Michael Snow (born December 10, 1928) is a Canadian artist working in a range of media including film, installation, sculpture, photography, and music. His best-known films are '' Wavelength'' (1967) and '' La Région Centrale'' (1971), with the former regarded as a milestone in

avant-garde cinema Experimental film or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that rigorously re-evaluates cinematic conventions and explores non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many experimental films, parti ...

Life

Michael Snow was born in Toronto and studied at Upper Canada College and the

Ontario College of Art Ontario College of Art & Design University, commonly known as OCAD University or OCAD, is a public art university located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The university's main campus is spread throughout several buildings and facilities within do ...

. He had his first solo exhibition in 1957. In the early 1960s Snow moved to New York with his wife, artist

Joyce Wieland Joyce Wieland (June 30, 1930 – June 27, 1998) was a Canadian experimental filmmaker and mixed media artist. Wieland found success as a painter when she began her career in Toronto in the 1950s. In 1962, Wieland moved to New York City and ...

, where they remained for nearly a decade. For Snow this move resulted in a proliferation of creative ideas and connections and his work increasingly gained recognition. He returned to Canada in the early 1970s "an established figure, multiply defined as a visual artist, a filmmaker, and a musician." His work has appeared at exhibitions across Europe, North America and South America. Snows' works were included in the shows marking the reopening of both the

Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...

in Paris in 2000 and the MoMA in New York in 2005. In March 2006, his works were included in the Whitney Biennial.

Work

Films

Snow is considered one of the most influential

experimental film Experimental film or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that rigorously re-evaluates cinematic conventions and explores non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many experimental films, parti ...

makers of all time. Annette Michelson, in writing about Snow, his 1967 film ''Wavelength'', and his films in general, speaks of the impact of Snow's films, placing viewers in a "position to more fully understand the particular impact of Snow's filmic work from 1967 on, to discern the reasons for the large consensus given" to ''Wavelength'' when it was honoured with the Grand Prize at the 1967 Experimental Film Festival ''EXPRMNTL 4'' in Knokke, Belgium, and that "''Wavelength'', ppearsas a celebration of the 'apparatus' and a confirmation of the status of the subject, and it is in those terms that we may begin to comprehend the profound effect it had upon the broadest spectrum of viewers...." ''Wavelength'' has been the subject of numerous retrospectives internationally. Film scholar Scott MacDonald says of Snow that " w filmmakers have had as large an impact on the recent avant-garde film scene as Canadian Michael Snow, whose ''Wavelength'' is probably the most frequently discussed 'structural' film." ''Wavelength'' has been designated and preserved as a masterwork by the

Audio-Visual Preservation Trust of Canada The Audio-Visual Preservation Trust of Canada (or the AV Trust). originally the Alliance for the Preservation of Canada's Audio-Visual Heritage,Village Voice'' critics' list of the 100 Best Films of the 20th Century . Snow's films have premiered in film festivals worldwide and five of his films have premiered at the

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a permane ...

(TIFF). In 2000, TIFF commissioned Snow, along with

Atom Egoyan Atom Egoyan (; hy, Աթոմ Եղոյեան, translit=Atom Yeghoyan; born July 19, 1960) is a Canadian filmmaker. He was part of a loosely-affiliated group of filmmakers to emerge in the 1980s from Toronto known as the Toronto New Wave. Egoyan m ...

and

David Cronenberg David Paul Cronenberg (born March 15, 1943) is a Canadian film director, screenwriter, and actor. He is one of the principal originators of what is commonly known as the body horror genre, with his films exploring visceral bodily transformation ...

, to make a series of short films collectively titled ''Preludes'', for the 25th Anniversary of the festival. In his '' Village Voice'' review of Snow's 2002 film '' *Corpus Callosum'',

J. Hoberman James Lewis Hoberman (born March 14, 1949) is an American film critic, journalist, author and academic. He began working at '' The Village Voice'' in the 1970s, became a full-time staff writer in 1983, and was the newspaper's senior film critic ...

writes that Snow's films are " gorously predicated on irreducible cinematic facts ndSnow's structuralist epics—'' Wavelength'' and '' La Région Centrale''— nnouncethe imminent passing of the film era. Rich with new possibilities, ''*Corpus Callosum'' heralds the advent of the next. Whatever it is, it cannot be too highly praised." ''*Corpus Calossum'' was screened at the Toronto, Berlin, Rotterdam, and the Los Angeles film festivals amongst others. In January 2003, Snow won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, Douglas Edwards Experimental/Independent Film/Video Award for ''*Corpus Callosum''.

