Glenn Lewis (Canadian, b. 1935) is a contemporary conceptual artist based in Vancouver. Lewis became a central figure within Vancouver’s prolific avant-garde art scene of the late 1960s. Initially trained in ceramics, his practice expanded to include photography, sculpture, performance and video, and is often grounded in collaborative projects or approaches. Lewis’s work questions the dualities of the social and the natural, the conventional and the mythical, as well as the static and the transient. Over time he has become increasingly inspired by paradise myths, nature and topiary, which motivated his travels around the world photographing gardens. These interests intersect in his commitment to preserving rare and regional botany. Lewis received a degree from the Vancouver School of Art in 1958 (now Emily Carr University) and later a teaching degree from the University of British Columbia. He went on to study ceramics under artist and potter Bernard Leach at St. Ives in Cornwall, England from 1961 to 1963. Upon returning to Vancouver, Lewis became involved in numerous artists’ collectives and artist-run centres, including Intermedia (1970) and the New Era Social Club (1968). In 1973, he co-founded the Western Front Society with Martin Bartlett, Mo van Nostrand, Kate Craig, Henry Greenhow, Eric Metcalfe, Michael Morris and Vincent Trasov. As an educator, arts administrator and arts programmer, Lewis has curated numerous exhibitions and programs, including the Performance Art Program at the Western Front (1977-79), the Exhibition Program at the Western Front (1986-87) and the Western Front Historical Exhibition at the Künstlerhaus Stuttgart, Germany (1983). Lewis has served on numerous boards and councils, including the Vancouver Art Gallery Board of Directors and the Western Front Board of Directors. His work has been exhibited extensively across Canada and abroad.
Althea Thauberger (Canadian, b. 1970) is an interdisciplinary artist, filmmaker and educator based in Vancouver. Rooted in sustained collaborative research and practice with groups or communities, Thauberger’s work investigates relationships between people and structures such as the state, economies, social codes, histories and traditions through aesthetic and institutional power relations. Born in Saskatoon, SK, she received a BFA from Concordia University and an MFA from the University of Victoria. Her work has been widely exhibited both nationally and internationally including at Presentation House Gallery, North Vancouver (2005), Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (2006), Vancouver Art Gallery (2008, 2011) and the Musée d’Art Contemporain Montréal (2017), among others. She was shortlisted for the 2004 Sobey Art Award and the recipient of the 2011 VIVA Award. Alongside an active research and artistic practice, Thauberger has taught at Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Simon Fraser University, University of Victoria and Concordia University. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Visual Art at the University of British Columbia.
While the subject of food fits into a long tradition of artistic representation, chiefly in the still life genre, the performance of food preparation seldom figures in art. Test kitchen is a cooking term that designates an experimental space for the development of new recipes. This exhibition brings together the work of artists from the early 1970s to the present, to investigate food as a conduit for ideas of social ritual, commerce, pleasure and visual representation.
In April 1977, Ingrid and Iain Baxter of N.E. Thing Co. opened the Eye Scream Restaurant at 2043 West 4th Avenue in Vancouver. Photo-documentation of Eye Scream presented in the exhibition recalls the playful combinations of art and cooking which contributed to Vancouver’s rich conceptual tradition. Test Kitchen also features video works by Glenn Lewis, Martha Rosler and Demian Petryshyn investigating aspects of power involved in making and consuming food.
This will be the first Vancouver showing of Rosler’s A Budding Gourmet. The exhibition also traces certain shifts in the symbolic deployment of food in art since the 1990s. Kelly Wood’s photographs of sugar, Althea Thauberger’s Thanksgiving I (Chicken Dinner) and Rhonda Weppler’s simulations of mundane condiments examine aesthetic tropes of artifice and styling in food presentation. While Meesoo Lee’s video works treat food clichés with wit and humour, Kira Wu monumentalizes stories of her brothers in the restaurant profession through posters and a movie trailer.
This exhibition is curated by Jessie Caryl and Veronika Klaptocz with the assistance of Liz Bruchet, Jamila Dunn, Cara Krmpotich and Michelle Willard, and with financial support from the Critical and Curatorial Studies Program, University of British Columbia.
Glenn Lewis (Canadian, b. 1935) is a contemporary conceptual artist based in Vancouver. Lewis became a central figure within Vancouver’s prolific avant-garde art scene of the late 1960s. Initially trained in ceramics, his practice expanded to include photography, sculpture, performance and video, and is often grounded in collaborative projects or approaches. Lewis’s work questions the dualities of the social and the natural, the conventional and the mythical, as well as the static and the transient. Over time he has become increasingly inspired by paradise myths, nature and topiary, which motivated his travels around the world photographing gardens. These interests intersect in his commitment to preserving rare and regional botany. Lewis received a degree from the Vancouver School of Art in 1958 (now Emily Carr University) and later a teaching degree from the University of British Columbia. He went on to study ceramics under artist and potter Bernard Leach at St. Ives in Cornwall, England from 1961 to 1963. Upon returning to Vancouver, Lewis became involved in numerous artists’ collectives and artist-run centres, including Intermedia (1970) and the New Era Social Club (1968). In 1973, he co-founded the Western Front Society with Martin Bartlett, Mo van Nostrand, Kate Craig, Henry Greenhow, Eric Metcalfe, Michael Morris and Vincent Trasov. As an educator, arts administrator and arts programmer, Lewis has curated numerous exhibitions and programs, including the Performance Art Program at the Western Front (1977-79), the Exhibition Program at the Western Front (1986-87) and the Western Front Historical Exhibition at the Künstlerhaus Stuttgart, Germany (1983). Lewis has served on numerous boards and councils, including the Vancouver Art Gallery Board of Directors and the Western Front Board of Directors. His work has been exhibited extensively across Canada and abroad.
Althea Thauberger (Canadian, b. 1970) is an interdisciplinary artist, filmmaker and educator based in Vancouver. Rooted in sustained collaborative research and practice with groups or communities, Thauberger’s work investigates relationships between people and structures such as the state, economies, social codes, histories and traditions through aesthetic and institutional power relations. Born in Saskatoon, SK, she received a BFA from Concordia University and an MFA from the University of Victoria. Her work has been widely exhibited both nationally and internationally including at Presentation House Gallery, North Vancouver (2005), Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (2006), Vancouver Art Gallery (2008, 2011) and the Musée d’Art Contemporain Montréal (2017), among others. She was shortlisted for the 2004 Sobey Art Award and the recipient of the 2011 VIVA Award. Alongside an active research and artistic practice, Thauberger has taught at Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Simon Fraser University, University of Victoria and Concordia University. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Visual Art at the University of British Columbia.