IAN WALLACE: At the Intersection of Painting and Photography, Oct 27, 2012 - Feb. 24, 2013, Vancouver Art Gallery

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Credit: Bake Photography for the Vancouver Art Gallery

Ian Wallace Portrait

Ian Wallace

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Photo: Trevor Mills, Vancouver Art Gallery.

Ian Wallace, "At The Crosswalk VIII", 2011

Ian Wallace, "At The Crosswalk VIII", 2011, photolaminate, acrylic on canvas, 4 panels, 88" x 48" (each) 96" x 192" (overall) Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Commissioned with funds from Art Partners in Creative Development.

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Ian Wallace, "My Heroes in the Street II", 1986

Ian Wallace, "My Heroes in the Street II", 1986, photolaminate, acrylic on canvas, 72" x 132". Collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. Gift of Ydessa Hendeles, 2009.

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Photo: Trevor Mills, Vancouver Art Gallery.

Ian Wallace, "Image/Text", 1979 (detail)

Ian Wallace, "Image/Text", 1979 (detail), 12 hand-coloured silver gelatin prints, 54" x 36" (each), 108" x 216" (overall), Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver Art Gallery Acquisition Fund.

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Photo: Trevor Mills, Vancouver Art Gallery

Ian Wallace, "Image/Text," 1979

Ian Wallace, "Image/Text," 1979, 12 hand-colouredsilver gelatin prints, 54" x 36" (each), 108" x 216" (overall), Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver Art Gallery Acquisition Fund.

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Photo: Trevor Mills, Vancouver Art Gallery.

Ian Wallace, "ClayoquotProtest (August 9, 1993) I-IX," 1993-95 (detail

Ian Wallace, "ClayoquotProtest (August 9, 1993) I-IX," 1993-95 (detail) photolaminate, ink monoprint, acrylic on canvas, 9 panels. Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Gift of the Artist. 

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Photo: Trevor Mills, Vancouver Art Gallery.

Ian Wallace, "Clayoquot Protest (August 9, 1993) I-IX," 1993-95 (detail)

Ian Wallace, "Clayoquot Protest (August 9, 1993) I-IX," 1993-95 (detail) photolaminate, ink monoprint, acrylic on canvas, 9 panels: 60" x 48", 72" x 120", 60" x 48", 60" x 78", 72" x 120", 78" x 60", 48" x 90", Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Gift of the Artist.

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Photo: Trevor Mills, Vancouver Art Gallery.

Ian Wallace, "My Heroes in the Street II", 1986

Ian Wallace, "My Heroes in the Street II", 1986, photolaminate, acrylic on canvas 72" x 132", Collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. Gift of YdessaHendeles, 2009.

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Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Purchased with funds from the Jean MacMillan SouthamMajor Art Purchase Fund. Photo: Trevor Mills, Vancouver Art Gallery.

Ian Wallace, "At Work 2008", 2008 (detail)

Ian Wallace, "At Work 2008", 2008 (detail), photolaminate, acrylic on canvas, 4 diptychs, 80" x 120" (each).

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Credit: Bake Photography for the Vancouver Art Gallery

Ian Wallace Portrait

Ian Wallace

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Ian Wallace: At the Intersection of Painting and Photography,

Oct 27, 2012  to Feb. 24, 2013, Vancouver Art Gallery

-- Beverly Cramp

At long last, one of Vancouver’s most significant and influential contemporary artists is having a major retrospective at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Ian Wallace: At the Intersection of Painting and Photography spans more than four decades of an outstanding art practice with more than 200 works on two floors of the gallery.  

            The exhibition covers many familiar themes associated with Wallace, including his role as co-founder of the Vancouver School, a group of artists that became some of Canada’s earliest and best known photo-conceptualists. It also looks at his significance as a post-modernist who so effectively links painting, one of the most traditional art forms, with the newer medium of photography.  As well, it focuses on Wallace’s reputation as a cool-headed intellectual inspired by the investigation of the everyday and its seemingly mundane aesthetic. All this is written about at length in an accompanying 352-page hardcover catalogue.

            Another reading of the exhibition shows Wallace, who has worked as an influential critic, educator and art historian, as a powerful storyteller of our time. Take, for example, his street scenes, photo-based works that almost always include a painted monochrome panel (Wallace’s Master’s thesis at UBC was about Piet Mondrian). These works offer a visual narrative on life in an age of global urbanization and individual alienation.

            Contemporary public space is physically formed by architecture, commercial signage, paved roads and sidewalks. These elements form the outside walls, if you will, of the outdoor world.  Visual cues we take for granted – whether the white parallel lines that demark crosswalks, the dashed lines of highway dividers or the glaring primary colours of commercial signs – are evident in many of Wallace’s street scenes. Wallace began capturing street vistas in 1969 and continues to use them. For instance, three pieces done in 2011 as part of his series, At the Crosswalk, are grouped in one of the show’s many galleries. 

            In the 1980s, Wallace began a special sub-series he called My Heroes in the Street. Those with knowledge of Vancouver-based artists will recognize in Wallace’s work people like Rodney Graham, Roy Arden, Ken Lum and others associated with photo-conceptualist practices, particularly those of the Vancouver School. Two 1986 pieces, My Heroes in the Street (Rodney) and My Heroes in the Street II, are examples.

            In the early 1990s, Wallace set out to create a series in the genre of historical painting –work that depicts major events of a specific time period. He could have chosen any political upheaval in the world but instead focused on the Clayoquot environmental protests on British Columbia’s West Coast. It was what he knew. The exhibition includes a remarkable grouping from that decisive time, when environmentalists, First Nations, loggers and corporations fought and, eventually, came to terms with each other, if only for that particular moment and set of circumstances. The painted panels in these works show the texture of plywood, an ironic statement about forestry products.

            A story within a story about the Clayoquot series is that Wallace’s high school English teacher appears in one of the photographs. That teacher inspired Wallace’s interest in poetry, a literary love that influences much of his picture making. Indeed, this retrospective offers many stories to consider.