Stan Douglas: Abbott & Cordova, 7 August 1971

by Stan Douglas, contributions by Alexander Alberro; Nora M. Alter; Serge Guilbaut; Sven Lutticken & Jesse Proudfoot

tagged: art & politics

Description

Stan Douglas: Abbott & Cordova, 7 August 1971, an art book on the politics of urban conflict, is based on the work of Stan Douglas, one of Canada's most revered contemporary artists. His film and video installations, photographs, and other works use the conventions of cinema, music, and literature to construct historical and cultural narratives, many of which are grounded in the story of Vancouver, his hometown.

The book's eponymous image is a 30 x 50-foot translucent photo mural on tempered glass installed in the atrium of the new Woodward's complex in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, in the heart of Canada's poorest neighbourhood. The image depicts the aftermath of an actual violent confrontation between police and the city's counterculture in what came to be known as the Gastown Riot, during which uniformed and undercover police officers attacked a peaceful "smoke-in" protest organized to oppose police narcotics agents' attempts to infiltrate the city's marijuana-smoking community. This book takes the riot, and Douglas's work, as points of departure to discuss the legacy and implications of this tumultuous time, not only for Vancouver but for all urban centres where dissent and conflict based on class, lifestyle, or other issues arise, and where the role of authorities is contested in the form of public demonstration.

The book will also contain five essays, whose esteemed writers bring together expertise on cinema, urban geography, modern art, conceptual art, mass media, and the history of the 1960s and '70s to bear on Douglas's work, as well as other images from Douglas's "Crowds & Riots" series and archival photographs from 1971.

Includes essays by:
-Alexander Alberro, Barnard College, Columbia University (author of Conceptual Art and the Politics of Publicity and co-editor of Institutional Critique: An Anthology of Artists' Writings)
-Nora Alter, Temple University, Philadelphia (author of Chris Marker)
-Serge Guilbaut, University of British Columbia (author of How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art)
-Sven Lutticken (Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam)
-Jesse Proudfoot, Simon Fraser University PhD candidate; post-doctoral researcher at DePaul University, Chicago (Fall 2011)

About the Authors

Stan Douglas is a visual artist who lives and works in Vancouver. His films, videos, and photographs have been seen in exhibitions internationally, including Documentas IX, X and XI (1992, 1997, 2002) and three Venice Biennales (1990, 2001, 2005). A comprehensive survey of his work, Past Imperfect: Works 1986-2007, was mounted by the Württembergischer Kunstverein and the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart in the fall of 2007. Between 2004 and 2006 he was a professor at Universität der Künste Berlin and since 2009 has been a member of the core faculty in the Grad Art Department of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. He has been the subject of numerous books and catalogues, including Stan Douglas (Phaidon), Stan Douglas: Abbott & Cordova, 7 August 1971 (Arsenal Pulp) and Stan Douglas: Every Building on 100 West Hastings Street (Arsenal Pulp/Contemporary Art Gallery), and is the editor of Vancouver Anthology (Talonbooks).

Alexander Alberro, Virginia Bloedel Wright Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at Barnard College and Columbia University, is the author of Conceptual Art and the Politics of Publicity (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003). His essays have appeared in a wide array of journals and exhibition catalogues. He has also edited and co-edited a number of volumes, most recently Institutional Critique: An Anthology of Artists' Writings (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009).

Nora M. Alter is a professor of film and media arts at Temple University, Philadelphia; her books include Vietnam Protest Theatre: The Television War on Stage (Indiana University Press) and Chris Marker (Contemporary Film Directors) (University of Illinois Press, 2006). She contributed an essay to the book Stan Douglas: Abbott and Cordova, 7 August 1971.

Serge Guilbaut is a retired professor of art history at the University of British Columbia. His books include How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art (University of Chicago Press, 1983). He contributed an essay to Stan Douglas: Abbott and Cordova, 7 August 1971.

Sven Lutticken is a professor of art history at Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. His books include Idols of the Market: Modern Iconoclasm and the Fundamental Spectacle and Secret Publicity: Essays on Contemporary Art. He contributed an essay to Stan Douglas: Abbott and Cordova, 7 August 1971.

Jesse Proudfoot is a doctoral candidate at Simon Fraser University's Department of Geography, and a resident and specialist on the urban geography of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside neighbourhood. He contributed an essay to Stan Douglas: Abbott and Cordova, 7 August 1971.

Editorial Reviews

This richly illustrated volume focuses on events of 1971's Gastown Riot ... Simmering narratives of protest and inequality run alongside a study of the mechanics and meaning of representation.
-Canadian Art

— Canadian Art

Cinematic in its scale and production, the photomural depicts riot police, mounted police, and undercover cops clashing with hippies, while area residents and visitors look on. Douglas frequently uses his art to reimagine pivotal but often misread or obscured moments in history ... This book addresses not only the elaborate creation and multiple meanings of the mural but also what the publisher calls "the politics of urban conflict" embedded within it.
-Georgia Straight

— Georgia Straight

As a comprehensive guide to understanding the recently installed artwork by Stan Douglas, Arsenal Pulp Press has given us here a visual tour de force, with stunning colour representations of the original piece throughout the hard covered volume supporting the essays and interview with the artist. And as so much more than a commemorative plaque, the artist's depiction of the unsettling event is sure to be a catalyst for social change (the Occupy movement in fact used the space in 2011), not just for the DTES, but for all of Vancouver and its environs.
-Spacing Vancouver

— Spacing Vancouver

An unabashed cynicism about modern-day civic engagement is at the core of what makes Abbott and Cordova, 7 August 1971 so devilishly hypnotic and disquietingly uncomfortable.
-Broken Pencil

— Broken Pencil

This collection of essays pries open the iconic 30x50-foot translucent photo mural, depicting a decades-ago clash between police and protestors that defined Vancouver's Gastown neighbourhood, and which now hangs in the atrium of the city's Woodward's complex. From Nora M. Alter's analysis of the image as a "moving still" to Jesse Proudfoot's history of the politics of representation in the Downtown Eastside, these essays help fulfil Douglas's intent to keep conversation about the riot -- and the photograph that "condenses" it -- evolving.
-The Tyee

— The Tyee

Arsenal Pulp Press has published a beautiful and informative book about one of Vancouver's most stunning and original works of public art.
-Vancouver Sun

— Vancouver Sun

Stan Douglas: Abbott & Cordova, 7 August 1971

by Stan Douglas, contributions by Alexander Alberro; Nora M. Alter; Serge Guilbaut; Sven Lutticken & Jesse Proudfoot

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About BC Books Online

Stan Douglas: Abbott & Cordova, 7 August 1971

by Stan Douglas, contributions by Alexander Alberro; Nora M. Alter; Serge Guilbaut; Sven Lutticken & Jesse Proudfoot

Buy this book at:

Buy the e-book: