Mr. Peanut signing in at Vancouver City Hall, 1974, photo Keith Donovan. All images: Courtesy Vincent Trasov.

 

The exhibition “My Fifty Years In A Nutshell” is constructed upon the artist’s alter ego, Mr. Peanut, with drawings, videos, photographs, paintings, and archival materials narrating this long and ongoing love story. Together with recently produced ink and wash on paper drawings, the exhibition focuses on the 20 day performance Mayoralty Campaign of 1974, which featured John Mitchell as ideator of the peanut campaign, campaign manager and spokesperson. It was an event that brought many diverse artists and groups together in a collaborative context. The campaign fulfilled a real alternative to the political status quo. Art had become life.

With a text by Zanna Gilbert. 

Thanks to Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Morris/Trasov Archive and Silvia Krankemann. 

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Vincent Trasov is a painter, video and performance artist. His work is often media based and collaborative in spirit, involved with developing networks. He is a Canadian born in 1947 in Edmonton. In 1969 he founded Image Bank with Michael Morris, a method for personal exchange of information amongst artists; he has made videotapes since 1971; 1973 he was co-founder and co-director of Western Front Society, Vancouver, a centre for the production and presentation of new art activity; 1981 he was invited with Morris as guest of Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD to Berlin; 1991 he and Morris founded the Morris/Trasov Archive, permanently housed at Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver, to research contemporary art and communication. Trasov has had numerous international exhibitions and is represented in public and private collections in both Europe and North America. He presently resides and works in Germany and Canada.