Documentary Protocols I). The Intermedia Society, however, provided actual services. In both cases, the artists involved were redefining themselves as cultural workers and information managers.
Influenced by the theories of Marshall McLuhan, Intermedia Society embarked on a media democratisation project, wherein the equipment acquired through government grants would become common property.
Just as the data from grant applications and other transactions was filed by the machinery of government, the Society’s members used the postal system to communicate informally with their peers. In the process, they established an opening between this bureaucracy and the free flow of information, as is evidenced in the Society’s archival fonds (housed at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver). It includes meeting minutes, reports and other documents on the implementation of this open access to hardware and the results of decentralized exchanges.
Given the communicational dimension of the activities conducted by Intermedia Society, many individuals also accumulated documents relating to the centre in their personal archives (Michael Morris/Vincent Trasov, Victor Doray). The organisation was disbanded in 1972, but it spurred the founding of a number of other entities that went on to pursue similar mandates (Video Inn, Western Front Society).
In 1971, the Canadian Department of Manpower and Immigration launched the Local Initiatives program (LIP/PIL) in an attempt to reduce unemployment through job creation projects within non-profit organisations. Numerous artist-run centres took advantage of these new opportunities.
In response to certain requirements of the program, artists expanded the scope of their activity to include other professional sectors. As a result, some artists introduced information processing tools to subtly work around this administrative structure. Intermedia Society, for example, set out to map the ecosystems of Vancouver. Its members used a variety of methods derived from social sciences and urban planning to collect and analyse a wide range of data. In the same spirit, the Toronto collective General Idea produced FILE Megazine to address the lack of communication tools available to artists.
In addition to its articles and address lists, the first issue of FILE Megazine included a blank map of Canada and the United States and invited readers to draw the border between the two countries from memory. In the next issue, the submitted entries were collectively represented on the map, along with a commentary by General Idea.
In 1970, a group of artists created the Nightingale Arts Council (NAC), whose mandate consisted of disseminating art practices that were still marginalised in Toronto’s museums and galleries (conceptual art, experimental film, performance and video art). A Space, the Council’s principal project, offered a neutral vehicle supported by its users. In much the same fashion, News, the A Space newsletter, published information provided by artists without manipulating or influencing its content. The notion of space is understood here both as a physical and discursive entity, thus paralleling conceptual art’s radical approach. This strategy also sought to eliminate intermediaries (critic, curator, dealer) and their influence on how art works were received.
Upon the NAC’s incorporation in 1971, its members drew up a charter that would provide them with greater flexibility as service providers. This allowed A Space to open both a community video production studio and a café. Like Intermedia Society, the centre initially corresponded with its peers under cover of anonymity. Subsequently, certain individuals named as board members acted as a bridge between the Council and artists seeking an exhibition venue or access to technological resources. The A Space fonds is now housed at the Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto).
In making use of the Portapak system in the 1970s, artist collectives were quick to encourage its use among their peers. In fact, Radical Software, the magazine published by Raindance Corporation (New York) became the communication platform for activists involved in experimental video and television.
This endeavour also extended to Canada. Michael Goldberg and Image Bank created singular tools to survey an emerging community. By distributing forms, they gathered the addresses of video makers as well as a brief description of the way in which each used the technology. The data collected was then compiled in the frequently updated Video Exchange Directory.
In 1973, in collaboration with Trisha Hardman, Goldberg organised the Matrix Conference in Vancouver. As an entry fee, participants had to donate a tape. This exchange method gave rise to the collection of the Video Inn/Video Satellite Exchange Society, founded the same year.
In 1971, Robert Forget—a producer with the National Film Board of Canada—created Vidéographe (Montreal) with the same democratic vision. Originally an arm of the NFB, the centre was incorporated in 1973 as an independent organisation.
