Max Dean (artist)

Last updated

Max Dean
Born (1949-06-29) June 29, 1949 (age 74) [1]
NationalityCanadian
OccupationArtist
Notable workThe Table: Childhood
Robotic Chair

Max Dean (born June 29, 1949) is a Canadian multidisciplinary artist. [2] [3] [4]

Contents

Life

Dean was born June 29, 1949, in Leeds, England. He immigrated to Canada with his family in 1952, [5] settling in Vancouver. [1]

Work

In the late 1970s and 1980s, Dean did multimedia performances involving his body in conjunction with sound, photography and other media. [6] [7] [8] Dean`s Telephone Project (1982) was an installation that allowed up to 16 persons to talk on a telephone line. [9]

Since the 1980s, Dean has become known for his installations that use robotics and electronics to achieve artistic effects. [10] His work As Yet Untitled (1992-1995) involves a robotic arm that presents generic family photos to the viewer, who must act to prevent the photo from being immediately shredded. [11] [12] [13] [14] The piece received extensive press and critical coverage [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] and was acquired by the Art Gallery of Ontario. [20]

Dean has collaborated extensively with Cornell University professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering Raffaello D'Andrea. Between 2003 and 2006 [21] they collaborated with Canadian artist Matt Donovan to create the installation work Robotic Chair, a chair that falls apart and puts itself back together again without human intervention. [22] [23] [24] Dean also collaborated with D'Andrea on the work The Table: Childhood, which was included in the Arsenale section of the 2001 Venice Biennale. [2] [25] [26]

He is the subject of Katherine Knight's 2021 documentary film Still Max . [27]

Collections

Dean's work is included in several museum collections, including the National Gallery of Canada [2] and the Vancouver Art Gallery. [28] His piece As Yet Untitled is part of the permanent collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario. [20]

Awards

In 1997, Dean received the Jean A. Chalmers National Visual Arts Award from the Ontario Arts Council. [29] In 2005, Dean received the Gershon Iskowitz prize from the Art Gallery of Ontario. [5] [30] In 2014, he was a recipient of the Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts. [3]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Snow</span> Canadian artist (1928–2023)

Michael James Aleck Snow was a Canadian artist who worked 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rodney Graham</span> Canadian artist and musician (1949–2022)

William Rodney Graham was a Canadian visual artist and musician. He was closely associated with the Vancouver School.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ken Lum</span> Canadian artist (born 1956)

Kenneth Robert Lum, OC DFA is a dual citizen Canadian and American academic, painter, photographer, sculptor, and writer. Working in a number of media including painting, sculpture and photography, his art ranges from conceptual in orientation to representational in character and is generally concerned with issues of identity in relation to the categories of language, portraiture and spatial politics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Irene Whittome</span> Canadian multimedia artist

Irene F. Whittome, is a multimedia artist.

IAIN BAXTER& is a Canadian conceptual artist. BAXTER& is recognized internationally as an early practitioner of conceptual art; the Canada Council Molson Prize committee stated in 2005 that his "highly regarded conceptual installations and projects, as well as his photography, have earned him the label of 'the Marshall McLuhan of the visual arts." BAXTER& was co-president with Ingrid Baxter of the conceptual project and legally incorporated business N.E. Thing Co., founded in 1966. BAXTER& is Professor Emeritus at the School of Visual Arts University of Windsor and a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rebecca Belmore</span> Canadian Anishinaabekwe artist (born 1960)

Rebecca Belmore D.F.A. is a Canadian interdisciplinary Anishinaabekwe artist who is notable for politically conscious and socially aware performance and installation work. She is Ojibwe and a member of Obishikokaang. Belmore currently lives in Toronto, Ontario.

Kim Adams is a Canadian sculptor who is known for his assemblages combining prefabricated elements, often parts of cars or other machine-made structures. His visual style is influenced by industrial design, architecture and automotive design. His large-scale sculptures incorporate the model railroading technique of kitbashing, and bright stock colours. They may be shown in a park or street as well as in a museum setting. His small surreal landscapes are toy-sized, and may be installed on shelves.

