Context (CMS Context)
Presented by The Art Fund and the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. An acquisition project to build a collection of modern and contemporary work on paper from Australia, Canada and South Africa was undertaken over 2011-13 with the support of a grant under The Art Fund's RENEW programme. The collection was developed with the expert advice and generous assistance of Annie Coombes and Norman Vorano in relation to South African and Inuit artists respectively. Khadija Carroll, Anita Herle and Diana Wood Conroy also contributed to the selection process. Obtained from the Vancouver Art Gallery. Sonny Assu, is an up-and-coming multi-disciplinary artist, from the We Wai Kai Nation (Cape Mudge.) Using a range of materials, he merges Northwest Coast Aboriginal iconography with the aesthetics of popular culture as an exploration of his mixed ancestry. His work appropriates, or transforms, items of consumer and popular culture to trace the lineage of his own personal life. The inspiration for this print was a double record album Assu encountered, titled "Indian Music of the Pacific Northwest Coast." Recorded by the musicologist Ida Halpern for the legendary Folkways Records label, the record features Assu's great-grandfather Chief Billy Assu singing with the renowned Kwakwaka'wakw artist Mungo Martin. In his work Billy and the Chiefs: The Complete Banned Collection, Assu references the form of the vinyl record by painting a cartoon-like image of a spinning disc overlaid with traditional formline imagery onto sixty-seven traditional deer-hide drums, one for every year the potlatch was banned in British Columbia (1884-1951.) For his Artist Edition Live from the 'Latch, Assu has created a poster advertising the performance of Billy and the Chiefs on their 1921 "Strict Law" tour, proudly proclaiming that they have been "Banned By Canadian Gov't." Sonny Assu is a graduate of Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver. He recently won the Creative Achievement Award for Excellence in First Nations Art (2011) from the British Columbia Achievement Foundation.

Event Date 1/4/2014
Author: maa

Description (CMS Description)
Print by Sonny Assu titled, 'Live from the Latch', 2012. Edition 27/67. Comes with a certificate signed and dated by the artist. Condition: excellent
Event Date 1/4/2014
Author: maa