Priceless 1 Ill/- VT H I I r • A N C O U Y c K J | Y O l v B I* * (A .X C A3 £ I * (0 3 O o 0 £ ^ M V \ / ^ , /n _ ^ ^ ^ ^^^ ^^^ 1 I f3 LJ-" 1 P f J J J U JJ fduD J B Wir/ Viiiimin'ftiii.", pai'iBBi T'UJ uijj'nwjjjea art a ) 22 WESTENDER Oct. 11-17, 2001 In Your Why Vancouver is perfect for performance art By Mary F r a n c e s Hill to tie us to the past is exactly ^^^^^••••••^^••B" what makes Vancouver a In his first-ever live perform- breeding ground for experiance, Glenn Lewis opened an ment and provocative perumbrella in front of an audi- formance arts, says Lewis, ence; out poured a storm of one of the founders of a perflowers. formance art festival in 1979, This was 1960s Vancouver, whose retrospective show when Lewis was an upstart launches the Live Biennial at artist in his 30s. Flower Peace the Vancouver Art Gallery was considered an avant- Oct. 13 to Nov. 30. garde show, and arguably the "There's a different feel first performance art piece in about Vancouver, we don't Vancouver and Canada. have the artistic history Lewis, a man who went on here," he says. to tour the continent and in"When you go to Montreal, spire the likes of Gathie Falk for instance, it's as if you're and many others to mix the- going halfway to Europe. atre, music, provocation and Here it's freer and much a sense of poetry, has grown more open and experimenup and aged. Now, he's come tal. There's no weight of herright back as a witness to the itage to haul you back." evolution of a medium that Generally, performance art has grown under the unlikely criss-crosses media: theatre, influence of Vancouver itself. traditional art, spoken word, Vancouver has always had music. It's an event, a happenits cultural critics: the city is ing, that could transform an a conservative stronghold, audience far more than any and the newness of it all—the stroll through a serene gallery; absence of classic architec- it could strip away facades and ture, evidence of frontier blow open pretenses. mentality and an anti-intel"The objective is to make lectual bent—has long invited people question what they scorn among people who lay see," says Lewis, who has writclaim to being the cultural ten and leads Mondo Artie elite. But the fact that we #6070 in the rotunda of the don't have an artistic history Vancouver Art Gallery Oct. 13. Mondo Artie uses 16 actor-artists from across Vancouver to enact the story of 'Sleuthlips",anFBI agent looking for draft dodgers in the 1960s, who eventually arrives at an I epiphany of his own. Mondo Artie launches the Live Biennial, a six-week long seies of performances at 16 different galleries across the city— and the first to honour the city's innovative artists since | 1999. That year's Live festival honoured the 20 I years since Lewis and artists Kim Tomzcak and Paul Mexico's Lorena Wolffer Jp4 Wong orperforms Catwalk Envy a t ganized The Western Front, during the Livthe Live Biennial ing Art Performance Festival, in 1979. Grunt gallery director Glen Alteen, who spearheads the Live Biennial, is most proud of the "curatorial parameters" of the Live Biennial—in other words, the different personality that each performer and participating gallery brings to the mix. In his introduction to Live at the End of the Century, a book on performance art in Vancouver, Brice Canyon admits "what is exactly meant by the term 'performance art' is still up for debate; it seems a general conclusion that while not everyone may know what performance art is, almost everyone knows what it isn't." From the beginning, the art form went far beyond shock value and art expression and spilled over into political activism. In 1974, Vincent Trasov donned a costume, got a speaking sidekick and presented himself as Mr. Peanut, a bonafide candidate for Vancouver's mayoral seat. At a time when caricatures were rare, the Mr. Peanut phenomenon provided entertainment and revealed the inanity of the non-issues in the city political environment. (The nut brought in 2,599 votes— 3.4 per cent of the vote in an election that saw Art Phillips in the mayor's seat, over "Aldermen" Darlene Marzari, Art Cowie, Mike Harcourt, and Harry Rankin). Since then, the venture of running for municipal office has devolved into knee-jerk political adventures, minus the insight; in the mid-1990s, voters could choose between Mayor Owen and Zippy the Circus Chimp, Sage Advice, Bugger and The Stainer. If Mr. Peanut cracked open the shell (so to speak) of conventional public life, artists like Lorena Wolffer of Mexico have continued the tradition in more complex global ways. Wolffer's Catwalk Envy at the Western Front involves a group of artists who reveal the harm that NAFTA has wreaked on the lives of Mexican women. At the grunt gallery , Diane Landry spins household objects on turntables; Gallery Gachet's Irene Loughlin pays a risky tribute to those who have died in a Downtown Eastside alley by See PERFORMANCE page 23 Savings by the inch HURRY IN! FROM OCTOBER 1 - 31, 2001 ONLY! 