A retrospective of one of the leading Canadian artists of the last three decades, featuring her photography, montages and installations Shortly after graduating from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Vikky Alexander made her 1983 entry into the international art world while living in New York by participating in photo historian Abigail Solomon Godeau's exhibition The Stolen Image and its Uses. For over a decade she was active in a circle of New York artists that merged the critical ideas of Minimalism and Conceptual Art with photography, and came to be known as the Pictures Generation. Since then she has continued to explore the appropriated image through her own photography, especially in relation to iconic representations of nature as well as the spaces of consumerism - two subjects that remain significant in today's cultural discourses.

This book, which accompanies an exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery, is a beautifully illustrated retrospective of nearly four decades of Alexander's work. Since the 1980s, Alexander has made numerous series of photographs, montages, sculptures, collages and installations, all working to hone a vision that captures the spectacle and inherent falseness of certain public and private spaces. From the exaggerated architecture of Versailles, Disneyland and the West Edmonton Mall, to the use of idyllic "natural" settings and the skin-deep beauty of fashion models, she unravels the mechanisms of display that shape meaning and desire in our culture.

Daina Augaitis is a Canadian curator of contemporary art. She has held curatorial positions at the Vancouver Art Gallery; Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff; Western Front, Vancouver; Convertible Showroom, Vancouver; and Franklin Furnace, New York; and was formerly director of Visual Arts at The Banff Centre (1992-1994), where she organized residencies for artists and curators. Augaitis has edited anthologies and written numerous catalogue essays and articles, frequently addressing cultural and social issues.

Daina Augaitis' profile page

Vincent Bonin is an author and independent curator. From 2000 to 2007, he worked as an archivist at the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science, and Technology (Montreal). As a curator, he notably organized the three-part project (consisting of two exhibitions and one publication) entitled Documentary Protocols (1967-1975) at Concordia University’s Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery (2007-2008).

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Leah Pires' profile page