Cornelia Butler and Grant Arnold: Book Launch at Vancouver Art Gallery

We are pleased to announce the Vancouver Art Gallery launch for  From Conceptualism to Feminism: Lucy Lippard’s Numbers Shows 1969–74the most recent addition to our  Exhibition Historiesseries of books and 4,492,040, a facsimile reprint of the card catalogues produced by Lippard in the late 1960s and early 70s. On Tuesday 8 January, contributing author Cornelia Butler and curator Grant Arnold will discuss Lucy Lippard’s ‘numbers shows’ and their accompanying card catalogues.

From Conceptualism to Feminism: Lucy Lippard’s Numbers Shows 1969–74 features extensive archival material, including over 130 images, and is complemented by a new essay by Cornelia Butler and interviews with Lippard, Seth Siegelaub and exhibiting artists as well as critical responses written at the time by Peter Plagens and Griselda Pollock. Examining the ‘numbers shows’ and following Lippard’s trajectory as critic and curator, the book traces her growing political engagement and involvement with feminism and includes an essay by Pip Day analysing artists’ initiatives in Argentina as a context for Lippard’s emerging political consciousness.

4,492,040, as was the case with the original publications, is made up of a collection of loose notecards containing statements, documentation and conceptual works by each artist, to be rearranged, filed or discarded at will. This new edition, edited by Jeff Khonsary and co-presented with the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Seattle Art Museum, is supplemented by a new afterword by Lippard.

Cornelia Butler is Chief Curator of Drawings at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and author of ‘Women ­– Concept – Art’, the central essay in From Conceptualism to Feminism. Grant Arnold is Audain Curator of British Columbia Art at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Audio-visual documentation here.

Cornelia Butler and Grant Arnold: Book Launch at Vancouver Art Gallery
Tuesday 8 January 2013, 19:00

Heritage Courtroom
Vancouver Art Gallery
750 Hornby Street
Vancouver BC
V6Z 2H7

Admission is free.

This event is a joint launch produced in collaboration with theVancouver Art Gallery and New Documents.

The  Exhibition Histories series investigates exhibitions that have shaped the way contemporary art is experienced, made and discussed. Published by Afterall Books in association with the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna; the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College; and Van Abbemuseum, 2012. Distributed by Koenig Books, London.