Bruce A Barber

On 7 March 1990 the National Gallery of Canada issued a press release announcing its purchase of a large abstract painting by the American artist Barnett Newman for $1.8 million. Within 72 hours the gallery was under attack both for its selection of Voice of Fire and for the price tag attached to it. Objections came from across Canada and from all quarters.The Voice of Fire controversy was the most extensive and heated debate over visual art ever to have taken place in Canada. This anthology can be seen as a case-study, providing both a historical account of the outcome of the National Gallery's purchase of the painting and an understanding of why the gallery's actions provoked such strong opinions and feelings. In this volume the editors also address the peculiar and paradoxical character of abstract art in general and the problems it consistently poses for viewers. Newman's work is presented as the focus of these concerns.The attack on the gallery by the press, the general public, Canadian artists, and politicians is documented in the first section by a broad selection of cartoons satirizing the painting, press photographs, news releases, editorials, letters to the editor, and public exchanges. In the second section three essays offer contrasting accounts of the controversy and its significance. The first considers the social processes by which art becomes art, the second focuses on the role of the media in shaping public opinion about art, and the third compares the reception of Voice of Fire in two distinctive frameworks, first at Expo '67 in Montreal and then in Ottawa in 1990. In the final part four papers given at a symposium on Voice of Fire organized by the gallery in October 1990 (a combined effort at damage control and art criticism) are presented, as well as a transcription of the public dialogue between speakers and audience which followed.

Illustrating the complex and diverse nature of "notions of performance", Pontbriand's introduction precedes contributions by 16 artists exemplifying their work. Situating performance historically and socially, ten critical essays examine various facets of the phenomenon, including: the distinction between American and European sensibilities; its function as a mode of communication; its prominence in the shift of the nature and function of art; and its efficacy from a feminist perspective. Canadian artists at the Western Front and from the Toronto area are highlighted in two texts.

Editors Lexier and Lander present the anthology of the art of sound as an attempt to identify sound as an art practice and to highlight the non-visual aspects of perception. Includes 37 texts and a list of selected recorded works by the artists, biographical notes on the 35 contributors and an extensive bibliography (14 p.).

Abstract ‘Whatever’ as the ethical ground for the potentiality of a ‘party without party’ (Partei ohne Partei). Herman Melville’s Bartleby, the scrivener, says ‘I would prefer not to’ three times. This famous speech act constitutes the urtext ‘what if/ever potentiality’ of Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben’s ethics for the contemporary philosopher (as) scrivener; the one who like the party without party (senza il partito) member, may engage in ‘an experience of the possible as such’. Does this privileging of potentiality in the political process coincide with the renunciation of the creative will to power in Guy Debord’s famous line from his film Critique de la séparation (1961), Taking his cues from Aristotle’s Metaphysics ‘thought thinking itself, which is a kind of mean between thinking nothing and thinking something, between potentiality and actuality’, Agamben affirms the anaphorised potential of Bartleby’s speech act: ‘I would prefer not to prefer not to’. What if conventional party politics, partisanship left/centre/right divisions were a thing of the past? Now to the Dead Letter Box and the potentialities of a Partei ohne Partei (party without party)! Barber’s détournement of the original Surrealist map is a situationist enterprise and related to the question of building arbitrary barriers such as the ‘Trump wall’ between the US and Mexico and the relinquishing of the open borders implicit in the European project initiated when Charles de Gaulle stated ‘Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals’, which in 1967 implicitly included Great Britain.

In June 2001 an item on CBC Radio Two's The Arts Report included a sound bite from the Banff television festival. It was of an award presenter rhyming off the countries - at least half a dozen - involved in one of the many co-produced winning programs. "Can anybody think of any ...

This text is the result of a discussion conducted via email between Oliver Ressler and Bruce Barber during March 2014. The topics were wide ranging and focused upon material presented by Ressler in his invited lecture at NSCAD University as part of the Public Lecture series. Key topics explored in the conversation include Austrian politics, art and activism, interventionism, collaboration, operative and engaged art practice, the ‘coming community’ (Agamben), ‘Dark Matter’ of the art world (Sholette) and specific projects: Robbery (2008), The Bull Laid Bear (2008) What Is Democracy? (2011), and We Have a Situation Here (2011).

When Brecht wrote the above in 1936, he was championing a "new" kind of theatre that was realistic, sensual, critical, and above all didactic. Without the apoliticism and detached irony of a Duchamp, he wished to put theatre "once again at the service of the mind." Like Duchamp, Brecht abhorred the natural-the status quo; unlike Duchamp, who was by calling an iconoclast, Brecht was primarily interested in providing his audience with critical works that dealt with the problems of the past as these had evolved into the present-brought to the people as criticism, for criticism. The abnegation implicit in a Duchamp statement such as "there is no answer because there is no problem" would, for the German playwright, have been tantamount to travesty-perhaps even a curious kind of Pontius Pilate self-absolution. For Brecht, problems once recognized, demand answers, and answers invariably necessitate change.

''Gathering together eight seminal essayes, by Bruce Alistaire Barber, Thomas Crow, Hal Foster , Reesa Greenberg, Serge Guilbaut, Hans Haacke, Jean-Francois Lyotard, and Rene Payant, this first volume of Parachute : The Anthology (1975 - 2000) addresses the state and function of art history, criticism, and theory in their own particular moment. An introduction by Alexander Alberro and Nora M. Alter considers the history of this unconventional and theoretically cutting-edge magazine - bridging theory between Europe and the America at a time when these were still very distinct worlds - and how this anthology constitutes and invaluable document of the changes in both art practice and writing from 1975 to 2000.''-- p. [4] of cover.

Following a text stating the originality of "Turbulence", a London-based radio show dedicated to the arts, Barber documents its history. Includes a list of the first 112 programs (1981-1984) with their titles and a brief description of each.

A Book which Surveys four decades of Action Art from 1958-98. It compiles data from a range of countries across the worlds written up by Artists, Historians, and Critics in each country. The book is an authorative document or Seminal Publication on Performance Art and Action ...

Contents
Introduction
Mark Cheetham: Framing Reading: Bruce Barber
Wystan/Curnow/Bruce Barber: Answers to Three Questions
Wystan Curnow: Vital Speeches/Agit-Lecture
Richard Bolton: The Pedagogical Museum

Reading Room I, A Visual Analysis of Corporate Advertising
Reading Room II, Remembering Vietnam, again
Re-reading and Re-writing History
Reading Room III, The Red Room
Excision, Detournement and reading the Open Text

Essays:
Notes toward and Adequate Interventionist Performance Practice
Cinematic Subversion and the Theory of the Avant-Garde

... The chapter introduces preliminary readings of four films in which art, desire and death intersect : Alfred Hitchcock s Blackmail (1929), Fritz Lang s Scarlet Street (1945), Tim Burton s Batman (1989) and Iain Softley s Backbeat (1994). ...

First published in the UK in 2011 by Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK First published in the USA in 2011 by Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA Copyright© 2011 Intellect Ltd All rights reserved. ...

... Conserver l'ancienne écriture équivaut à dire que l'actuelle Ariane est de peu de fumée, et qu'un lampion (faible lueur des ... Performance was discussed in mid-decade symposia as « the unifying mode of our time » BENAMOU M. in Performance in Post-Modem Culture (eds. ...

Vol. 1 consists of fourteen interviews with leading artists in Canada and the U.S. conducted from 1977 -2007 and is generously illustrated with many landmark performances.
Vol. 2 A collection of twelve essays by Bruce Barber edited and with an introduction by Marc James Leger.