Michael Snow: A Life Survey (1955-2020) @ The School | Jack Shainman Gallery, Kinderhook, NY

Michael Snow 

A Life Survey (1955-2020)

The School | Jack Shainman Gallery, Kinderhook, NY

May 21 – December 16, 2023

Jack Shainman Gallery presents Michael Snow: A Life Survey (1955-2020). In a career that defied categorization in medium or genre, Snow’s work embodied originality over novelty, the cerebral over the conceptual, and evolution over conclusion. It is with this expansive vision that A Life Survey is mounted, offering an intricate and dynamic portrait of hael MicSnow’s life and work.

Born in Toronto in 1928, Michael Snow showed an early affinity for creative experimentation. Throughout his youth, he played piano in local jazz bands and received prizes for his early paintings. This led him to the Ontario College of Art where he studied from 1948 to 1952. When declaring his major from rigidly divided academic departments, he chose Design, comprehending that it was the “common aspect of all disciplines.” Fascinated by pushing the limits on ways of seeing, Snow was influenced most by Modern artists who made work on their own terms, including Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, Marcel Duchamp, Willem De Kooning, Arshile Gorky, Yves Klein, and Mark Rothko. In these early years, he described embarking on a “try this, try that” period through which experiences from his professional career, daily life, and jazz improvisations inspired pieces like A to Z, 1956, Drawn Out, 1959, and The Drum Book, 1960.

Jack Shainman Gallery has represented Michael Snow since 2004. Previous solo exhibitions held at the gallery include Michael Snow: A Group Show (2015); Michael Snow: In the Way (2012); Michael Snow (2006); and Michael Snow: Powers of Two (2004). Snow was also included in several group exhibitions at the gallery including Stressed World (2022); Parking on Pavement (2018-2019); Home Room: A Multimedia Group Exhibition (2017); Winter In America (2015-2016); Mise En Scène (2014); Works on View (2009), -poiesis (2006); Imposition (2005); and A Charge to Keep (2004). 

The School | Jack Shainman Gallery

25 Broad Street, Kinderhook, NY

jackshainman.com

Michael Snow @ Galerie Martine Aboucaya, Paris - Autour de son nouveau livre

Michael Snow

Autour de son nouveau livre

Galerie Martine Aboucaya

15 novembre 2022 - 10 janvier 2023

Michael Snow

La collection de photographies de ma mère

Photo courtesy of Galerie Martine Aboucaya

La galerie Martine Aboucaya présente sa cinquième exposition personnelle de Michael Snow (Toronto, 1928).

Figure clef du cinéma expérimental et musicien de renom, Michael Snow a développé au fil de sa carrière une pratique polymorphe et transversale mêlant film 16mm, peinture, sculpture, vidéo, photographie, dessin, écriture, holographie et musique. Il aborde ces différentes expérimentations à travers de nombreux écrits théoriques, publiés dans des catalogues, des revues, ou restés inédits (Des écrits 1958-2001, recueil de textes commentés par l’artiste, publié par le Centre Georges Pompidou en 2002).

L'exposition s'est construite autour de son nouveau livre intitulé "La collection de photographies de ma mère". Cet ouvrage reprend  fidèlement l'album photo familial. Voilà ce qu'en dit l'artiste :

