Art Metropole

AA Bronson, born Michael Tims, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 1946 -.

American sculptor, installation artist and musician. He studied at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston in the late 1970s, and whilst on an exchange programme to New York he began presenting performances involving experimental music. His early visual work played on his interest in music: his Record without a Cover, released in 1985 by Recycled Records in New York, was a recording of his music distributed to record shops in the normal manner but bearing the instructions that it should not be placed in any kind of sleeve or cover. The Beatles (1989; see 1998 exh. cat., p. 24) destroys the possibility of sound altogether, consisting as it does of a pillow crocheted from cassette tape of the entire Beatles back catalogue. The relationship between sound and non-sound, and between objects brought together in unexpected combinations, are central concerns in Marclay’s work. Black and White (1992; see 1998 exh. cat., p. 43) is one in a series of composite images made by sewing LP covers together to make hybrid figures, echoing the scratching and sampling of his earlier sound work. In the installation Echo and Narcissus (1992; Jerusalem, Israel Mus.), 14000 CDs cover the gallery floor so that the viewer walks over them, their purpose as music recordings warped into a shiny surface, with the only sound being the viewers’ footsteps. Marclay’s practice purposefully straddles both gallery-based visual art and pop music, exploring ways of disrupting our perceptions of sound and identity using techniques of collage, scratching, misplacement and surprise.

Born in California to Canadian parents in 1955, Daniel Olson completed degrees in mathematics and architecture before obtaining a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1986 from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design Halifax) and a Master of Fine Arts in 1995 from York University (Toronto). Olson’s work, which includes sculpture, multiples, installation, photography, performance, audio, video and artist’s books, has been exhibited widely, including shows at the Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver), the Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (Québec), Galerie Optica (Montreal), and the Canadian Cultural Centre (Paris). Olson has published numerous artist’s books and multiples, most of which have been available at Art Metropole in Toronto, where he is also represented by Birch Libralato. Since 2001 Olson has been living and working in Montreal. Solo exhibitions include Twenty Minutes’ Sleep, Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver, 2005); Other Conditions, Modern Fuel (Kingston, 2005); Unknown Seventies Artists, Galerie TPW (Toronto, 2005); and I’m Not There (1955), Goethe Institute (Dublin, 2004). Olson has exhibited in group exhibitions such as Aural Cultures, Walter Philips Gallery (Banff, Alberta, 2005); Frottements: Objets et surfaces sonores, Musee national des beaux arts de Quebec, (Quebec, 2004); In Light (video projections by eight artists), Art Gallery of Ontario, (Toronto, 2004); and Promise, Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver,2001).

Founding director of JRP Ringier Publishing.

Printed Matter’‘s mission is to foster the appreciation, dissemination, and understanding of artists’ publications, which we define as books or other editioned publications conceived by artists as art works, or, more succinctly, as “artwork for the page.” Printed Matter specializes in publications produced in large, inexpensive editions and therefore does not deal in “book arts” or “book objects” which are often produced in smaller, more expensive editions due to the craft and labor involved in their fabrication.

To promote public awareness of and access to artists’ books, Printed Matter maintains a public reading room where over 15,000 titles by 6,000 international artists are available for viewing and purchase. In addition to being a wholesale and retail distribution hub for artists’ books, Printed Matter offers a free consulting service to libraries, art institutions, and art professionals involved with artists’ books throughout the world. Printed Matter presents a range of educational programs for the public from talks to student groups by staff members to in-store lectures and readings by artists, critics, and curators. These educational initiatives are complemented by our internationally recognized exhibitions program and publishing program.