Black, Anthea

Burisch, Nicole

OCAD University Open Research Repository

OCAD University Open Research RepositoryFaculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences1986 The CEAC was banned in CanadaTuer, Dot Suggested citation: Tuer, Dot (1986) The CEAC was banned in Canada. C Magazine, 11. pp. 22-37. ISSN 1193-8625 Available at http://openresearch.ocadu.ca/id/eprint/1513/Open Research is a publicly accessible, curated repository for the preservation and dissemination of scholarly and creative output of the OCAD University community. Material in Open Research is open access and made available via the consent of the author and/or rights holder on a non-exclusive basis. EPILOGUE Wi wanted to b famou , glamourou and ri h. Thal i lo ay w wanted lo be arli l and w knew that if we were famou nd glamourou w could ay we were arli l and we would be. We never� /1 we had lo produ e great art to b great arti t . Wi kn w gr at art did not bring glamour and Fam . e knew we had toke p a  foot in the door of art and w wer on ciou of th importan e of b r t and paint bru he . n ral Id a, "Glamour"' It would eem that th on truction of a lo al art hi tory in Toronto i lim in ubstance and big on If-promotion. Und r the aegi of G n ral Idea, parody and the simulation of media ref rent becam the means in Toronto to an 'hi torici ed' di our e. In 1975, General Id a an noun d that "in order to be glamourou we had to be om plagari t , int lie tual para ite . We mov d in on hi tory and o upied image , mptying th m of m aning, reducing them to hell . W th n fill d the e hells with glamour, th r ampuff inno ence of idiot , th naughty ilence of harkfins slicing oily wat r ."1 Thi proj t, whi h takes the chall ng of N w York' ultural monopoly in th 1970' 1nd dive t it of it ocial, economic and politi al ramifi ation through a mocking mirror that inv rt it miotic, i a part of our inherited hi tory. Thu ten years later, Philip Monk an con lud that we uffer from "a la k of hi tory, and o w  r peat one from I wh r , or from Western hi tory, but without th grounding of hi tory or ontext." Thi onfiguration in Toronto i in it If a hi tory. But it i a hi tory which evoke a dominant ideology a� 'th ' ideology; a hi tory who e ubjective mythology gives rise to fiction. Paradoxically, it propo e a ruptur in th cultural monolith a lo ure. For it I ave my elf, and other who ar producing in th 1980' , with General Id a' ' hell' a material without a materialist ba e for a context. Yet at the ame tim we are, a writer and arti t , involved in an ext nsiv state-run bureaucracy. Our intellectual and ae thetic 'autonomy' come from our economi and ocial po ition within tate-funded art centres and journals. Th production of work and the di emination of critical and hi torical di cour al o i dependent upon gov nm nt upport. Given the exi tence of thi clearly materiali t ba e for an art practice, and on whi h ha little r lation to General Idea' capitali t, media- aturated paradigm, it m improbable that w uffer from a 'lack of history'. Perhaps, in tead, we uffer from a la k of articulated hi tori , any history whi h i  not constru ted from within the narrow confines of an 'art' di our e, within th confin of state-funded do umentation and promotion. P rhap it i not the history we la k, but an a knowledgment and int r t in art pra tic and art politic whi h tray too far from the ultural mandate of th tatu -quo. PROLOGUE It i December ... January .. . February ... 1986. The journey to York University i numbing, the ubway pulling out of it ubterranean pa age to reveal an ndle land cape of highri and urban townhou e . Queen Stre t eems both p y hologically and topographically di tant. Looking through the window of the crowded bu , I wonder if the landscape eemed a barren ten year ago; at that tim York Univer ity wa expanding a an in titution that would offer a radical alternative to the Univer ity of Toronto' wa p nclave of the tatu -quo. From the bu I walk ea h day through a imulated 'mall,' through a labyrinth of stairca e to th Archive , in search of a 'lost hi tory.' Entering the Arch iv s i like approaching a military bunker, requesting entrance to a sterile tomb. The door i locked at all time , there i a hushed brittle feel to the atmo phere. And it i here, to ed into boxe , that I uncover the documents of an arti t ' run centre in Toronto which exi t d a an exhibition space from 1974 to 1976, and a a multi-media centre from 1976 to 1978. Dedicated to "a continuou collective experiment in living and in sociological infiltration with practical demon tration ,"'the Ke:sington Art A o iation located at 4 