IAIN BAXTER&: THINKING ABOUT THE PRESENT

Posted: August 2, 2012 | Author: David Bellman

IAIN BAXTER&:

THINKING ABOUT THE PRESENT

A CAUSA Research Project:

North Vancouver City Library

(June 18 – December 30, 2012)

__________

 

Artist’s Statement

Over the past fifty years I have been producing & exhibiting (nationally and internationally) art that focuses on & critiques: Art, Media & Information Systems, Corporate, Consumer & Popular Culture, The Rural vs. The Urban, Technology vs. Humans & Nature, Global Ecology & Sustainability Concerns, & Landscape in the broadest of ways (as well as Perception in general).

The ideas and theories of Marshall McLuhan were early sources of inspiration for me; by profoundly affecting my way of looking at the world, his influence has been incorporated into much of my art. We live in a natural landscape and a landscape of information, & it is the fusion vs. the confusion between these landscapes that excites me & informs my practice.

Another source of inspiration for me has been the Eastern Philosophy of Zen Buddhism, which I studied in Japan, while on a Japanese Government Foreign Scholarship (1961-62). Zen teaches the importance of living in the moment (of the interconnectedness of all living things) – the urgency of being aware of your own & the world’s present state.

– IAIN BAXTER& (June, 2012)

__________

… & North Vancouver …

“When all cultures of the world are simultaneously present, the work of the artist in the elucidation of form takes on new scope and new urgency. Most men are pushed into the artist’s role. The artist cannot dispense with the principle of ‘doubleness’ or ‘interplay’ because this type of hendiadys dialogue is essential to the very structure of consciousness, awareness, and autonomy.”

– Marshall McLuhan (1970)

 

“Whereas it is generally industry that betrays and distorts scientific invention in the course of its exploitation, it is usually in the distorting medium of social life that artistic invention is falsified.”

– Wyndham Lewis (1927)

 

“EVERY HUMAN BEING IS AN ARTIST who – from his state of freedom – the position of freedom that he experiences at first-hand – learns to determine the other positions of the TOTAL ART WORK OF THE FUTURE SOCIAL ORDER.”

– Joseph Beuys (1974)

 

Born in Middlesbrough, Born in Middlesborough, England, Iain Baxter came to Canada in 1937. Prior to accepting a position in the Fine Arts Department, University of British Columbia (1964), he had studied Zoology at the University of Idaho (B.Sc., 1959); he pursued post-graduate studies in both Education and Visual Art (receiving M.Ed. and Master of Fine Arts degrees from the University of Idaho, and the University of Washington, respectively.)

From 1966 until 1978, Baxter resided in North Vancouver. There, as an emerging professional artist, he established the N.E. BAXTER THING CO. (1966) and its affiliated enterprise, the N.E. THING CO. (1967). Expanding beyond the formal limits of his particular educational background, Baxter was confidently forward-looking in his ability to recognize North Vancouver as a potential laboratory for experimental work in a new (previously undefined) field of research − “VSI / Visual Sensitivity Information”. In support of the artist’s idealistic, non-conformist outlook, one especially supportive critic/commentator would observe, contemporaneously: “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but contemporary art would be acceptable to far more people if it were called visual sensitivity information − or VSI.” [Joan Lowndes, 1967.] Coinciding with this artist’s choice of North Vancouver as a place of residence was his constantly expanding connection to current prospects of creative production within the visual culture of an emerging (post-industrial) “global village”. Once distanced from the obvious limitations of isolated (isolating) regionalism, Baxter (during the period 1966-1978) linked his North Vancouver centred worldview far beyond the traditional confines of an artist’s studio-based practice.

