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| Glue Pour (detail) 1970 Robert Smithson: glue poured January 7, 1970 at the University of British Columbia Endowment Lands. Documented by Christos Dikeakos. 9-1/2 x 6-1/2 inch vintage silver gelatin print. Courtesy of Joy Garnett & Bill Jones, New York City Reprinted in 2000; portfolio of 27 selenium-toned prints. Glue Pour copyright the Estate of Robert Smithson/VAGA. Photograph copyright Christos Dikeakos. Christos Dikeakos was born in Thessaloniki, Greece and moved to Canada in 1955, earning a BA in Fine Arts at the University of British Columbia in 1970. Since the late 1960s, Dikeakos' practice has played an important role in the rise of conceptual and post-conceptual photography in Vancouver. He has participated in seminal moments of Vancouver's contemporary art history, including Robert Smithson's Glue Pour in 1970. His work is included in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada, the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Vorres Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece. He is represented by Catriona Jeffries Gallery, Vancouver, BC. Glue Pour was executed in 1970 beside a road cut in the woods at the University of British Columbia. It involved poring 500 pounds of water-soluble, bright orange glue down the incline of rock and soil, which dissipated in the rain over the course of several hours. The project was witnessed by Lucy Lippard, Smithson's wife the artist Nancy Holt, Vancouver writer Dennis Wheeler and Vancouver photographer Christos Dikeakos, who documented the event. "Like the natural processes of physical erosion, the Glue Pour was made to seep and dissipate into the edge of an urban West Coast forest; its rapid disappearance was an embrace of a state of imperfection. The location of the site is currently identified by two unintentional and ironic markers: a yellow sign that reads "Information" recalling the title of a 1970 MoMA exhibition of conceptual art, and another sign almost at the edge of the pour site. It reads 'Do Not Dump Refuse.' Today, the site of the Glue Pour is within the domain of an ecological and recreational area named Pacific Spirit Regional Park and the traditional territory of the Musqueam First Nation. Under present circumstances, it would be nearly impossible to restage this work. The local, urban citizens -- who idealize nature and the wilderness while neither living in or subsisting from it -- would be outraged and likely mobilize to prevent an "environmental threat" such as glue spillage. [...] Glue Pour disappeared almost as quickly as it was realized. Today the visible trace of entropy has retreated and the north face of the site has the appearance of a typical West Coast wilderness area, a densley covered place within a stone's throw of upscale, large-lot residences. Ferns, salal and thickets of thorn-ridden blackberry bushes surround the "Do Not Dump Refuse" sign. A grove of semi-native weed trees, willow, alder and poplar are anchored and thriving on the incline of the road cut that Smithson noticed thirty-three years ago." |
| (Text: Christos Dikeakos, "Glue Pour and the Viscosity of Fluvial Flows as Evidenced in Bottle-Gum Glue Pour Jan. 8.1070 9:30 to 11:30." Robert Smithson in Vancouver: A Fragment of a Greater Fragmentation, edited by Grant Arnold. Vancouver Art Gallery, pp. 39-56. Published in conjunction with the eponymous exhibition curated by Grant Arnold and presented at the Vancouver Art Gallery from Sept 20, 2004 - Jan 4, 2004.) |
| CHRISTOS DIKEAKOS / ROBERT SMITHSON |
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http://outoftheblueproject.org contact: joy.garnett @ gmail dot com |