Biography

Terry Reid was born in Canada. Went to the Vancouver School of Art. Currently lives in Woolloomooloo, New South Wales, Australia. Works at the TAM Rubberstamp Archive.

Projects (selected)

1 ] Time AND Space, Hazelhurst Regional Art Gallery, Sydney Australia, 2010. Time AND Space covered the period from 1970 to 2010, presenting Sydney artists who were involved in the push, both personal and lobbying, for adequate studio space, co-operative activities space and space to house working equipment for the production of prints, publications, et cetera. Rolfe’s exhibition underlined the continuous blurring and integrating of social-come-political intention (pushing government to recognize the needs of artists and the value of their contributions) AND linked it with the practice of art. It was posited that Mailart, the first large-scale move bypassing establishment control, lead to artist-run galleries (artists showing what they needed to show)....kick-starting their own magazines (artists saying what they needed to say), et cetera. With an image of me in spotty guise as dog-man, dalmation (displayed along with emails from the famous Anna Banana, Mr Peanut, Marcel Dot and the infamous Dr Brute, each having been identified curatorially as titans of the postage stamp), the exhibition reviewed me as the lovably grotesque poster-boy of a post-pimply adolescent breakaway art leading toward an always rosier-cheeked, if alien, future.

2 ] SYDNEY-SEOUL SECREt exchange. Museum of Contemporary Art at the National Art School, Sydney Australia 2011, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul Korea 2011-2012. It should not be surprising to discover that art is often used as a pawn in the geo-political manoeuvres of the world where most violent are the hands of power with fingers not far from the triggers of warfare. Like diplomacy-wives in elegant gowns, art provides the suitably lulling mask of civility; except art is better. Unlike wives, art can be openly shared. An exchange of culture is not open for outside criticism as is, say, a friendly, getting-to-know-you bilateral military exercise. Art is for nice guys doing nice non-violent things, or so common-sense seems to say. Guess again. Having covertly brought a vulnerable USSR to its end with the Russian failure in Afghanistan (1989), and having gained manageable control over the flow of Iraqi petroleum (2011), considerable barriers to the extension of western financial interests had been severely reduced with relative success. Next China, the biggest challenge to expansive western desires. One manoeuvre (of many) is to develop a South East Asia - Non-China East Asia - Australasia economic and military block to counter rising Chinese power. This includes (my suggested much vaunted) soft approach for the bilaterally unifying of people’s consciousness with art. And art is cheap. Especially new art. You can get a lot of cultural glad-handing for bottom dollar. And my contribution, Mailart is really the cheapest. That bargain of art, my SECREt eXCHANGE was an exhibition within an exhibition; the exhibition was Tell Me Tell Me (a great title taken from the Wonder Girls K-Pop hit song of same name). Tell Me Tell Me was backed by the Australian Government through the International Cultural Council and the Australia-Korea Foundation which are initiatives of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (art-in-service, you see; art is useful if only you can find something important for it to do). The curators, Korean, Inhye Kim and Australian, Glenn Barkley did not put together separate shows in order to exchange them; instead, as an exhibition concept, Tell Me Tell Me broke ground by streaming the art of both countries together, establishing a kind of bi-cultural simultaneity. Nam Jun Paik’s performance with Charlotte Moorman in Sydney in 1976 (sponsored by John Kaldor), provided an originating point for cultural connections which the exhibition pursued through the thirty-five years to the present (2011). Here and now (March 2014), from SYDNEY in AUSTRALIA and SEOUL in KOREA to ROSKILDE in DENMARK, the hand-in-glove secret relationship between government and art is hereby revealed. A revelation? Such is the job of the SECREt eXCHANGE. However, as are some artists, a good curator is a magician – always manages to get the rabbit free of its geo-political hat. When the rabbit is trapped, the art is probable propaganda. When it is not, it is light relief to heavy guns.

A sampling of two of the additional projects during this period follows

1 ] Shelf Life. Sydney 2006-2013. Additional works of the 2010-2013 period includes exhibiting numbers of framed works for an annual November-December Shelf Life show presented at the Delmar by Catherine Benz in continuation of a concept by Nick Vickers - art under the dissimulation of Christmas marketing. Like Santa, I try to do this at zero profit which is the number of degrees Celsius when snow falls.

