work by
1. meesoo lee with the radio
2. scott russell
3. galia eibenschutz + alexis zabe
4. txema
5. pedro “zulu” gonzalez
6. peaches by lisa kannako
7. silverio by miguel calderon
8. jin’s banana house
9. tony romano + shayne ehman with the grassy knowles
10. jon sasaki
11. paige stain
12. jordan sonenberg with the evil plans
13. hidden cameras by laura cowell
14. chris mills
15. greg hefford

limited edition ic DVD video compilation produced with the financial assistance of The Edmonton Art Gallery

soundtracks is a diverse look at how music and visual art influenced each other over the 20th century. It is produced by The Edmonton Art Gallery in partnership with the Blackwood Gallery, the MacKenzie Art Gallery and the McMichael Canadian Art Collection with the support of the Department of Canadian Heritage, Museums Assistance Program.

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The Edmonton Art Gallery presents soundtracks

Saturday, June 28 to September 14.
Opening: Friday, June 27th, 7PM ­ 9PM.

Re-play
Curated by Catherine Crowston and Barbara Fischer

Re-play focuses on the role of popular music in contemporary Canadian art from the 1970s on. In particular, it will explore the ways in which music has emerged as a model for sociability in the mediums of film, video performance, and installation – a way of formulating immersion in (and perhaps even differentiation from) a collective sense of being. This is manifest through improvisation and karaoke, through the interpretive re-mixing and sampling of material and through individualized expression of collective longings.

Re-play addresses the active and/or passive relations we form with popular music – “how we create the soundtrack of our lives.² Whether realized in the form of the collective “band” or “group” or whether enjoyed individually, music has a way of realizing the relation between the individual and society – not least of all through its easy dissemination and repetition through records, CDs, DJs, the radio and television. It seems that, for this very reason, music has emerged as an urgent, or acutely relevant “medium” for contemporary artists around the world.

Participating artists: David Armstrong, Joanne Bristol, Stan Douglas Raymond Gervais, Rodney Graham, Pascal Grandmaison, Instant Coffee, Tim Lee, Ian Murray, Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay, Shannon Oksanen, Kevin Schmidt, Steven Shearer, Zin Taylor, Ron Terada, Althea Thauberger and Holly Ward.

See Hear!
Curated by Timothy Long and Ben Portis

The 1960s were a time of intense image-sound experimentation that changed the way we see and hear. From avant-garde composition to jazz improvisation to multi-media experimentation, Canadian artists responded to a range of sonic forms, creating new sight-sound hybrids in painting, film, and performance. Drawn from these diverse investigations, See Hear! focuses on six models of image-sound interaction that emerged in the period between 1961 and 1965. These models represent a spectrum of possibilities: from constructive analogies to multi-media exchanges, from individual initiatives to collective improvisations. Together the models point to a shifting paradigm, as international modernist values connected with the purity of the medium, the sanctity of the studio, and the separation of art and society were challenged by a variety of robust hybrids. While some artists explored art-music relationships within traditional boundaries, many responded to the border crossing practices of artists such as Marcel Duchamp, composers such as John Cage and the interdisciplinary nature of theatre, dance and film. In some notable cases they became active participants in non-traditional performance groups and musical bands as an important component of their artistic practice.

Participating Artists:
Emma Lake Artists’ Workshops 1964-65: Lawrence Alloway, Jack Behrens, John Cage, Ted Godwin, Ricardo Gómez, Kenneth Lochhead, Arthur McKay, Jules Olitski, Stefan Wolpe

Artists’ Jazz Band: Graham Coughtry, Harvey Cowan, Terry Forster, Richard Gorman, Jim Jones, Nobuo Kubota, Robert Markle, Gerald McAdam, Gordon Rayner, Michael Snow

Nihilist Spasm Band: John Boyle, John Clement, Greg Curnoe, Bill Exley Murray Favro, Hugh McIntyre, Art Pratten

Yves Gaucher, Michael Snow (films)

Come a Singing!
Curated by Andrew Hunter

The exhibition begins in the first decades of the 20th century with the work of important Canadian artists and members of the Group of Seven. Entitled Come a Singing!, this first section establishes the relationship between Canadian art and the romanticizing of folk culture that took place between the two World Wars within academic circles and popular media. At this time, a growing fascination with folk and rural culture became an important part of the construction of Canadian identity. Drawing on the work of anthropologist Marius Barbeau and folklorists such as Edith Fowke, Come a Singing! positions the work of artists such as A.Y. Jackson, J.E.H. MacDonald, Thoreau Macdonald and Arthur Lismer, among others, within a culture that saw rural and resource based communities as a reflection of Canada¹s ³true² nature. Folk songs became a dominant form of documenting and representing these communities and the collecting of folk material became a widespread activity. The exhibition draws a parallel between the subject matter of these songs and the visual arts, and features the work of prominent Canadian artists that were used to illustrate many published songbooks.

Participating Artists: Franklin Carmichael, A.J. Casson, Harold Copping Lawren Harris, Robert Harris, Prudence Heward, R.S. Hewton, Edwin Holgate Yvonne McKague Housser, A.Y. Jackson, Illingworth Kerr, Arthur Lismer J.E.H. Macdonald, Henri Masson, Doris McCarthy, Ruth Pawson, George Pepper Robert Pilot, Inglis Sheldon-Wilson, Philip Surrey, Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté, Homer Watson, Mary E. Wrinch, Florence Wyle

Following its close in Edmonton, soundtracks will be shown in various locations in Toronto: Come a Singing will be presented in Kleinburg (September 20 ­ November 16); See Hear! at the University of Toronto Art Centre (September 25, 2003 ­ January 11, 2004) and Re-play will be divided into two sections for presentation at the Blackwood Gallery (UTM), The Gallery (UTS) (October 22 – December 14) with Rodney Graham¹s installation at the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery (September 19 ­ November 16).

The exhibition will then be shown in its entirety, at the Mackenzie Art Gallery in Regina from February 14 to May 17, 2004.