Ten Shows

In Ten Shows, Vancouver-born artist Barb Choit immerses herself in the vast and disparate slide library of the California Institute of the Arts. The resulting spectacle, a small and unassuming book on the outside, leads the viewer on a fascinating journey through the library's perspectives on Art History. Taking the singular viewpoint of this one institution, manifested aptly in its collection of historical slides, Ten Shows charts an exclusively visual trajectory into this now-obsolete medium of documentation. The documentation of works by artists including Allan Kaprow, Joan Jonas, Robert Morris, Jeff Wall and Carolee Schneemann, amongst others, becomes the work itself, and the archival inclination of the institution is shown as humbly beautiful. Slides are organised into simplistic groupings, based on their content's formal elements; Abstract Weather Patterns; Clouds in Grey Landscapes; Triple Shadows. The recurrence of certain objects, shapes or circumstances in multiple images becomes prevalent as Choit encourages the viewer to see comparable beauty in the works of famous artists and anonymously produced stock imagery. Published in association with Or Gallery, Vancouver.