Arnaud Maggs was a Canadian artist and photographer. Born in Montreal, Maggs is best known for stark portraits arranged in grid-like arrangements, which illustrate his interest in systems of identification and classification.

Mark Lewis is a Canadian artist, best known for his film installations. He represented Canada at the 2009 Venice Biennale.

Geoffrey Farmer is best known for extensive multimedia installations made of cut-out images which form collages.

Shary Boyle D.F.A. is a contemporary Canadian visual artist working in the mediums of sculpture, drawing, painting and performance art. She lives and works in Toronto.

Sandra Meigs is a Canadian visual artist. She is based in British Columbia, Canada. Her paintings have been exhibited in Canada and internationally and she is a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.

Liz Magor is a Canadian visual artist based in Vancouver. She is well known for her sculptures that address themes of history, shelter and survival through objects that reference still life, domesticity and wildlife. She often re-purposes domestic objects such as blankets and is known for using mold making techniques.

Vera Frenkel is a Canadian multidisciplinary artist based in Toronto. Her installations, videotapes, performances and new media projects address the forces at work in human migration, the learning and unlearning of cultural memory, and the ever-increasing bureaucratization of experience.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raffaello D'Andrea</span> Canadian-Italian-Swiss engineer, artist, and entrepreneur

Raffaello D’Andrea is a Canadian-Italian-Swiss engineer, artist, and entrepreneur. He is professor of dynamic systems and control at ETH Zurich. He is a co-founder of Kiva Systems, and the founder of Verity, an innovator in autonomous drones. He was the faculty advisor and system architect of the Cornell Robot Soccer Team, four time world champions at the annual RoboCup competition. He is a new media artist, whose work includes The Table, the Robotic Chair, and Flight Assembled Architecture. In 2013, D’Andrea co-founded ROBO Global, which launched the world's first exchange traded fund focused entirely on the theme of robotics and AI. ROBO Global was acquired by VettaFi in 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gathie Falk</span> Canadian artist

Gathie Falk is a Canadian painter, sculptor, installation and performance artist based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Since the 1960s, she has created works that consider the simple beauty of everyday items and daily rituals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shuvinai Ashoona</span> Canadian Inuk artist

Shuvinai Ashoona is an Inuk artist who works primarily in drawing. She is known for her detailed pen and pencil drawings depicting northern landscapes and contemporary Inuit life.

Shirley Wiitasalo is a Canadian painter whose work is characterized by abstract shapes and lines based on urban environments. In 2011 she won the Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts.

Valérie Blass is a Canadian artist working primarily in sculpture. She lives and works in her hometown of Montreal, Quebec, and is represented by Catriona Jeffries, in Vancouver. She received both her Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts, specializing in visual and media arts, from the Université du Québec à Montréal. She employs a variety of sculptural techniques, including casting, carving, moulding, and bricolage to create strange and playful arrangements of both found and constructed objects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jayce Salloum</span> Canadian multidisciplinary artist

Jayce Salloum is a Canadian multidisciplinary artist.

