The Rhubarb Society @ Tracey Lawrence Gallery
The Rhubarb Society
Anne Collier, Adam McEwen, Jonathan Middleton, John Pilson, Kathy Slade
September 16 Â October 14, 2006
Opening Saturday, September 16 at 6pm
The Tracey Lawrence Gallery is pleased to present The Rhubarb Society, a group exhibition that brings together five international artists who are informed equally by popular culture and the history and legacy of conceptual art, and who work in a variety of media to address the relationship of visual art and language.
Vancouver artist/curator Jonathan Middleton contributed the title, The Rhubarb Society, as one of his artworks in the exhibition. Middleton took the title from a Goon Show skit in which a crowd is heard to be murmuring the word rhubarb over and over again. A speaker who identifies the group as
members of the Rhubarb Society then brings the crowd to order. The joke, a play on language, is based on the common practice employed by film directors of instructing extras to repeat the word rhubarb out of synch with each other in order to create a realistic crowd sound.
Until recently Jonathan Middleton was the curator of Western Front Exhibitions. He has curated over forty-five exhibitions including Organization for Cultural Exchange and Disagreement at Westspace, Melbourne, and Binocular Parallax at Consolidated Works, Seattle. Middleton¹s work has been included in exhibitions at Artspeak Gallery and the Or Gallery in Vancouver, and at the Chicago International Film Festival.
Anne Collier is an artist from Los Angeles who is currently based in New York. Collier produces minimalist photographs often based on pop culture sources such as found cassette tapes and records. She has exhibited in the USA, UK and Europe and most recently participated in the 2006 Whitney
Biennial. Collier is represented by Corvi-Mora in London (UK), Mark Foxx in Los Angeles, and Jack Hanley in San Francisco. This is Collier¹s first exhibition in Canada.
Adam McEwen is a British artist who lives and works in New York. McEwen studied English Literature at Oxford University and Visual Arts at California Institute of the Arts. His work blends visual art and text in a variety of media. McEwen has exhibited extensively throughout the USA, UK and Europe and, like Collier, participated in the 2006 Whitney Biennial. McEwen is represented by Nicole Klagsbrun in New York, Jack Hanley in San Francisco and Alessandra Bonomo Gallery in Rome. This is McEwen¹s first
exhibition in Vancouver.
John Pilson lives and works in New York. His film, video and photographic work humorously points to the unexpected while exploring social mores. Pilson has exhibited internationally including exhibitions at Centre Pompidou in Paris, Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Venice Biennale.
Pilson is represented by Nicole Klagsbrun in New York.
Kathy Slade is an artist from Vancouver who often works in machine embroidery. She proposes relationships between traditional embroidery samplers and texts and images from contemporary pop culture and art history. Slade has exhibited locally, nationally, in the USA and in Europe. She is
represented by Tracey Lawrence Gallery.
The exhibition is co-curated by John Pilson and Kathy Slade.
For further information contact Tracey Lawrence or Chris Keatley at 604 730
2875 or by e-mail at info@traceylawrencegallery.com
Tracey Lawrence Gallery
1531 West 4th Avenue
Vancouver, BC
Canada V6J 1L6
Phone +1 604 730 2875
E-mail info@traceylawrencegallery.com