Upon submission of a project, people seeking to produce documentaries and experimental video works gained access to Vidéographe’s resources. Each step of the production process was covered, from the rental of the Portapak system to the broadcasting of the work in the centre’s “vidéothéâtre.” Its premises were permanently open (24 hours a day), and its team created an ad hoc module (known as an “éditomètre”) configured to facilitate the otherwise arduous task of editing. The video Entrée en scène, éditomètre, sélectovision (1972) presents the full slate of services offered by Vidéographe during its early years.
However, the centre did not limit itself to its mandate as an equipment supplier. Other communication tools helped distribute these video documents across the Quebec audiovisual landscape. Through what were known as “vidéofiches,” Quebecers living outside Montreal could receive free copies of works on record by mailing in a blank tape. The cable network was also used as an innovative distribution channel.
Les Knock Outés (1971) and États généraux de la culture au Québec (1973) aptly illustrate how two groups—newspaper typographers from La presse and artists—made use of the same technical framework to spread their activist views. The Vidéographe fonds is housed at the Cinémathèque québécoise (Montreal).
In 1972, Véhicule art (Montréal) inc. was incorporated as a non-profit company. Its mandate, much like that of A Space, was to disseminate practices marginalised by museums and commercial galleries. Like the Toronto centre, it used a spatial metaphor (the vehicle), placing emphasis on the accessibility of its technological and human resources.
Véhicule Art’s archival fonds (housed at Concordia University in Montreal) recounts the genesis of such a structure before the bureaucratization of the parallel gallery network in Canada. From its earliest years, Véhicule art (Montréal) inc. created administrative tools adapted to a self-managed framework. Artists seeking an exhibition venue would fill in a form, explaining their reasons for choosing this gallery. Véhicule Art also produced questionnaires to survey the user community on its services and Montreal’s cultural institutions.
In 1973, a singular event led to a convergence of the artists’ role as cultural mediators and the theoretical issues surrounding conceptual art. Artist Sol LeWitt sent instructions for the production of Wall Drawing on the gallery’s walls. To inaugurate its education program, Véhicule Art invited students from a number of educational institutions (high schools, universities) to produce the work in their classrooms. The differences between LeWitt’s instructions and their physical manifestation became fertile ground for discussion about the transmission of a dematerialized artwork.
The exhibition file today contains tangible evidence of the initiative: LeWitt’s instructions to Véhicule Art, notes for the preparation of student workshops, photos of multiple versions of the work, and a report chronicling the associated educational activities.
In most artist-run centres and other self-run organisations, artists tended to clearly distinguish administrative tasks from their artistic practices. Still, some chose to intentionally blur the line dividing these two activities.
Created in 1969 in Toronto, the General Idea collective (AA Bronson, Felix Partz, Jorge Zontal) decided to incorporate itself under the name Art Official in the early 1970s to offer services to the community.
The existence of Art Official was initially manifested through the publication of FILE Megazine (1972). The organisation then founded Art Metropole (1974) as a repository for archives accumulated since 1968 and in order to disseminate artist publications. In both cases, the collective subtly diverted an existing framework. FILE reconfigured the graphic style of the American magazine LIFE. The letterhead and cover of the first Art Metropole catalogue recreated the architectural rendering of the façade of the artist-run centre from a 1917 municipal document (during a time when the Yonge Street building housed an art supply store). General Idea and Art Metropole amassed separate archives, which are now held at the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa).
Close collaborators of General Idea, the eight founding members of the Western Front Society in Vancouver bought a building in 1973 that became their living space and a site for interdisciplinary experiments.
Founders of the Western Front, Morris and Trasov also worked under the name Image Bank. In this capacity, they envisioned the accumulation of documents as an artistic strategy in itself (see Documentary Protocols I). The results of this project and the residual documentation relating to the daily transactions of the two artists existed alongside the archives of the Western Front Society before being entrusted to the University of British Columbia. The Morris/Trasov fonds itself is housed at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery (Vancouver).
Additional sources of information
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