Art Metropole

26 Feb. 2011

Book launch for Attila Richard Lukacs and Michael Morris's Polaroids

Artists

Michael Morris and Attila Richard Lukacs

Time

1 pm - 3 pm

Art Metropole is pleased to launch Attila Richard Lukacs & Michael Morris’s Polaroids, and to announce that Michael Morris has been selected as the recipient of the 2011 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts.

Please join us on Saturday February 26th, from 1-3 p.m. and celebrate the launch of his new book, published by Arsenal Pulp Press.

Along with celebrating the launch of this new publication Art Metropole will also be presenting a selection of vintage ephemera relating to the artist’s past works and collaborations.

A distinctly collaborative work, Polaroids represents the re-assembly and collage by Vancouver artist and curator Michael Morris of a reference library of 1,200 colour Polaroid photographs taken by painter Attila Richard Lukacs. These pictures were taken over a period of twenty years, and used as the core source images for Lukacs’ epic paintings. The book also features essays by novelist and poet Michael Turner (Hard Core Logo, The Pornographer’s Poem); Scott Watson, director of the Morris & Helen Belkin Gallery in Vancouver; and Vince Aletti, the American curator, critic and journalist. Polaroids is both a bold visual collaboration and an important written document bringing together two significant figures in contemporary Canadian art.

Please Note – Due to unforeseen circumstances Michael Morris will be unable to attend the book launch in person. Art Metropole has instead arranged for a Skype connection to allow those in attendance to converse with the artist.

Michael Morris is a painter, photographer, video and performance artist and curator. His work is often media based and collaborative, involved with developing networks and in the production and presentation of new art activity. He is a Canadian, born in Saltdean England in 1942. In 1969 he founded Image Bank with Vincent Trasov, a method for personal exchange between artists; 1973 he was co-founder and co-director of Western Front Society, Vancouver; 1981 he was invited with Trasov to Berlin as guests of the Berliner Künstlerprogramm DAAD; 1990 he and Trasov founded the Morris/Trasov Archive, currently housed at Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver, to research contemporary art. Morris has curated numerous exhibitions. His work in represented in private and public collections nationally and internationally.

Attila Richard Lukacs was born in Edmonton, Alberta in 1962. A graduate of Vancouver’s Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design, he was a member of the renowned Young Romantics art group of the 1980s. He is an internationally renowned visual artist whose work has appeared in the quinquennial exhibition Documenta in Kassel, Germany, as well as in New York, Paris, London, Berlin, Cologne, Montreal, Ottawa, and Vancouver. He spent many years in Berlin and New York before relocating to Vancouver. He is the subject of the 2004 feature documentary film Drawing Out the Demons.

Images

1: A multi-part display of Michael Morris' works and collaborations from Art Metropole's stock and collection along with work lent from the private collection of Luis Jacob.
2: Michael Morris appears courtesy of Skype.
3: Andy Fabo talks with Michael Morris via Skype.
4: A selection of FILE open to Michael Morris's contributions.
5: Refreshments for the guests.
6: A close-up of some Morris publications from Art Metropole's collection.
7: Morris publications and objects.
8: A selections of books, posters, periodicals, ephemera and multiples from the private collection of Luis Jacob.
9: A selections of books, posters, periodicals, ephemera and multiples from the private collection of Luis Jacob.
10: An Image Bank work, Elks Building Hollywood, 1974.
11: Colour Block from the private collection of Luis Jacob.
12: Books from the private collections of Luis Jacob and Ann Dean.
13: Ephemera and multiples from the private collection of Luis Jacob and Art Metropole.
14: Multiples and ephemera from the collection of Art Metropole and Robert Fones.
15: Ephemera and multiples from Art Metropole's collection.
16: The occasion of the launch Poleroids by Attila Richard Lukacs and Michael Morris.
17: The Great Learning screening on Art Metropole's audio-visual system.
18: Guests check out a display of items from Art Metropole Shop.
19: Denise and Andy Fabo mingle with guests.
20: Guests check out a display of items from Art Metropole Shop.

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