Preview: Anarchism Without Adjectives

Anarchism Without Adjectives: On the Work of Christopher D’Arcangelo 1975-1979 — a new exhibition at the Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery in the J.W. McConnell Building — doesn’t feature a single work by its subject. It examines the “interventions” of Christopher D’Arcangelo, an artist who used action and anarchism as his raw materials.

How do you exhibit impermanent art? Michèle Thériault, the gallery’s director, explains.

Who was Christopher D’Arcangelo?

Michèle Thériault: In the mid-1970s, Christopher D’Arcangelo, who died very young [1955-1979], produced “actions” or “interventions” in New York that left no material traces. There are some notes and photographs that were taken at the time — and can now be found at the Fales Library at New York University — but that’s all.

One of D’Arcangelo’s actions was to chain himself to the entrance doors of the Whitney Museum of American Art and remain there for 45 minutes, forcing museum staff to provide an alternative entrance.

In another intervention, D’Arcangelo addressed an open proposal to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In this, he called for the museum to open itself “to anyone wishing to place any object or perform any activity in the museum,” and to relinquish its power to control the nature of the objects and activities thus presented. D’Arcangelo distributed this proposal while chained to a bench in the museum’s lobby until he was forcibly removed.

The exhibition at the Ellen Art Gallery raises a number of questions: How does one “exhibit” the work of an artist whose work was immaterial and ephemeral? Is it possible to do so while respecting the artist’s forceful critique of the institution of art and of the artist position’s in society? And finally, how can archival material represent an artistic practice, and how can those archives be referred to in an exhibition without being made directly available to the public? All of these questions are very important in contemporary art today because a lot of curatorial consideration is being given to ephemeral art practices from the 1960s and 1970s.

What can visitors expect to see when they walk into the gallery?

MT: Visitors will see a grouping of tables on which there are six flat screens. The visitor is invited to sit down at these tables and watch the interviews that are playing on each of the screens.

These interviews are with people who knew Christopher D’Arcangelo — well-known artists like the American conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner, the German-American art historian Benjamin H.D. Buchloh and the French artist Daniel Buren. 

They speak about their experiences of working with him, and comment on his practice using materials from the D’Arcangelo Archive that pertain to these experiences — a photograph, an invitation and so on.

These interviews constitute the “heart” of the exhibition, but Anarchism Without Adjectives also includes interventions by other artists such as Nicoline Van Harskamp and Montrealers Sophie Bélair Clément, François Lemieux and Simon Brown.

Meet Anarchism Without Adjectives’s curators Dean Inkster and Sébastien Pluot on September 3 at 4:30 p.m.; admission is free. The exhibition opens on the same day, with a reception from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

For more information about tours, events and workshops, visit the Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery online.

What: Anarchism Without Adjectives: On the Work of Christopher D’Arcangelo 1975-1979
When: From September 4 to October 26, 2013
Where: Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery in the J.W. McConnell Building (1400 De Maisonneuve Blvd. W., ground floor)