Special event on counter-culture
October 17, 2015 - 3 PM to 5 PM
For this edition of One Hour, One Book, Louis Rastelli will present one issue of davinci, a short-run periodical published in Montreal in the mid 1970s that featured the work of dozens of local poets, writers and visual artists of varied disciplines. A great many well-known artists, such as Suzy Lake, Bill Vazan, John Heward and more, contributed to this small but explosive publication. After davinci released its final issue in 1975, Allan Bealy, the magazine’s editor, moved on to become a highly regarded collage artist in New York. Rastelli will discuss how impressively this little publication (which was produced barely one block West of Artexte) brings one back to a specific time in the arts in Montreal, how it prefigured many free-form “zines,” and how its artistic content resonates in the present.
Louis Rastelli was born in Montreal and has been involved in the cultural life of this city since the mid 1980s. He co-founded Archive Montréal in 1998, a non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion and preservation of local underground culture. Rastelli manages its promotion activities, which include Expozine, now the largest small press fair in North America, and Distroboto, an international network of art vending machines. In 2007, Insomniac Press published his novel A Fine Ending, set in Montreal’s 1990s arts and music scene. He was also the editor of Fish Piss, a magazine which, between 1996 and 2006, was a significant venue for the work of hundreds of Montreal writers and artists.
Round table: Counter-Culture and the Visual Arts, from 1975 to Today: A Discussion with Suzy Lake, Chloë Lum and Felicity Tayler
Presented forty years after Montreal hosted the Rencontre internationale de la contre-culture in 1975, this round table brings together artists and researchers to explore the evolving relationship between the visual arts and counter-culture. What did it mean to be part of the counter-culture arts milieu in 1975, and what does it mean today? How have different types of practices and objects – including printed matter, zines, and photography – helped redefine the boundaries between art on the margins and more institutionalized forms of art?
Moderated by Louis Rastelli, director of Archive Montréal, and Sarah Watson, General and Artistic Director of Artexte, this round table will address these questions through a discussion of the practices of artists and researchers who have contributed to the establishment and persistence of the counter-culture in Montreal: Suzy Lake, Chloë Lum, and Felicity Tayler.