Martha Wilson is an American feminist who began her career in the early 1970s at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Working in the male-dominated Conceptualist milieu of the time, Wilson generated pioneering photographic and video work that explored her female subjectivity through role playing and invasions of male and other female personas. After moving to New York City in 1975, she further developed her performative and video-based practice in founding and directing Franklin Furnace, an artist-run centre dedicated to the exploration and promotion of innovative installation, performance and time-based art practices. This publication chronicles Wilson's journey from the virtual isolation of her early work to the transformative experience of working with then-unknown artists like Jenny Holzer and Shirin Neshat in a socially-engaged feminist art practice that defied and challenged established artistic and political values.

Martha Wilson: Staging the Self

Arts & Photography

Wark, Jayne

Dykhuis, Peter

History & Criticism

ABC Art Books Canada Distribution

Artists from across Canada identify varying forms of nationhood that either serve or detract from the concept of a national accord. Each artist explores the discourse to include not only colonial histories, but also distinctive and multicultural liberties such as treaties, blood, languages, sexual orientation, faith, and oral traditions. The dynamic range of art works exhibited expose and accept the diverse forms of nationalism that exist across the country. In Englsih and French.

Anthem / Hymne: Perspectives on Home and Native Land / Points de Vue sur la Terre de nos Aieux (French and English Edition)

Rice, Ryan

This profusely illustrated hardcover publication features over 100 works - each one reproduced in fill color - ranging from sculpture to drawings and prints, all of which are Sanattiaqsimajut or 'things that are finely made.' Two essays discussing the history of the collection are accompanied by thirty-three individual texts that take distinctive thematic, biographical and formal approaches. These essays are written by experts in the field including Patricia Feheley, Robert Kardosh, Christine Lalonde, Marybelle Mitchell, Judith Nasby, Crystal Parsons, Leslie Boyd Ryan, Pitaloosie Saila, Norman Vorano, Darlene Coward Wight and Norman Zepp.

Sanattiaqsimajut: Inuit Art from the Carleton University Art Gallery Collection

Sandra Dyck

Ingo Hessel

Canada at the 2005 Venice Biennale The art of Rebecca Belmore is based in performance, a medium at once indigenous to her native people and international. The sense of loss is always explicit and specific: lost battles, lost culture and lost language. Yet her work is always infused with a sense of play and wonder.

Rebecca Belmore: Fountain

Bradley, Rickard

Individual Artists

De con structions

Brisebois, Josee Drouin

Featuring the work of six Canadian artists, this publication examines a recurring facet of contemporary artistic production: material excess, accumulation, bravado, asymmetry, and theatricality. The impact of such art is decidedly visual and primeval, with artists creating powerfully immersive environments aimed at enticing, challenging and even unsettling viewers. Three essays discuss ornamentation, hybridity, material sensibilities, transformation and the sublime in contemporary art practice. With works by David Altmejd, Lee Bul, Bharti Kher, Tricia Middleton, Yinka Shonibare MBE, and Sarah Sze. Catalogue accompanying an exhibition organized by the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Alberta, in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art.

Misled by Nature: Contemporary Art and the Baroque

Shaughnessy, Jonathan

Crowston, Catherine

Drouin-brisboise, Josee

A scholarly essay outlines the history and philosophy of the warrior class and describes their armoury, weaponry and dress. Generously illustrated with nearly 100 illustrations.

Samurai: The Warrior Class of Japan

TILL, Barry

Three South Asian Canadian women artists gather and create narratives informed by the mythologies and ideologies of their Sikh, Muslim, and Punjabi heritage. Their work investigates, pays homage to and challenges their cross-cultural memories by forging new narratives that straddle Canadian, British, and Indian traditions. Their work includes sculpture, video and installation that immerse the viewer in intimate personal exchanges that are (re)articulated through interventions of the domestic in the gallery space. An essay and an interview are accompanied by numerous color plates.

Collected Resonance: Shelly Bahl, Sarindar Dhaliwal, Farheen HaQ

Stanbridge, Nicole

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

Terrance Houle: GIVN'R

Hill, Richard William

Kiendl, Anthony

Chhangur, Emelie

In his celebrated minimalist sculptures Kai Chan employs materials and techniques that speak to both tradition and modernity. Working with common objects such as thread, twigs and buttons, Chan alters the nature of what constitutes sculpture and what constitutes textiles by transforming elements of the natural world to evoke geographical boundaries and cultural influences. Kai Chan's work is critically received equally within the discipline of textiles and the visual arts in general. He participated in the prestigious 12th International Biennial of Tapestry in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1985, and the equally notable International Triennial of Tapestry in Lodz, Poland in 2001. This 35-year retrospective publication features works created between 1975 and 2010, many of are exhibited here for the first time.

Kai Chan: A Spider's Logic / La logique de l'araignee (English and French Edition)

Quinton, Sarah

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Books by ABC Art Books Canada Distribution