Art Metropole

Bill Burns was born in Regina, Saskatchewan in 1957 and has lived and worked as an artist in Toronto, Canada and London, England. His work consists mainly of conceptual writings, artists’ books and multiples. He studied under Gerard Hemsworth, Jon Thompson and John Latham at Goldsmiths College in London, England. He is known for his Safety Gear for Small Animals (SGSA) which was first shown at 303 Gallery in New York in 1994 and later at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2005/2006 and at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London in 2008. His 2002 project Everything I Could Buy on eBay About Malaria which was shown at the Wellcome Trust in London, England is considered a seminal work in the area of electronic collecting. His work about life in the art world known as Veblen Goods was shown at MASS MoCA in 2012.

Burns has published numerous books including When Pain Strikes (Burns, Busby, Sawchuk), a critical anthology about pain and pain relief, published by the University of Minnesota Press in 1999. Other book titles include Analgesia (Rochefort,Montreal, 1993), How to Help Animals Escape from Degraded Habitats (Optica, Montreal, 1996), Urban Fauna Information Station (Mercer Union, Toronto, 2002), Safety Gear for Small Animals (MOCCA, Toronto and California State University, Fullerton, 2005) Bird Radio (Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther Koenig, Cologne, 2007) and The Flora and Fauna Information Service – 0.800.0.0FAUNA0FLORA (ICA, London, 2008). Burns has also published dozens of guides, posters, and editions. His editions are included in major museum collections throughout the world.

Burns’ work has been exhibited in major museums and biennial exhibitions since the nineteen nineties. His most notable exhibitions include the ICA in London, the MoMA in New York as well as Forum Arte y Vida at the Havana Bienal in Havana, Cuba in 2003, the Bienal del Fin del Mundo in Ushuaia, Argentina in 2007 and the Quebec City Biennial – Manif d’art 5, in 2010.