Less is More: the Poetics of Erasure

Less is More: the Poetics of Erasure
November 1 – December 12, 2008
SFU Gallery, Burnaby Campus
Panel Dicussion: Saturday November 1 at 2pm*
Opening + book launch: Saturday November 1 following symposium, until 5pm

Monica Aasprong · Andrea Actis · James Arthur · Oana Avasilichioaei · Derek Beaulieu · Jen Bervin · Rebecca Brown · Louis Cabri · Steve Collis · Jeff Derksen · Alexandra Dipple · Sarah Dowling · Jennifer Borges Foster · Jamie Hilder · Kristin Lucas · Michael Maranda/Parasitic Ventures Press · Erin Mouré · Tom Phillips · Kristina Lee Podesva · Angela Rawlings · Mary Ruefle · Susan Schuppli · Nick Thurston · Aaron Vidaver

Erasure is much in the news these days—stock portfolio values erased, a neighbourhood buried under water by storms, candidates for office learning that the public chose someone else, or a Fortune 500 company ceasing to exist. Erasure, however, has another side that deserves to be in the news: the poetic and the critical. This is the side reflected in this 24-person international exhibition, which includes the first-ever installation of the entirety of Tom Phillips’s book A Humument.

The poets, writers, and artists in Less is More have each responded to the ironic, formal, political, and semantic possibilities that awaited liberation from the source material they elected to use. The resulting poetry can take many forms: paintings, modified books, vinyl lettering on walls and floor, or blacked-out government documents.

Erasure is the most serious way that playfulness has emerged in recent art. By modifying existing documents and artifacts in aid of reconsidering their meaning, erasures provide an intriguing model for the ways in which meaning is created in the first place; it is epistemology, with fun added.

Panel discussion, Opening, Book Launch: Saturday November 1, 2pm
Please join us for a panel discussion on “The Poetics and Politics of Erasure” with Derek Beaulieu, Clint Burnham, Kristina Lee Podesva and Nick Thurston. Panel starting at 2pm, in room AQ3003, next to SFU Gallery. Followed by reception to 5pm.
*Note that the panel discussion was originally advertised as starting at 1pm, but the time has been changed to 2pm.

Publication:
This exhibition is accompanied by a 144-page book co-published as the exhibition catalogue and as an issue of The Capilano Review.

Lunchtime talks at 12:05pm and 12:35pm on:
Wed Nov 5, Thurs Nov 6, Fri Nov 7

Talks for classes or groups may be scheduled by appointment at 778.782.4266 or gallery@sfu.ca.

FREE PARKING! November 1 only. The exhibition card, media release, or Erasure exhibition page from our website is your visitor parking pass in any Visitor Lot at SFU (face up on dashboard or hand to parking attendant).

Contact and information:
The SFU Gallery is located at the SFU Burnaby Campus, AQ3004 (in the Academic Quadrangle, south side); Hours: Tues-Fri 10am-5pm, Sat 12pm-5pm. We are closed for holiday long weekends.