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On Nov. 2 at the lent their Continued from page 22 That's one thing that's al- Access Artist-Run space for the ways attracted me about Centre, he takes his first show, hanging off a fire escape in a Sniffy—it's a local story." cue from 1970s Live, in 1999; neighbourhood alleyway; and With video footage from wrestling performthis year 16 New York's Larry Crone per- the scandal, a bus-ride singa- ance with Yellow Digalleries take forms with artist/author long and dramatic re-enact- ablo, a show in part. The first Michael Turner and Rodney ments, Radix shows the which he'll be Live took place Graham in A Country and West- Sniffy the Rat event helped wired with 15 miin the space of ern Jamboree, sponsored by the the public strip away the crophones as he four-and-a-half Or Gallery, at The Anza Club. cloak over its own hypocrisy. wrestles objects weeks. By the On Oct. 20, Vancouverites But it was the public, and the that can't fight time artists who recall the furour over media attention stretching all back. Like a car. staged the fiGlenn Lewis as Art Rat, with Vincent Travov's Sniffy the Rat will get a the way to Asia and Europe "Performance art Mr. Peanut shell, from the book Live at The End of the nal shows, perchance to re-live it with Radix that fueled its popularity, is a new way of Century: Aspects of Performance Art in Vancouver. formance Theatre's Sniffy the Rat bus and, in the end, made it a per- working for me, For more info, log on to www.livevancouver.bc.ca spaces were tour—a performance art fect piece of performance. standingrather than being a event that mimics a studio rat," says Yonge. nial speaks to how independ- room-only. To Alteen, that's a tour bus and pays trib"When people yell and ent the artistic scene is in testament to the Vancouute to the 1990 Sniffy scream and get into the Vancouver, and its popularity verites' acceptance of the art the Rat controversy, a show, that's great." among gallery operators and form in the last 22 years. performance art event Perfomance art has venThe thing that allows art aficionadoes, he says. that brought the performance artists to world's attention to buck trends that define Vancouver. other art forms is that there are no trends. The fact that such a There are no official controversial performrules for the performance art piece (or meance artist. And bedia stunt) happened in cause it's such a modVancouver is not lost ern hybrid, there's noon Radix Theatre's Andrew Laurenson, a co- Hester Reeve's 2001: a space odyssey, an one who has set a standard. creator of the Sniffy excavation of truth to be broadcast at "It has no ShakeThe Rat anniversary the Grunt Gallery. speare, no Beethoven," bus tour. says Alteen of the grunt "Vancouver does That spontaneous audi- gallery. "It isn't a methodolohave this reputation for a lot of performance art activity....I ence reaction fuels the artist gy. There really isn't a pracdid feel with the tour that be- as well, according to David tice of it, it isn't a discipline ing on a bus, it really gave a Yonge, or Yellowboy, who of theatre and music and chance to learn about our charmed young audiences at dance. It exists as a history city and where we live and the Blinding Light!! Cinema and it allows you a whole lot the stories we have to tell," with Smell-o-Vision, a send-up of freedom." of the 1950s Hollywood cineThe diversity of Live Biensays Laurenson. PERFORMANCE 23 tured so far into the "mainstream," Alteen says, that it's spilled out into the pop culture and trash-type TV. "What I see as performance art is the way in which television has abandoned the narrative, with this 'reality TV thing, and the Survivor phenomenon." Lewis sees it spilling far into a more conservative realm of academia. "I was talking to an artist yesterday who is going to Mexico for a conference on performance art. There was never such a thing before," he says. "This is being taught more in art schools and universities, it's become more acceptable, and institutiutionalized." N O S F E R A T U Wednesday, Oct. 3 1 , 20011 8PM ] ORPHEUM THEATRE The original Dracula! This Silent Film classic marks the first and scariest film appearance of the most famous vampire of all. Based on Bram Stoker's classic novel, Nosferatu is a milestone of cinematic achievement ~ and you'll never have more fun being scared! Join us for this very special Halloween celebration, with Nosferatu and the full symphony orchestra! I Helpful a Available Call VSO Customer Service 604.876.3434 liiliiililllliyiiilill 604.280.3311 - Staff * A t Cioveriale Paint, you won't have any proMetn finding soitteene to help yon. * Talk t o experienced, knewledgealile staff* * Got. a question? WmmM lnMpdMiitcioverdaSepaint.coin or visit our new and improved website wwwxloverdalepaint.com P A I N T Tickets $20 & $25 service charges apply i \ V Single tickets available at all tmu&tm&smr outlets or buy online at www.ticketmaster.ca A N C O U V E R 5JMPHONY BRAMWELL TOVEY, Music Director for GROUP SALES information call 604.684.9100 OFFICIAL AIRLINE AIR CANADA ( OFFICIAL VEHICLE MEDIA SPONSORS Global TllF. 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