March 20 to July 18, 2021
Guest Curator: John O’Brian
BOMBHEAD is organized and circulated by the Vancouver Art Gallery
Bruce Conner, Bombhead, 1989/2002, pigment on RC photo paper, acrylic. Private Collection
© 2021 Conner Family Trust, San Francisco / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SOCAN, Montreal
BOMBHEAD is a thematic exhibition organized by guest curator John O’Brian and circulated by the Vancouver Art Gallery. It explores the emergence and impact of the nuclear age as represented by artists and their art. Encompassing the pre- and post-war period from the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 to the triple meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi in 2011, the exhibition brings together paintings, drawings, prints, sculpture, photographs, film, video and ephemera that deal with this often dark subject matter.
This exhibition is part of the Vancouver Art Gallery’s Across the Province touring program.
Artists: Carl Beam, Henry Busse, Blaine Campbell, Bruce Conner, Gregory Coyes and John O’Brian, Robert Del Tredici, Harold Edgerton, Robert Filliou, Richard Finnie, Betty Goodwin, Adolph Gottlieb, David Hockney, Robert Keziere, Roy Kiyooka, Bob Light and John Houston, Ishiuchi Miyako, Carel Moiseiwitsch, Bruce Nauman, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Mark Ruwedel, John Scott, Erin Siddall, Nancy Spero, Barbara Todd and Yosuke Yamahata.
Presented at the Kelowna Art
Gallery with support from:
VIDEOS: LECTURE SERIES
Join Michael Love, Vancouver-based artist and photographer, for an engaging presentation entitled “The Aesthetics of Peril”.
Join Lindsey A. Freeman, author and Associate Professor of Sociology at Simon Fraser University, for an intriguing talk entitled My Grandfather was an Atomic Courier.
Erin Siddal and Tsēmā Igharas talk about their collaborative project Great Bear Money Rock, which consists of film and installation work that responds to a trip the duo took to the Port Radium Uranium Mine in the North West Territories in 2019.
Mary Kavanagh is a Professor in the Department of Art, University of Lethbridge, where she teaches drawing and interdisciplinary studio.
Topic: before the before the after
John O’Brian is an art historian, author, and the guest curator of BOMBHEAD.
Topic: Duck and Cover, All Over Again
Join Kelowna Art Gallery Education Coordinator, Victoria Verge, for a closer look at the exhibition, BOMBHEAD, organized and circulated by the Vancouver Art Gallery and curated by John O’Brian.
IMAGES
Robert Rauschenberg, Hot Shot, 1983, lithograph, collage, stencil, 206.3 x 108.0 cm, Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Gift of J. Ron Longstaffe, © Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Photo: Rachel Topham, Vancouver Art Gallery.
Robert Rauschenberg, Page 1 (from Pages and Fuses), 1974, paper, textile, acrylic sheet, 60.0 x 72.5 x 5.0 cm, Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Ira Young, Photo: Rachel Topham, Vancouver Art Gallery.
Robert Keziere, GP-I crew, with sail, 1971, 1971, inkjet print, 33.0 x 48.5 cm, Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Gift of the Artist.
Robert Keziere, Thurston, Moore, Darnell in galley, 1971, inkjet print, 33.0 x 48.5 cm, Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Gift of the Artist.
Blaine Campbell, The Last Days no. 1, 2017, giclée on Dibond, 135.0 x 109.5 cm, Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Gift of the Artist.