Music

Originally a professional jazz musician, Snow has a long-standing interest in improvised music, as indicated by the soundtrack to his film ''New York Eye and Ear Control''. As a pianist, he has performed solo and with other musicians in North America, Europe and Japan. Snow performs regularly in Canada and internationally, often with the improvisational music ensemble CCMC and has released more than a half dozen albums since the mid-1970s. In 1987, Snow issued ''The Last LP'' ( Art Metropole), which purported to be a documentary recording of the dying gasps of ethnic musical cultures from around the globe including Tibet, Syria, India, China, Brazil, Finland and elsewhere, with more thousands of words of pseudo-scholarly supplementary notes, but was, in fact, a series of multi-tracked recordings of Snow himself, who gave the joke away only in a single column of text in the disc's gatefold jacket, printed backwards and readable in a mirror. One track, purported to be a document of a coming-of-age ritual from Niger, is a pastiche of

Whitney Houston Whitney Elizabeth Houston (August 9, 1963 – February 11, 2012) was an American singer and actress. Nicknamed "The Voice", she is one of the bestselling music artists of all time, with sales of over 200 million records worldwide. Houston in ...

's song "

How Will I Know "How Will I Know" is a song recorded by American singer Whitney Houston for her self-titled debut studio album. The song was released on November 22, 1985, by Arista Records as the album's third single. Originally written and composed by Geo ...

." Snow, with Richard Serra,

James Tenney James Tenney (August 10, 1934 – August 24, 2006) was an American composer and music theorist. He made significant early musical contributions to plunderphonics, sound synthesis, algorithmic composition, process music, spectral music, microtonal ...

and

Bruce Nauman Bruce Nauman (born December 6, 1941) is an American artist. His practice spans a broad range of media including sculpture, photography, neon, video, drawing, printmaking, and performance. Nauman lives near Galisteo, New Mexico. Life and work ...

, performed Steve Reich's ''

Pendulum Music ''Pendulum Music'' (For Microphones, Amplifiers Speakers and Performers) Reich, S. (1974). "''Pendulum Music''". In '' Writings About Music'' (pp. 12–13). The Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (Co-published by: New York Univ ...

'' on May 27, 1969 at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Other media

Before Snow moved to New York in 1961, he began a long-term project that for six years would be his trademark: the Walking Woman. Martha Langford in ''Michael Snow: Life & Work'' describes this work as employing a single form that offered an infinite number of creative possibilities, the figure itself perceived variably as "a positive (a presence to be looked at) and a negative (an absence to be looked through)." Langford identifies duality as a guiding principle in Snow’s work. By combining materials and methods Snow creates hybrid objects that often defy classification. A work which exemplifies Snow's testing of stylistic boundaries is his 1979 installation ''

Flight Stop ''Flight Stop'', also titled ''Flightstop'', is a 1979 site-specific art work by Canadian artist Michael Snow. Located in the Toronto Eaton Centre in the downtown core of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the work hangs from the ceiling and appears to ...

'' (also titled ''Flightstop''), a site-specific work in Toronto's

Eaton Centre Eaton Centre is a name associated with shopping centres in Canada, originating with Eaton's, one of Canada's largest department store chains at the time that these malls were developed. Eaton's partnered with development companies throughout ...

mall, which looks like a sculptural representation of sixty geese, but is in fact an intricate combination of fibreglass forms and photographs of a single goose. In 1982, Snow sued the corporate owner of the Toronto Eaton Centre for violating his moral rights by altering ''Flight Stop''. In the landmark case Snow v Eaton Centre Ltd, the Ontario High Court of Justice affirmed the artist's right to the integrity of their work. The operator of the Toronto Eaton Centre was found liable for violating Michael Snow's moral rights by putting Christmas bows on the work. Snow's works have been in Canadian pavilion at world fairs since his ''Walking Women'' sculpture was exhibited at

Expo 67 The 1967 International and Universal Exposition, commonly known as Expo 67, was a general exhibition from April 27 to October 29, 1967. It was a category One World's Fair held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is considered to be one of the most su ...

in Montréal. His recent bookwork ''BIOGRAPHIE of the Walking Woman / de la femme qui marche 1961-1967'' (2004) was published in Brussels by La Lettre vole. It consists of images of the public appearances of his globally famous icon. ''Anarchive2: Digital Snow'' describes Michael Snow as "one of the most significant artists in contemporary art and cinema of the past 50 years." This 2002 DVD was initiated by Paris’

and was produced with the support of la foundation Daniel Langlois,

Université de Paris The University of Paris (french: link=no, Université de Paris), metonymically known as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, active from 1150 to 1970, with the exception between 1793 and 1806 under the French Revolution. ...