2 ] Belated Christmas Greetings. Almost everywhere, 2002 to now and ongoing. This collective mail&otherNetworks project was begun in 2002 in the studio stripped bare I had inherited from gaxfax: had been a live-in experiment in digitotality on at the edge of city centre, a short walk down Shame Lane, tattoo parlour below the floor boards, me between homes (and homelessness). Unfortunately, it was to fall under the hammer to developer – bye, bye to this Bohemia – before the Belated Christmas Greetings project was finished, would ever be finished, leaps, however, frequently back into serial life at – hello, next Bohemia. The project (in the main..........I have difficulty corralling and keeping kangaroo from hopping out of my head) was sending artists copies of to-be-altered-and-returned postcards depicting the former Ayers Rock in Central Australia. You know the rock – great red giant sitting (like a mega-hatching) on endlessly flat land of the living desert. Now it is called Uluru. This is the Scrooge-like cost-naught concession to land demands of Aborigines. In the grandness of generosity, we give them back their name for their Rock, keeping the Rock itself for ourselves for the profits of tourism - from the tribal perspective, the Rock is sacred (even from the postcard you can see why): it should not be walked upon. I have my own name for the Rock, in the spirit of Christmas giving, Uluru gains a Y to become YUluru. The problem with this is how to have tongue in cheek and not byte it. Megabyte it. This network assisted project with ethical twist of tortuous soul (soul as colon) has/is/will be travelling in opposite directions, from macro in murals (the postcard made macro for Diego Rivera, celebrator of the indigenous, inventor of modern art), to the micro in postage stamps (by Madame Banana a.k.a. ANABANANACANADA and I). Maybe, now that I’ve reduced the giant rock to a postage stamp, I can get Concretist Mike Morris or Richard Tipping to think up a stone postcard for these stamps to go on: Belated Christmas Greetings to amend the disappointments of the ghost of our Christmases past.

Links

1 ] It isn’t over… : http://iuoma-network.ning.com/group/lomholtformularpress/page/it-isn-t-over
As for biographical information - here goes, an abbreviated compression for a background check:

2 ] 1965. Completed a 4 year diploma from Vancouver School of Art (now Emily Carr College) w/graduating exhibition that included bas-relief canvasses, a free-standing wrap-around, painting, etc.

3 ] 1966-68 . Taught at University School (secondary) in Victoria, British Columbia; followed by Calgary School of Art (tertiary).

4 ] 1968-69. Toronto and Vancouver: working w/mutable installations, moulding space with elasticized cloth, vinyl, etc, held in air w/guy lines.

5 ] 1970-72. Tokyo: working on establishing communication links between conceptualists, performance artists, etc in Japan with Fluxus, the New York Correspondence School, Image Bank, et al.

6 ] 1973-75. Auckland: connected w/artists under Jim Allen’s umbrella (Bruce Barber, Phil Dadson, et al); produced the Inch Art Edition broadsheet w/Bob Kerr: the Baked Beans performance (w/Ian Hunter, Pauline Gardner, Ian Athfield); presented a number of gallery installations.

7 ] 1975-76. Mildura Arts Centre: produced the Mildura Papers broadsheet w/Bob Kerr for the ’75 Triennial; followed by the Mask/Show (local, national and international) exhibition and event.

8 ] 1976. The Secret Exchange (an exchange of secrets between artists and the public), and artists’ international Yellow Pages for the Sydney Biennale.

9 ] 1977-78. Organized and assisted w/various exhibitions, events and published material in the Sculpture Centre programme, including Manifestos, Statements and Other/ Follies – a broadsheet produced by Paul McGillick and myself, co-sponsored by the Sculpture Centre, Central Street Gallery and the Contemporary Art Society with the support of Ken Unsworth, John Conway; Radio Ozone, a magazine co-sponsored by the Sculpture and Mildura Centres; contributed a catalogue page for Noel Sheridan’s Au tour of the Judith Hoffberg collection of artists’ books.

10 ] 1978-80. Designed poster/catalogue, etc, for AGDC for the Australian leg of Nick Spill/Luit Bieringer’s ART in the MAIL tour (amongst many projects of a Trans-Tasman nature); w/Richard Maude, assisted in production of the periodical, Cake; produced the Art Core Meltdown exhibition, event, and publication at Sydney University w/Pat Larter, Cees Francke, et al; produced the Art Network intro tabloid, Start w/Ross Wolfe, produced the 1st edition of Art Network w/Wolfe and Peter Thorn.