Pour ses amis et sa famille, ma mère, Marie-Antoinette Françoise Carmen Levesque Snow Roig se surnommait «Toni». Elle signait ses lettres « Toni». Elle était née le 21 février 1904 à Chicoutimi et elle est décédée à Toronto le 19 février 2004 (vraiment, elle a vécu roo ans). Son père s'appelait Elzéar Levesque (1875-1937), avocat, et pour quelque temps le maire de Chicoutimi. Son père, également Elzéar, était capitaine de bateaux sur la rivière Saguenay et le fleuve Saint-Laurent. Sa femme, Delphine Tremblay, était d'origine innue (montagnaise). La mère de Toni s'appelait Caroline Dénéchaud Levesque. Le père de Caroline s'appelait Macaire Dénéchaud. Son père à lui, Claude Dénéchau*, possédait une seigneurie près de la ville de Québec à Berthier-sur-mer. Le père de Claude, Jacques Dénéchaud, vint de la France et arriva à Québec en 1752; il était chirurgien et apothicaire. En 1924, Toni a épousé Gerald Bradley Snow à Toronto. Il a été arpenteur dans la région du Lac Saint-Jean et il était aussi ingénieur civil supervisant la construction de deux ponts près de Chicoutimi. John Snow, charron de son état, fut le premier Snow en Amérique du Nord britannique. Il est arrivé d'Angleterre en 1816 et s'établit dans la région devenue depuis Hull/Ottawa. Son fils, également prénommé John, était arpenteur-géomètre. Toni et Gerald Bradley Snow eurent deux enfants, Denyse et Michel (l'auteur de ce livre). Ma mère a soigneusement gardé les merveilleuses photos des trois lignées familiales (Dénéchaud, Levesque et Snow). Et elle a noté l'identité des gens qui apparaissent dans les images, ainsi que le lieu, la date et les circonstances de l'événement photographié. Les photos sont si belles et si historiques que je souhaite les partager avec tous et toutes.

L'exposition évoque et partage un vécu à la fois intime et collectif en réunissant principalement 3 oeuvres : Autour de l'île, Sinoms et Cityscape. Le livre lui, ponctue et arrête le temps. Michael Snow nous permet de découvrir un peu de son enfance. Et nous reconnaîtrons partout ici les mouvements de caméra chers à  Michael Snow comme dans Wavelength (1967), Back and Forth (1969), La Région Centrale (1971) et Rameau's Nephew (1974).

Michael Snow a fait l’objet de nombreuses expositions monographiques de par le monde. Ses œuvres figurent dans plusieurs grandes collections - Museum of Modern Art, New York; Ludwig Museum; Tate London; MNAM, Centre Georges Pompidou; Musée d’art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; FRAC Lorraine; Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain de Strasbourg; Musée des Beaux Arts, Canada; Art Gallery of Ontario; National Gallery of Canada...

GALERIE MARTINE ABOUCAYA

5 rue Sainte Anastase, 75003 Paris

martineaboucaya.com

Michael Snow @ La Virreina Image Centre, Barcelona

Michael Snow: Sequences
La Virreina Image Centre, Barcelona
9 July - 1 November 2015

La Virreina Image Centre devotes a major retrospective to the Canadian artist Michael Snow.

Michael Snow: Sequences exhibits work from throughout his career, including many pieces never seen before in Europe, and reflects the wide range of media he has worked with: music, film, video, painting, sculpture, books and installations.

In all these media he explores the expressive possibilities of sound and image and challenges the vision/representation duality. His creative approach requires the active participation of the spectator, who is invited to see the object, perceive it, become involved with it. His compositions aim to direct attention in different ways and involve the viewer in the creative process. He breaks down boundaries not only by creating crossover pieces—both objects and images—but also by appreciating the space as a visual, plastic and sound element rather than a neutral container for creations.

The exhibition includes a programme of screenings, under the title Michael Snow, Sequences. A retrospective, that features a selection of the artist’s films. His film Wavelength, a landmark of avant-garde filmmaking eager to reflect on its own language, will be shown in the exhibition rooms of La Virreina Image Centre (screenings: 12.30 pm and 6 pm). In keeping with the artist's criteria, the rest of the programme will be screened at the Filmoteca de Catalunya.

Curator: Gloria Moure

MICHAEL SNOW: BIOGRAPHY

Michael Snow was born in 1928 in Toronto, where he currently lives. As a musician, he has played the piano and other instruments both solo and with several ensembles (most frequently with the CCMC of Toronto) in Canada, the United States, Europe and Japan. He has also released a number of recordings. His work as a filmmaker has been screened at festivals worldwide and can be found in several film archives, including the Anthology Film Archives (New York), the Royal Belgian Film Archives (Brussels) and the Austrian Film Museum (Vienna), among others. In 1967 his film Wavelength won the Grand Prize at Exprmntl Experimental Film Festival in Knokke (Belgium), and in 1982 So Is This won a Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award.

