Exhibitions
ART ROCK SUMMER
Summer School for Artists' Publishing
Curated by Kay Higgins and KC Wei
June 16 – August 12, 2023
includes public events
She came from Greece, she had a thirst for knowledge
She studied sculpture at Saint Martin's College
That's where I
Caught her eye
PULP, Common People
This summer, the Libby Leshgold Gallery is taking a vacation from Art and embracing Art Rock. For eight weeks, we will play music and sound art by visual artists, host performances by art school bands, show visual artists’ music videos, host a listening library of artists’ records, and display and sell merch by artists’ bands.
Art Rock Summer is the sixth installment of the Libby Leshgold Gallery/READ Books Summer School for Artists’ Publishing, exploring artists’ music, audio recordings as publishing, the realm of Art Rock, the Art School Band, and the role of music making in artistic communities.
Art schools themselves have served as catalysts for musical collaborations, often using popular forms. Visual artists’ spaces have also served as launching pads for music which then emerges into musical “legitimacy.” Various currents in jazz and “new music” have been associated with artistic movements and phenomena, and glam rock, punk rock, and riot grrl functioned at times as grassroots movements with their own visual culture, but also had direct points of connection with visual art communities of practice. Art Rock Summer includes a vast listening library and artists’ records, both celebrated and obscure.
The “artist’s record”, although it forms a smaller corpus than “artists’ books”, is still an enduring, arguably growing field. Visual artists are also often involved in musical practice as an avocation or side hustle. This practice is sometimes an extension of “sound art” and sometimes entirely separate.
Built around a stage as a focal point for the exhibition, Art Rock Summer will feature a series of performances and listening events through the summer. All performances are free and open to the public, and will take place in and around the Libby Leshgold Gallery.
The Summer School for Artists’ Publishing expands on READ Books’ mission to create a platform and social space for experimental practices in publication by bringing leading local and international artists and practitioners together to present exhibitions, seminars, and public events. Our first Summer School project, in 2018, was the exhibition and residency project It’s Difficult to put a Painting in the Mailbox.
READ Books is an ongoing public program of the Libby Leshgold Gallery. It is a social space for the fostering, cultivation, and promotion of publication as an artistic practice and aims to further the discourse around and support the production of contemporary art and design. READ also serves as the bookstore for Emily Carr University and the wider community.
PERFORMANCES
July 7 - Art Rock 33: Strawberry, House Wind and Arti Arti Arti
July 8 - Art Rock 33 ⅓: Kamikaze Nurse, Puzzlehead, TJ Felix and the Fiddleheads and YEP
July 15 - An Afternoon Recital with Vomit Fraud
July 22 - Robert Dayton (and The Beach Boys) with special guest The Canadian Romantic
August 12 - Dog Day Afternoon: Mason Rezazadeh and Jesse Fernandez
EVENT INFORMATION:
ART ROCK? WEEKEND
July 7, 6pm
July 8, 2-6pm
As a part of Art Rock Summer, KC Wei’s art rock? is back! In 2019, art rock? no. 31 Finale at Robson Square saw the end to Wei’s monthly concert series that ran primarily at the Astoria Pub from 2015–2019. In those four years, art rock? was a space for the #popularesoteric to emerge from the intersections of art and music, culminating in the outdoor concert nestled between the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Vancouver Law Courts with support by the City of Vancouver — a timely call to end the underground series. Wei’s subsequent film, art rock? The Popular Esoteric (2019) documents performers and performance venues during the post-Olympic period of increasing gentrification and displacement of DIY cultural spaces, celebrating the ongoing practices of artists and musicians who continue to grind. art rock?’s premiere at Emily Carr University welcomes old pals and new collaborators, to resurrect the series in its 33rd and 33⅓ iterations.
Program Curator KC Wei is an interdisciplinary artist, musician, and writer based in Vancouver, BC, on the unceded Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh territories. She is a PhD candidate in Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University, where her practice-based research in film-making, writing, and performance is informed by participatory activities such as editing, publishing, and programming. Recent works include the book Tuning to Oblivion: an artist residency (M:ST Performative Art, 2023), and the album Stimuloso (Mint Records, 2022) with her band, Kamikaze Nurse. She is the co-founder and editor of ReIssue magazine and Short Forum Programmer at the Vancouver International Film Festival.
Art Rock 33
Friday July 7, 6pm
Libby Leshgold Gallery
Strawberry, House Wind and Arti Arti Arti
ArtiArtiArti (Arti Struyanskiy) is an electronic and dance music project rooted in everything that loops, feedbacks and reverberates.
House Wind (Matthew Budden) originated in early 2018 through an invitation by Agonyklub to contribute to AK05. Using tangible analog tools like plastic strips and paper clips to treat the guitar’s sonic palette, these preparations change the instrument's behavior, perpetually refreshing the dialogue between the artist and his materials.
Strawberry is a music project by Barry Doupé and Dennis Ha. It has performed at various artist initiated events throughout Vancouver, such as the live music series art rock?, Artspeak Radio Digest, and at the Or Gallery fundraiser. Each of the performances is unique and the duo has invited collaborators to join, including artist Arvo Leo and art historian Marie-France Berard.
Art Rock 33 ⅓
Saturday July 8, 2-6pm
ECUAD Cafeteria Patio
Kamikaze Nurse, Puzzlehead, TJ Felix and the Fiddleheads and YEP
KC Wei, John Brennan, Ethan Reyes, and Sonya Eui make up Kamikaze Nurse. They have released two full-length records, Bucky Fleur (2019, Agonyklub), and Stimuloso (2022, Mint Records). Named after Simone Weil’s humanitarian death wish, their music manifests otherly imagery and memories via shoegazey rock music. They are currently working on an interactive web-game, and a third album.