11 ] 1980-90. Produced (I am the piano-player in) THE WHORE HOUSE of ART event w/Betty Kelly to coincide w/the Sydney Biennale; did two works which featured my Zig Zag Man beard, one for Victoria Fernandez who photographed me naked, except for beard, escaping from a cardboard tiger (a Biennale exhibit), the other for the music clip for Rock This House w/me, also naked, in the bathtub gyrating as the building collapses under the intensity of the rhythm; performances for camera such as sharing a bath of raspberry-flavoured blood w/Jacqueline Eyres at the Ultimo exhibitions space (shot by PCD); the Carl Andre meets Keith Haring work, w/the fortuitous inclusion of Michael Johnson adding Body Art (shot by Richard Maude); Returning Duchanp’s Urinal to Its Former State of Glory (shot by Linda Stainton); Icarus Fallen (shot by me) etc, etc; redeployments of me in my birthday suit of dalmatian spots, for the Mental As Anything Brain Brain clip; presenting the songologue, Mondo Dingo live to an Au music industry event as backdrop to a dog-eat-dog performance by John Wilkinson and crew; as Dog Man, the ultimate force of evil, inciting a marsupial revolt, marsupials about to invade and destroy Sydney until Sydney is saved from attack by the Japanese punk band, Star Club; productions of Women In Cabaret w/Jude Barnsley; development and production of the articulated heavy-duty collages that are known as CRUSTACEANS; production of Cake, a tabloid that sought out the intersection between art and community (a co-production of TAFE, Northern Rivers College of Art and Lismore Regional Gallery, production space provided by Marco Koludrovic).

12 ] 1990-00. Made two return visits to Tokyo, spend two extended periods of 3 and 1 years in North America, including a 6 month tour from Vancouver to Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, New York, (crossing by way of Chicago, Cheyenne, Denver to) San Diego/Tijuana, San Pedro (LA), and Napa/San Francisco: continuing production of small works and short writings in Canada and US, publishing w/earlier Au writings in the quarterly Capilano Review; on the basis of Ruud Jansen’s splish, splash, I was having a bath....when the mailman knocked... proposition, I had myself documented signing for the NETMAIL Project’s registered mail delivery while in the bathtub (of green jelly) at Ed Big Dada Varney’s home (Ed Varney, it should be noted, shared accommodation w/Richard McMillan when studying art at Syracuse, NY); worked as an employee of Anna Banana on a number of projects with a post-Fluxus flavour.

13 ] 2000-10. Aside from building a collection of artist-produced images that fit my title-come-theme of BELATED CHRISTMAS GREETINGS, I have produced a number of what I call Circulating Art Library pieces (project begun in 1969), to which artists are invited sequentially to add to the work (includes Australian artists such as Simon Blau, Richard Larter, Mai Long, of course Denis Mizzi, Tony Twigg et al); participated in exhibitions (e.g.: Clube Millennium bcp, Lisboa; LIFE FORM, Osaka; Cité international de la dentelle et de la mode de Calais; Gallery Atrebates, Dozza (BO); participated in Vittore Baroni projects on the internet and elsewhere; contributed to Nick Vickers shows; was in FLUXUS NOW! at the Roanoke Marginal Arts Festival, Virginia; also a decade-plus spanning work (amongst my works) was contributed for Goin’ Postal at Art Metropole, a hallmark ARI running in Toronto since 1974, and which periodically re-archives its collection w/the National Gallery, Ottawa; sent one of the artists’ stamps (postage-like stamps) I have designed (produced by Anna Banana) to John Held Jr for his history of artist-designed, artist-produced meta-stamps; etc; etc.

14 ] SPECTACULAR FAILURES. I have not appropriately placed in this listing the projects which fell on their faces, such as the Tokyo sky-drawing w/a metre-wide 500 metre long roll of silver mylar drawn into the air by helicopter (1971); or, more recently, the update of the Secret Exchange by telephone, which Telstra liked but Tony Bond liked less.

15 ] TRACES OF THE TRAJECTORY I have a presence in Archives more than on Walls. Traces can be found in the Lucy Lippard archive; Fluxist and publisher of Something Else Press, Dick Higgins archive; the Jean Brown SHAKER SEEDHOUSE archive of Dada, Futurist, Fluxus papers, all of which are situated in the Getty collection.

16 ] A piece sent from Tokyo in the early 70s for Elwyn Lynn’s Net Take (at the Art Gallery of NSW?) and a Daily Mirror OPEN DRAWERS invitation sent from Auckland seeking participation in the Mildura Papers (broadsheet) project are in the Power Collection section at the Museum of Contemporary Art; a number of my print pieces are in curator, Nicholas Draffin’s ephemera file, if that has survived his demise.

17 ] Whew!