References

  1. 1 2 Roger Matuz (1997). Contemporary Canadian artists. Gale Canada. ISBN   978-1-896413-46-4.
  2. 1 2 3 "Max Dean - National Gallery of Canada". National Gallery of Canada. Retrieved May 26, 2016.
  3. 1 2 "Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts". Canada Council. Retrieved May 26, 2016.
  4. "Max Dean: A Year of Waiting". Canadian Art. Retrieved May 26, 2016.
  5. 1 2 "Artist Max Dean wins Gershon Iskowitz Prize". The Globe and Mail. May 27, 2005. Retrieved June 10, 2016.
  6. Mark, Lisa Gabrielle. "Button Pusher" (PDF). Canadian Art. Retrieved May 28, 2016.
  7. A. A. Bronson; Peggy Gale (1979). Performance by artists . Art Metropole. ISBN   978-0-920956-00-7.
  8. Donald McGrath; Diana Nemiroff; Michèle Thériault; France Choinière; Colette Tougas; Tim Barnard (April 2005). Point & shoot: performance and photography. Dazibao. ISBN   978-2-922135-26-8.
  9. Wood, William (2010). "Sculpture and Installation since 1960". The Visual Arts in Canada: the Twentieth Century. Foss, Brian, Paikowsky, Sandra, Whitelaw, Anne (eds.). Don Mills, Ont.: Oxford University Press. p. 322. ISBN   978-0-19-542125-5. OCLC   432401392.
  10. "Max Dean". Widewalls.ch. Retrieved June 10, 2016.
  11. Del Loewenthal (2013). Phototherapy and Therapeutic Photography in a Digital Age. Routledge. pp. 130–. ISBN   978-0-415-66735-7.
  12. Martha Langford (June 27, 2007). Scissors, Paper, Stone: Expressions of Memory in Contemporary Photographic Art. McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. pp. 13–. ISBN   978-0-7735-7686-5.
  13. Uwe Fleckner; Martin Warnke; Hendrik Ziegler (2011). Handbuch der politischen Ikonographie. C.H.Beck. pp. 148–. ISBN   978-3-406-57765-9.
  14. C International Contemporary Art. C magazine. 1996.
  15. Peter Weiermair; Frankfurter Kunstverein; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt (1996). Prospect: photography in contemporary art : Frankfurter Kunstverein, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt. Edition Stemmle. ISBN   9783908162193.
  16. Milroy, Sarah (October 2, 2001). "We need artists to soldier on". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved June 10, 2016.
  17. British Journal of Photography. Henry Greenwood & Company, Limited. 2001.
  18. Lewis, Jacob. "How the Tate Brought a Pioneering Art-Robot Back Online". Gizmodo UK. Retrieved June 10, 2016.
  19. Art/text. Art & Text. 1996.
  20. 1 2 Phillips, Sherry. "Conservation Notes: Rebooting Max Dean's As Yet Untitled". Art Gallery of Ontario. Retrieved June 10, 2016.
  21. Sean Cubitt; Paul Thomas (November 8, 2013). Relive: Media Art Histories. MIT Press. pp. 259–. ISBN   978-0-262-01942-2.
  22. Ju, Anne. "Raffaello D'Andrea's robotic chair creates stir online, falling apart and reassembling itself". Cornell University News. Cornell University. Retrieved May 28, 2016.
  23. Bosco, Roberta (March 8, 2016). "El robot como experimento estético". El Pais. Retrieved May 28, 2016.
  24. Haider, Saba. "Ever Wished For A Chair That Can Re-assemble On Its Own? Wish Granted". Gizmodo India. Retrieved May 28, 2016.
  25. David Krasner; David Z. Saltz (February 11, 2010). Staging Philosophy: Intersections of Theater, Performance, and Philosophy. University of Michigan Press. pp. 102–. ISBN   978-0-472-02514-5.
  26. Art Papers. Atlanta Art Papers, Incorporated. 2002.
  27. Chris Hampton, "When Max Dean was diagnosed with cancer, he did exactly what he always does: he made art out of it". CBC Arts, May 6, 2021.
  28. "Vancouver Art Gallery showcases artworks from the collection in The Poetics of Space" (PDF). Vancouver Art Gallery. Vancouver Art Gallery. Retrieved May 27, 2016.
  29. "The Chalmers Awards for Creative Excellence in the Arts". Ontario Arts Council. Archived from the original on December 1, 2008. Retrieved May 26, 2016.
  30. "The Gershon Iskowitz Prize at the AGO". The Art Gallery of Ontario. Retrieved June 10, 2016.