, Heritage Canada, the

Canada Council The Canada Council for the Arts (french: Conseil des arts du Canada), commonly called the Canada Council, is a Crown corporation established in 1957 as an arts council of the Government of Canada. It acts as the federal government's principal in ...

, Téléfilm Canada and Montreal’s Époxy. It is an encyclopedia of Snow's works across media, browsed in a manner inimitably and artfully created by Snow. Its 4,685 entries include film clips, sculpture, photographs, audio and musical clips, and interviews.

Retrospectives and honours

In 1993, The Michael Snow Project, lasting several months, was a multivenue retrospective of Snow’s works in Toronto exhibited at several public venues and at the

Art Gallery of Ontario The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO; french: Musée des beaux-arts de l'Ontario) is an art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The museum is located in the Grange Park neighbourhood of downtown Toronto, on Dundas Street West between McCaul and Bev ...

and The Power Plant. Concurrently his works were the subjects of four books published by Alfred A. Knopf Canada. Snow has shown internationally in both galleries and cinemas, including a retrospective of his work at the

British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...

, London where his celluloid works where shown in the cinemas and his digital works in the gallery (The

BFI Gallery The BFI Gallery was the BFI's contemporary art gallery dedicated to artists' moving image housed within BFI Southbank, the British Film Institute's flagship venue in London (previously known as the National Film Theatre). The space was funded by t ...

). The project, titled 'Yes Snow Show', took place in 2009 and was co-curated by Elisabetta Fabrizi and Chris Meigh-Andrew. In 1981, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada and was promoted to Companion in 2007 "for his contributions to international visual arts as one of Canada’s greatest multidisciplinary contemporary artists". He received the first Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts (2000) for cinema. In 2004, the Université de Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne awarded him an honorary doctorate. The last artist so awarded was Pablo Picasso. In 2006, Lima's Museum of Art (MALI) held a selective retrospective exhibition as well as a screening of his films in Peru, as part of the Vide/Art/Electronic Festival.

Honorary degrees

Université de Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne (2004), Emily Carr Institute, Vancouver (2004)

Nova Scotia College of Art and Design NSCAD University, also known as the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design or NSCAD, is a public art university in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The university is a co-educational institution that offers bachelor's and master's degrees. The uni ...

, Halifax (1990), University of Toronto (1999), University of Victoria (1997),

Brock University Brock University is a public university, public research university in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. It is the only university in Canada in a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, at the centre of Canada's Niagara Peninsula on the Niagara Escarpment. The ...

(1975).

Academic appointments

* Visiting Artist/Professor at MAPS (Master of Art in Public Sphere), Ecole Cantonale d’Art du Valais, Sierre, Switzerland (February 2005, January 2006) * Visiting Artist/Professor at L’école Nationale Supérieure d’Art de Bourges, France. (December 2004, May 2005) * Visiting Artist/Professor, École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 2001 * Visiting Artist/Professor, le Fresnoy, Tourcoing France, 1997-8 * Visiting Professor, l'Ecole Nationale de la Photographie, Arles France, 1996 * Visiting Professor, Princeton University, 1988 * Professor of Advanced Film, Yale University, 1970 * CCMC artists in residence, La Chartreuse, Avignon Festival, France, 1981

Other awards

* Gershon Iskowitz Prize, 2011 * Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Independent/Experimental Film and Video Award for "*Corpus Callosum", 2002 *Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal, 2002 *

Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts The Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts are annual awards for achievements in visual and media arts in Canada. Up to eight awards are presented annually with the prize amount is $25,000 Created in 2000 by then Governor General Adrie ...

, 2000 *Chevalier de l'ordre des arts et des lettres, France, 1995 * Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Independent/Experimental Film and Video Award for "So Is This", 1983 *Guggenheim Fellowship, 1972 *Grand Pix of the Knokke Experimental Film Festival for "Wavelength", 1967 *Member,

Royal Canadian Academy of Arts The Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (RCA) is a Canadian arts-related organization that was founded in 1880. History 1880 to 1890 The title of Royal Canadian Academy of Arts was received from Queen Victoria on 16 July 1880. The Governor Gener ...

