The Apartment

The Apartment is honored to present a selection of video art made by John Baldessari and Lawrence Weiner between the years 1970 and 1976. Pulling at the formal constraints of what constitutes an artwork, these early projects utilize seemingly mundane objects and actions to question the structurial underpinnings of image making. Delivered with a common sense of wit and precision, thirty years later these works continue to provoke questions about arts role and relationship to daily life.

The five videos which make up the show will include some of John Baldessari’s most iconic works including I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art, 1971, and Teaching a Plant the Alphabet, 1972 along with Lawrence Weiner’s notoriously explicit A Bit of Matter and a Little Bit More, 1976.

We will also show a text work by Lawrence Weiner, As Long As It Lasts. This public work will be installed in The Apartment and will remain on public exhibition until the end of the foreign occupation of Iraq. This gesture is to remind us of what in contemporary Canadian society we have not experienced, an occupation by a foreign force. This gesture is also aimed at combating the cultural amnesia that has emerged after an initial frenzy of discourse through artist works and exhibitions, which have abated even though the situation has not. The work shall be a constant reminder to us of the startling invasive conditions of occupation.

Please join us for a reception for this exhibition, Saturday, January 26th, 6-8pm. This exhibition will be available for viewing by appointment from January 26th to April 26th.

• The Apartment
• 1450 Chestnut St, Apt. 506
• Vancouver, Canada
• info@theapt.ca