Puzzlehead is an amorphous rock cosplay led by Katayoon Yousefbigloo. Masking poetic sincerity under layers of guitar wank, Puzzlehead is guaranteed to get you hard (metaphorically speaking).
TJ Felix is a two-spirit Qelmucw from the Splatsin region of Secwepemculecw as well as a musician, multidisciplinary artist, colonial law breaker, drug user rights advocate & english language unlerner amongst many other things. They are currently missing home and paying absurdly high rent on the stolen lands of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.
TJ will be joined on stage by three local renegade superstars known here on Earth as Matthew Aramis (guitar, saxophone, backing vox), Juniper Lee (drums, backing vox) and Phoenix Robson (bass, backing vox) and their band is called The Fiddleheads.
Yep is a synth-led prog rock power trio made up of long-time friends Madison Mayhew, Gil Goletski, and Craig Stensrud. Their new single, “Reprimand,” will be released this summer – an eight-minute epic about shame in all its psychic and spiritual manifestations, inspired by imagery from a 1980s Scientology manual.
AN AFTERNOON RECITAL BY VOMIT FRAUD
Libby Leshgold Gallery
July 15, 2 pm
Vomit Fraud (VF) is a "band" that makes "music." We're not in this for the money: we do it for the people. VF is: Brady Cranfield, electronic things; Kay Higgins, unearthly howling.
We invite you to join us for an intimate concert in an art gallery. Maybe we'll play some Schubert or something.
Brady Cranfield is a Vancouver-based sound and visual artist, musician, and writer. He holds a MA in Communications and a MFA from Simon Fraser University. He is the founder and co-organizer (in collaboration with the artist Kathy Slade) of the ongoing public art project The Music Appreciation Society, and he frequently collaborates with artist Jamie Hilder. He is currently also a member of the improv/electronic/jazz trio Alfred Jarry and the duo Vomit Fraud with Kay Higgins.
Kay Higgins is a cultural worker and artist based in Vancouver on the unceded, traditional, and ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish) and səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples. She is co-proprietor (with Kathy Slade) of the press Publication Studio Vancouver and has co-founded and directed several artist-run organizations during her career. She is currently Head of Publishing at the Libby Leshgold Gallery, Emily Carr University of Art + Design, and Editor of ECU Press. Her work has included manufactured publications, handmade artist books, public inscription, photography, and internet-based projects. She has been a curator, editor, factory and warehouse labourer, technology consultant, and candidate for municipal office. She is also one half of the electronic music duo Vomit Fraud (with Brady Cranfield).
ROBERT DAYTON (AND THE BEACH BOYS)
WITH SPECIAL GUEST: THE CANADIAN ROMANTIC
Libby Leshgold Gallery
July 22, 2 pm
For Robert Dayton's performance with The Beach Boys, he will be utilizing his entire being while accompanied by The Beach Boys Stack-o-Tracks LP, an instrumental album consisting of backing tracks to many of The Beach Boys' songs.
The Canadian Romantic is a character created by Robert, a melodramatic figure of faded glamour who tries to bridge and explore the gap between Canada and romance with somewhat dubious results. So far he exists through live performance (having performed across Canada and the U.S.A.), a series of videos, an album with music by Marker Starling (unreleased), a lenticular winking photo, a doll, and an art book (Publication Studio Vancouver, 2013).
Robert Dayton is a multidisciplinary artist originally from Fort St. John, British Columbia. For many years he lived in Vancouver and was deeply involved in the musical projects Canned Hamm and July Fourth Toilet. He holds a BFA from Emily Carr and an MFA from The University of Waterloo. Visit: www.robertdayton.com
Downtown 81 (screening)
Emily Carr University Mini-Cinema, room D1375, first floor
July 27, 7 pm
Directed by Edo Bertoglio, and starring Jean-Michel Basquiat, Downtown 81 was released in 2000, using footage that was shot in 1980 and 1981 featuring bands from the No Wave and Post-punk scenes in Manhattan. The soundtrack boasts music by Basquiat as well as John Lurie and the Lounge Lizards, DNA, Tuxedomoon, the Plastics, Marvin Pontiac, Kenny Burrell, the Specials, Chris Stein, Melle Mel with Blondie, Liquid Liquid, Kid Creole and the Coconuts, James White and the Blacks, Vincent Gallo, Lydia Lunch, and Suicide.
DOG DAY AFTERNOON: MASON REZAZADEH AND JESSE FERNANDEZ
Libby Leshgold Gallery
Saturday August 12, 2 pm - 5 pm
To bring Art Rock Summer to a close, Mason Rezazadeh and Jesse Fernandez will perform a marathon jam, repetitively playing the Stooges’ 1969 classic song I Wanna Be Your Dog past the point of exhaustion and absurdity, in the manner of the classic “endurance performances” of performance artists in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. Refreshments and ear protection will be available.
Mason Rezazadeh (b.1994) lives and works in so called Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples. Mason’s ongoing performance often includes painting, sound or text.
Jesse Fernandez (b.1997) lives in so called Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples. Jesse needs a cigarette.
Art Rock Summer poster by William Anderson, 2023.
Art Rock Summer poster by Maya Bar-Elan, 2023.