Major installations

* "The Windows Suite" is a permanent installation consisting of 32 varied sequences of images, which are presented on 65" plasma screens in 7 of the windows of the façade of the Toronto Pantages Hotel and Spa and related condo buildings facing Victoria Street in central Toronto. Some of these sequences one might possibly glimpse in the windows of a sophisticated hotel, condo, spa and parking garage building, but many sequences are "impossible," e.g. in one sequence fish swim from window to window. This installation was opened as an official event of the Toronto International Film Festival September 2006. * ''

'' - Toronto Eaton Centre a collection of life sized

Canada geese The Canada goose (''Branta canadensis''), or Canadian goose, is a large wild goose with a black head and neck, white cheeks, white under its chin, and a brown body. It is native to the arctic and temperate regions of North America, and it is o ...

in flight hanging over the main section of the mall. In 1982, the installation was the subject of a leading Canadian court decision on

moral rights Moral rights are rights of creators of copyrighted works generally recognized in civil law jurisdictions and, to a lesser extent, in some common law jurisdictions. The moral rights include the right of attribution, the right to have a work pu ...

, '' Snow v. The Eaton Centre Ltd.'' * ''The Audience'' (1989) - SkyDome (now Rogers Centre in Toronto) is a collection of larger than life depictions of fans located above the northeast and northwest entrances. Painted gold, the sculptures show fans in various acts of celebration.

Filmography

*''A to Z'' (1956) *''New York Eye and Ear Control'' (1964) *''Short Shave'' (1965) *'' Wavelength'' (1967) *''Standard Time'' (1967) *''One Second in Montreal'' (1969) *''Dripping Water'' (with

, 1969) *'' <---->'' or ''Back and Forth'' (1969) *''Side Seat Paintings Slides Sound Film'' (1970) *'' La Région Centrale'' (1971) *''Two Sides to Every Story'' (double 16mm installation, 1974) *''"Rameau's Nephew" by Diderot (Thanx to Dennis Young) by Wilma Schoen'' (1974) *''Breakfast (Table Top Dolly)'' (1976) *''Presents'' (1981) *''So Is This'' (1982) *''Seated Figures'' (1988) *''See You Later'' (1990) *''To Lavoisier, Who Died in the Reign of Terror'' (1991) *'' Prelude'' (2000) *''The Living Room'' (2000) *'' *Corpus Callosum'' (2002) *''WVLNT ("Wavelength For Those Who Don't Have the Time")'' (2003) *''Triage'' (2004), with Carl Brown *''SSHTOORRTY'' (2005) *''Reverberlin'' (2006) *''Puccini Conservato'' (2008) *''

Cityscape In the visual arts, a cityscape (urban landscape) is an artistic representation, such as a painting, drawing, print or photograph, of the physical aspects of a city or urban area. It is the urban equivalent of a landscape. ''Townscape'' is ...

'' (2019)

References

Sources

* P. Adams Sitney. "Michael Snow’s Cinema," in Michael Snow /A Survey: 79–84. Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario in collaboration with the

Isaacs Gallery Avrom Isaacs, D.F.A. (March 19, 1926 – January 15, 2016) was a Canadian art dealer. Career Avrom Isaacovitch, known as Av Isaacs, was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and moved to Toronto with his family in 1941. Isaacs graduated with a bachelo ...

, 1970. * Annette Michelson. "Toward Snow: Part 1." Artforum, Vol. 9, no. 19 (June 1971): 30–37. * Michael Snow, ed. 1948–1993: Music/Sound, The Michael Snow Project. Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, The Power Plant, Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 1993. * Jim Shedden, ed. Presence and Absence: The Films of Michael Snow 1956–1991, The Michael Snow Project. Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 1995. *Martha Langford.
Michael Snow: Life & Work
'. Toronto: Art Canada Institute, 2014.

External links

Michael Snow, Union List of Artist Names
*

at Northernstars.ca

at ''Offscreen''

2009 * {{DEFAULTSORT:Snow, Michael 1928 births Living people Artists from Toronto Canadian contemporary painters Canadian contemporary artists Companions of the Order of Canada Canadian experimental filmmakers Upper Canada College alumni Canadian sculptors Canadian male sculptors Canadian video artists 20th-century Canadian painters Canadian male painters 21st-century Canadian painters Canadian photographers Canadian multimedia artists Emily Carr University of Art and Design alumni Members of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts 20th-century sculptors 21st-century sculptors Canadian conceptual artists Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts winners 20th-century Canadian male artists 21st-century Canadian male artists Canadian collage artists