He is also a painter and sculptor, although since 1962 much of his work has been photography based or holographic. His work in all these media is represented in private and public collections worldwide, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), MoMA (New York), Museum Ludwig (Cologne and Vienna), the Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), and the Musée des Beaux-Arts and Musée d’art contemporain (Montreal).

He has created video, film and sound installations, designed books such as Michael Snow / A Survey (1970) and Cover to Cover (1975) and carried out several public sculpture commissions, including Flight Stop at the Eaton Centre and The Audience at Skydome, both in Toronto.

He has had retrospective shows at the Hara Museum of Tokyo (1988), the Cinémathèque Française of Paris (1999), the Anthology Film Archives (New York) and the Institut Lumière (Lyon). In 1994 The Power Plant and the Art Gallery of Ontario, both in Toronto, put on simultaneous shows of his work in all media. Additional retrospective exhibitions have been mounted at the Vancouver Art Gallery (1967 and 1979) and the Musée d’art contemporain (Montreal, 1995), as well as at the Art Gallery of Ontario (Objects of Vision, Toronto, 2012) and at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Michael Snow: Photo-Centric, 2014).

He was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1982 and a Chevalier de l’ordre des arts et des lettres in 1995 (France). In 2004 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Paris.

La Virreina Centre de la Imatge
Palau de la Virreina
La Rambla, 99. 08002 Barcelona
http://ajuntament.barcelona.cat

Michael Snow exhibition, Jack Shainman Gallery in NYC

MICHAEL SNOW

Jack Shainman Gallery, NYC

February 9 – March 11, 2006

This solo exhibition by artist Michael Snow consisting in one early and one recent projection works, entitled “Little Walk” (1964) and “Solar Breath (Northern Caryatids)” (2002). Both works were featured in Snow’s exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, during the months of October and November of 2005.

“Little Walk” is a dynamic, 12” silent loop characteristic of the experimental works made by the artist in that decade. Between 1961 and 1967, Snow’s work in all media was based on the naturalistic silhouette of a young woman. Made out originally from the outline or of a cardboard cut-out, the image of the walking woman became both tool and subject in Snow’s work. Many photographic works, films and performance pieces resulted as part of this exploration. “Little Walk”, which belongs to this series, was originally made for an exhibition organized by Jonas Mekas entitled “Expanded Cinema”.  The work, originally shot in 8mm, has now been transferred to DVD.

“Solar Breath...” is a 62” loop of fluttering curtains that reveal and conceal an idyllic landscape in rural Newfounland. The work is a result of artist’s observations of a window of his summer cabin in Canada.  Over the years, according to him, “a mysterious wind performance takes place in one of the windows, about an hour before sunset”. The artist seek to capture in the film the various movements and folds that the window’s curtain creates against the window’s screen, with the interaction of the wind.

This work, according to the artist himself, belongs to a group of film and photographic works who take subjects that were not formed by the artist as “art”, but rather were “taken-by-surprise” by the artist.  In a text about this work, the artist writes:

“What I saw in these sun-and-wind events was their potential as art. I did not record these "events" to share this modest phenomenon from my daily life with others. No, the rich play of light, surfaces and durations said to me: this real, un-staged event contains the elements which are essential for a contemplative time-light-motion work of art, a "motion picture" with "plastic" values and reverberant associations which will reward many viewings.”

The artist adds: “While on one level, Solar Breath is merely a fixed-camera documentary recording, it is also the result of years of attention....Solar Breath (Northern Caryatids) is 62 minutes of the most beautiful, eloquent movements and pliages that the sun, wind, windows and curtain have yet composed.  Chance and choice co-exist.”

Michael Snow is a visual artist, filmmaker and musician originally from Toronto.  He first exhibited in 1956 and in the 1960s became internationally renowned with his film “Wavelength”. His work can be found in many of the most renowned contemporary art collections in the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, and the National Gallery of Canada. He has represented Canada at the Venice Bienalle and has exhibited at most international major biennials.

Jack Shainman Gallery
513 W. 20th St
New York, NY 10011
www.jackshainman.com