From a North Vancouver vantage point, Baxter laid the groundwork for his own independent projection towards maturity − as an artist of widespread (North American/European) prominence. His enduring commitment to the complex, thought-provoking theme of identity and environment has been (from the outset) a reflection of certain deeply affecting prompts towards resourcefulness − as experienced in a specific, local landscape. A small (but self-contained) urban zone (resiliently demarcated by an adjacent “wilderness” region of unpopulated forest, and an active, international seaport), North Vancouver has functioned as an expanding point of reference in both early and recent development of the artist’s unconstrained (on-going) project. The region has served (demonstrably) as an abiding source of inspiration; it functions as a glimmering towards an artist’s ever-evolving engagement with the multifaceted (closely connected), ecologies of natural and built environments. In this regard, the early influence of North Vancouver is comparable in importance to the widespread creative complexities of post-WW11 Japanese culture (urban and rural) that had been first encountered by Baxter (a visiting scholarship recipient) in 1961 − only three years before his arrival on British Columbia’s “Pacific Rim” shoreline.

In 2005, Iain Baxter changed his name to IAIN BAXTER& [pronounced BAXTERAND] − in a gesture aligned to his previous creation of an equally unconventional manifestation of conceptive identity, N.E. THING CO. Concerning the artist’s conjoined professional practice and self-image, TIME Magazine (1967) notes, with precision: “N.E. Thing Co. is another name for Iain Baxter … an artist for whom anything goes.” By extension from this unambiguous identification, the significance of BAXTER&’s changed name develops in relation to his own ever-changing discernment of an essential “interconnectedness of all living things” − his own anticipatory aspiration towards “unending collaboration with the viewer and the means to question the artist’s role.”

Aligned with BAXTER&’s sustained (sustaining) momentum, the North Vancouver City Library presents itself (on the occasion of the artist’s exhibition/installation, temporarily dispersed throughout its institutional setting), as an openly expansive source for the simultaneous presentation of compelling information, constructively explored.

Schema

“By space the universe encompasses and swallows

me as an atom; by thought, I encompass it.”

– Blaise Pascal (1670)

 

Component 1

until the & of time

Window signage, 2012

[Third Floor, North VancouverCity Library.

Orientation: East. Photo: M. Cynog Evans.]

Component 2

AND/DNA

Window signage, 2012

[Ground floor, North Vancouver City Library (Children’s Section).

Orientation: North/South, recto/verso.Photo: M. Cynog Evans]

 

Component 3

Our World Needs A Green Sweep

Whisk brush and vacuum-formed plastic

(20” x 20” overall), 2009

[Third floor display case, adjacent to Information Desk,

North VancouverCity Library. Photo: M. Cynog Evans.]

 

Component 4

ORAL WORK

The occasional presence of this work can be experienced

with the intermediary assistance of a Librarian (third floor

Information Desk, North VancouverCity Library), until

December 30, 2012.

[Photo: M. Cynog Evans.]

 

Component 5

L&SCAPE

Window signage, 2012

[Third floor, North Vancouver City Library.

Orientation: West. Photo: M. Cynog Evans.]

“Actuality, as specific, is not merely an index of

the empirical world, but also of the Infinite world.”

– Nishida Kitaro (1923)

 

1.

Piles of Styrofoam, North Vancouver

Photograph, ca. 1967

[Copyright © by IAIN BAXTER&, 2012]

 

“Art is what reveals to us a state of perfection.”

– Kobo Daishi / Kukai (774-835)

 

2.

IAIN BAXTER&. Seven mirrors among the garlic plants (3),

Loutet Urban Farm, North Vancouver, July 1, 2012.

[Photo: M. Cynog Evans.]

 

3.

IAIN BAXTER&, Seven mirrors among the brassicas (3),

Loutet Urban Farm, North Vancouver, July 1, 2012.

[Photo: M. Cynog Evans.]

 

“For the time being, the mind reaches but the word does not.

For the time being, the word reaches but the mind does not.

For the time being, the mind and word both reach.

For the time being, neither mind nor word reach.”

– Dogen (1240)

 

4.

Chiba Garden Redux, 2012

[Chiba Garden, North Vancouver.

Digital colour photograph © IAIN BAXTER&, 2012.]

 

BAXTER&’s first visit to this traditional Japanese garden marked

the fiftieth anniversary of his departure from Japan, where

he resided until the beginning of 1962.

__________

 

David Bellman
August 1, 2012