The sixties is a period fondly remembered in art and society at large. Testing the limits and pushing the boundaries between various media and diverse manifestations still resonates with us today. The sixties also put Canadian artists on the world stage with its first contemporary art stars. This major critical retrospective provides an authoritative overview of the wealth of artistic expressions that swept the country. Neo-dadaists and Pop sensibilities, experiments with art and technology under the impact of a powerful mass media, high modernist paintings, the beginnings of conceptual and photo-based art and the first creations using video technology and the production of seminal experimental films are all featured.
This abundance of creativity and the multiplicity of approaches that marked the period are conveyed through two essays and over 100 images, many of them archival. Addressing the development of specific movementsand mediums, the authors reveal an artistic production that refused categories, mixed disciplines and questioned the accepted principles of visual culture.