Bruce A Barber

NSCAD University, Media Arts, Faculty Member

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Bruce Barber is an interdisciplinary media artist, cultural historian and curator whose research and writing explores the representation of art, artists and art history in film, television, cartoons and comics. At NSCAD University he teaches courses in media arts and film history. He holds a BFA (1973), and MFA in Sculpture and Art History from Auckland University (1975); an MFA (Intermedia), NSCAD (1978), and PhD (2005), Media and Communications, European Graduate School Leuk Stadt, Switzerland. His interdisciplinary artwork has been exhibited internationally at the Paris Biennale, Sydney Biennale, 49thParallel Gallery, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, Walter Phillips Gallery, London Regional Gallery, Auckland City Art Gallery, Artspace, Sydney and Auckland and is represented in various public and private collections.
Barber is the editor of Essays on Performance and Cultural Politicization and of Conceptual Art: the NSCAD Connection 1967-1973. He is co-editor, with Serge Guilbaut and John O'Brian of Voices of Fire: Art Rage, Power, and the State. Editor of Condé +Beveridge: Class Works (2008); also author of Performance [Performance] and Performers: Essays and Conversations (2 volumes) edited by Marc James Léger (2008), and Trans/Actions: Art, Film and Death (2008), Littoral Art & Communicative Action edited by Marc James Léger (2013. His critical essays have appeared internationally in numerous anthologies, art journals and magazines. Barber’s interdisciplinary art practice is documented in the publications Reading Rooms and Bruce Barber Work 1970-2008. He is best known for his performance work, neo-conceptual reading and writing rooms, Squat projects and his theoretical writing and theory on littoral art, cultural intervention and other relational art practices.

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Danijela Zutic

McGill University

Ivana Vranic

Columbia College Vancouver

Kristin Bluemel

Monmouth University

Torben Jelsbak

University of Copenhagen

Matthew N . Hannah

Purdue University

Robert Adlington

Royal College of Music

Ana Kršinić Lozica

University of Zagreb, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences [Filozofski fakultet]

Irina Aristarkhova

University of Michigan

Wendy Landry

Concordia University (Canada)

Alice Kelly

University of Oxford

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Videos by Bruce A Barber

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Breathe in Breathe out

Simulacrum of silent footage

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00:06

Video project for #BiennaleNO an international collaborative art project curated by Norwegian artist Bjorn Magnhildøen

This references a ‘whatever’ moment in contemporary art practice.

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Papers by Bruce A Barber

A18 002 PopularModernisms(Postcard)

Popular Modernisms, 2024

Pleased to announce the publication of this book

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Radio: Audio Art’s Frightful Parent

Border/Lines, 1989

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9. Cultural Interventions in the Public Sphere

La blague de Jubal Brown : la souveraine conscience de l’in/subordination

Une autre scène forte présente CARRINGTON elle-même, jouée par Emma THOMPSON, en train d'être sou... more Une autre scène forte présente CARRINGTON elle-même, jouée par Emma THOMPSON, en train d'être soumise par l'un de ses amants à ce qui semble être une pénétration anale très agressive. 2. Selon un article du Globe and Mail (26 décembre 1996), BROWN a ingurgité « des framboises, du ketchup, des cerises et des betteraves, le tout bien rincé avec du jus de tomate» pour sa vomissure rouge. Celle en bleu résultait de l'ingestion de « fromage bleu, de bleuets, de crème glacée bleue et de jello bleu ». 3. Voir Bruce BARBER.

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Voices of Fire

On 7 March 1990 the National Gallery of Canada issued a press release announcing its purchase of ... more On 7 March 1990 the National Gallery of Canada issued a press release announcing its purchase of a large abstract painting by the American artist Barnett Newman for $1.8 million. Within 72 hours the gallery was under attack both for its selection of Voice of Fire and for the price tag attached to it. Objections came from across Canada and from all quarters.The Voice of Fire controversy was the most extensive and heated debate over visual art ever to have taken place in Canada. This anthology can be seen as a case-study, providing both a historical account of the outcome of the National Gallery's purchase of the painting and an understanding of why the gallery's actions provoked such strong opinions and feelings. In this volume the editors also address the peculiar and paradoxical character of abstract art in general and the problems it consistently poses for viewers. Newman's work is presented as the focus of these concerns.The attack on the gallery by the press, the general public, Canadian artists, and politicians is documented in the first section by a broad selection of cartoons satirizing the painting, press photographs, news releases, editorials, letters to the editor, and public exchanges. In the second section three essays offer contrasting accounts of the controversy and its significance. The first considers the social processes by which art becomes art, the second focuses on the role of the media in shaping public opinion about art, and the third compares the reception of Voice of Fire in two distinctive frameworks, first at Expo '67 in Montreal and then in Ottawa in 1990. In the final part four papers given at a symposium on Voice of Fire organized by the gallery in October 1990 (a combined effort at damage control and art criticism) are presented, as well as a transcription of the public dialogue between speakers and audience which followed.

<i>Editing the Image: Strategies in the Production and Reception of the Visual</i> (review)

University of Toronto Quarterly, 2010

Intervention culturelle dans la sphère publique

Inter : art actuel, 2006

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Ideas without Work/Work without Ideas: Reflections on Work, Value and the Volk

McGill-Queen's University Press eBooks, Mar 3, 2000

Arbitrary Productions

Performance by Artists

Illustrating the complex and diverse nature of "notions of performance", Pontbriand&#39... more Illustrating the complex and diverse nature of "notions of performance", Pontbriand's introduction precedes contributions by 16 artists exemplifying their work. Situating performance historically and socially, ten critical essays examine various facets of the phenomenon, including: the distinction between American and European sensibilities; its function as a mode of communication; its prominence in the shift of the nature and function of art; and its efficacy from a feminist perspective. Canadian artists at the Western Front and from the Toronto area are highlighted in two texts.