Kensington Avenue grew 24 into CEAC, The C ntre for Experimental Art and Communication wh r a building at 15 Duncan Stre t hou d a library and archiv� vid o produ tion tudio, a performance pace, a film theatre and a , a punk music venue. From October 1975 when KAA ponsored a "Women in So iety F tival" to CEAC' I tur erie in April/May 1978 entitled "Five Polemic to the Notion of Anthropology," the a tivity of this organization wa phenomenal. The Centre producd atalogue , nine i ue of Art Communication Edition (A.CE.), the is ue of STRIKE magazine, and spon ored conference , international tours, work hops, performance , in tallation art, film and video creening , and mu i event . During 1976 and 1977, there was literally an event pon ored by CEAC or hou ed by CEAC every night of the week. Ten year lat r, another generation later, it is only by talking to individual artists involved with CEAC that I learn of its xi tence two year after moving to Toronto. And it i only by archival re ear h that I am able to di cover in a fragm nted and hieroglyphic form, the extent of th a tivities and texts whi h eem to have vani hed without refer nee from a Toronto art community's history. But after emerging from the Archive bunk r, a necrophiliac piecing together the r mnants of activity from docum nt , have I uncover.a hi tory? There are only fragment which remain: photographs, lists, letter , file , po ter , clipping , catalogue , books. From these I hae gleaned, not a hi tory, but impression ; impre ion of a Toronto arts entr whos philosophy, politic , ideal , em very foreign to the city' current infatuation . Or are they? Lorrain Le son and Peter Dunn' Dockland Proj ti de cribed in a do ument ent to CEAC. In 1986, it re-appear at A Space in it po ter form. The foreign, not Canadian arti t who p rformed at CEAC re-appear in Art M tropole's "P rforman e by Arti t "and "Video by Artists" documentation. The analy i by Amerigo Marra in STRIKE magazine of arti t ' run centre , arti t ' relation hip to th tate a�d his call fora guaranteed minimum income for arti t , e ho a similar demand by th Artist's Union ten year later. Just as Philip Monk can argue ontinuity as la k of hi tory, I find within the e archival documents evid nee of a of a very pe ific local hi tory - a history linked to arti ts' political and ocial ideal and practice that were r alized/unrealiz d/ ubverted by a very local context: the relation of production to a state-fund d cultural bureaucracy and to political ideals. For, in re arching CEAC, I had the impression that I was x avating only one layer of an alternative per pe tive, a perspective which ought to ituate art a a marginal and o ial practice. The early years of A Spa e, The Body Politic, C ntr old, are al o part of thi per pective. And, although it is beyond the cope of this articleto tra e the interconne tion and divergence , I invite the reader to bring hi /her knowledg ofToronto' hi tory to bear upon my de cription , impr sion , and speculation of CEAC. History as per onal memory, a olle tiv amnesia, a con tructed ideology, as exual politic , a fi tion, a myth, a elf-pre ervation, as rumour, as fa t, a ternal retun: tak your pick. Each of you ha his/her context and po ition from whi h to find in thi t xt a ontinuity, an ab rration, a lack. For it i not my intention to pre ent you with an authoritative re- on truction, nor a definitive hi tory of CEAC. Rather, in pre enting, briefly, some of their activitie and theorie� 1 whi h an be r - on titut d from written and vi ual documentation, wi h to encourag p ulation; speculation about the nature of art, rJ ideology, of cultural pra tice, national identity and local context. PROGRAMME NOTES FOR A TRAGIC-COMIC OPERA IN THREE ACTS. OVERTURE In 1970, Suber Corl y, Am rigo Marras and Jearld Moldenhauer f rm d an "Art and Communication" group and founded The B Politic, whi h b cam the voice of the gay movement in Toronto. ut of these first initiative , de cribedby Marras a "clearly n gativi t and neo-marxi t in ideology," " ew a loo e organizat of individuals who w re intere ted in chall nging capitalism's " pecialization of role and it homophobi xism," 7 and·who ba ed their activitie at 4 Ken ington Avenue. By 1973, The Body. Politic, Glad Day Bookstore, and Toronto Gay Action were operatl their activities at thi addre . In 1973, however, Amerigo Marras Suber Corley became inter ted in formulating a relat"on betw�. and social practice, incorporating a the Kensington Art Assoc1at Their ubsequ nt activitie and the evolution of their theoretical 

Still performing austerity: Artists, work, and economic speculation

Érudit