Artistic Licence Bureau 

A Performative Installation by Glen Johnson

• Exhibition 4-26 August 2011

• Opening Reception Thursday 04 August, 7PM

• Hours Tuesday-Saturday, Noon-5PM

“PLATFORM centre for photographic + digital arts is relatively pleased to announce the opening of the performative installation, Artistic Licence Bureau, by Glen Johnson. In a parody of the bureaucratization of the art world, and the seemingly endless ways artistic practices have become systemized, Johnson has created an office where artistic licences are dispensed.

Visitors to the Artistic Licence Bureau [ALB] will be able to experience all the fun that comes with a trip to a government office: waiting in line, filling in forms and having an unflattering photograph taken.

The ALB also offers a veritable potpourri (pronounced potpourri) of information pamphlets intended to demystify the various artistic practices one might endeavour to pursue: “It’s Nothing Really, a Guide to Making Conceptual Art”; “ME, ME, ME, Turn Your Self-Obsession Into a Career as a Performance Artist”; and “How Long is This Thing? A Guide to Video Art” etc. Visitors to the ALB will be able to apply for (and possibly receive) a provisional Artistic Licence in order to finally have proof that they are not dilettantes but actual artists.

Please join us for the opening reception Thursday the 4th of August beginning at 7PM.

Refreshments will be served

(well, they will be there, out on a table – no one is going to actually serve them to you).

Since graduating from the University of Winnipeg with a BA in classics in 1993, Glen Johnson has produced a large body of writing that has been distributed in the form of brochures, novellas, and insertions within various catalogues and books. His performances, invariably involving text, and that take the form of storytelling segments or lectures accompanied by projected images, have been performed at The National Gallery of Canada (2008), the University of Winnipeg’s Gallery 1C03 (2007), Winnipeg Art Gallery (2006), Mount Saint Vincent University (2005), PLATFORM, Winnipeg (2005), aceartinc (2009, 2005, 2003), and The Annex (2004). Among other strategies, Johnson incorporates humour in almost every (guess which ones!) artwork he produces.

PLATFORM wishes to acknowledge the support of its membership, board of directors, volunteers, and staff.

Operating funding for PLATFORM exhibitions and projects is received from Manitoba Arts Council and Winnipeg Arts Council.

For more information about this exhibition or other PLATFORM programming, please contact the Centre directly:

PLATFORM | 121-100 Arthur Street [Artspace Building] | Winnipeg, Manitoba | R3B 1H3 | 204.942.8183 | www.platformgallery.org“

I Love Glen’s work. It’s funny and totally relevant. I just about said “funny YET totally relevant” but why can’t art be funny and witty and pertinent to current issues, however serious they may be? Let’s fight the weighty with the funny!  (I have many copies of PERSIFLAGE, his regular newsletter from long ago and I cherish them.)

Leif