Sound By Artists

Editors Lexier and Lander present the anthology of the art of sound as an attempt to identify sou... more Editors Lexier and Lander present the anthology of the art of sound as an attempt to identify sound as an art practice and to highlight the non-visual aspects of perception. Includes 37 texts and a list of selected recorded works by the artists, biographical notes on the 35 contributors and an extensive bibliography (14 p.).

Partei ohne Partei

Third Text, 2018

Abstract ‘Whatever’ as the ethical ground for the potentiality of a ‘party without party’ (Partei... more Abstract ‘Whatever’ as the ethical ground for the potentiality of a ‘party without party’ (Partei ohne Partei). Herman Melville’s Bartleby, the scrivener, says ‘I would prefer not to’ three times. This famous speech act constitutes the urtext ‘what if/ever potentiality’ of Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben’s ethics for the contemporary philosopher (as) scrivener; the one who like the party without party (senza il partito) member, may engage in ‘an experience of the possible as such’. Does this privileging of potentiality in the political process coincide with the renunciation of the creative will to power in Guy Debord’s famous line from his film Critique de la séparation (1961), Taking his cues from Aristotle’s Metaphysics ‘thought thinking itself, which is a kind of mean between thinking nothing and thinking something, between potentiality and actuality’, Agamben affirms the anaphorised potential of Bartleby’s speech act: ‘I would prefer not to prefer not to’. What if conventional party politics, partisanship left/centre/right divisions were a thing of the past? Now to the Dead Letter Box and the potentialities of a Partei ohne Partei (party without party)! Barber’s détournement of the original Surrealist map is a situationist enterprise and related to the question of building arbitrary barriers such as the ‘Trump wall’ between the US and Mexico and the relinquishing of the open borders implicit in the European project initiated when Charles de Gaulle stated ‘Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals’, which in 1967 implicitly included Great Britain.

Capital Culture: A Reader on Modernist Legacies, State Institutions, and the Value(s) of Art

Canadian Journal of Communication, 2002

In June 2001 an item on CBC Radio Two&#x27;s The Arts Report included a sound bite from the B... more In June 2001 an item on CBC Radio Two&#x27;s The Arts Report included a sound bite from the Banff television festival. It was of an award presenter rhyming off the countries - at least half a dozen - involved in one of the many co-produced winning programs. &quot;Can anybody think of any ...

Revitalizing Debates around Collective Action and Democracy: A Conversation between Oliver Ressler and Bruce Barber

Journal of Visual Culture, 2015

This text is the result of a discussion conducted via email between Oliver Ressler and Bruce Barb... more This text is the result of a discussion conducted via email between Oliver Ressler and Bruce Barber during March 2014. The topics were wide ranging and focused upon material presented by Ressler in his invited lecture at NSCAD University as part of the Public Lecture series. Key topics explored in the conversation include Austrian politics, art and activism, interventionism, collaboration, operative and engaged art practice, the ‘coming community’ (Agamben), ‘Dark Matter’ of the art world (Sholette) and specific projects: Robbery (2008), The Bull Laid Bear (2008) What Is Democracy? (2011), and We Have a Situation Here (2011).

The Social Performer

LIVE, 1980

When Brecht wrote the above in 1936, he was championing a "new" kind of theatre that wa... more When Brecht wrote the above in 1936, he was championing a "new" kind of theatre that was realistic, sensual, critical, and above all didactic. Without the apoliticism and detached irony of a Duchamp, he wished to put theatre "once again at the service of the mind." Like Duchamp, Brecht abhorred the natural-the status quo; unlike Duchamp, who was by calling an iconoclast, Brecht was primarily interested in providing his audience with critical works that dealt with the problems of the past as these had evolved into the present-brought to the people as criticism, for criticism. The abnegation implicit in a Duchamp statement such as "there is no answer because there is no problem" would, for the German playwright, have been tantamount to travesty-perhaps even a curious kind of Pontius Pilate self-absolution. For Brecht, problems once recognized, demand answers, and answers invariably necessitate change.

How We Teach Performance Art: University Courses and Workshop Syllabus

"42 different approaches to transmit the generative source of creativity in live action by i... more

Parachute : The Anthology : 1975 - 2000 : Vol. I

''Gathering together eight seminal essayes, by Bruce Alistaire Barber, Thomas Crow, Hal F... more ''Gathering together eight seminal essayes, by Bruce Alistaire Barber, Thomas Crow, Hal Foster , Reesa Greenberg, Serge Guilbaut, Hans Haacke, Jean-Francois Lyotard, and Rene Payant, this first volume of Parachute : The Anthology (1975 - 2000) addresses the state and function of art history, criticism, and theory in their own particular moment. An introduction by Alexander Alberro and Nora M. Alter considers the history of this unconventional and theoretically cutting-edge magazine - bridging theory between Europe and the America at a time when these were still very distinct worlds - and how this anthology constitutes and invaluable document of the changes in both art practice and writing from 1975 to 2000.''-- p. [4] of cover.