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Angela Grossmann
- born in 1955 in London, England; grandparents from Germany
- immigrated to Canada in 1970
- received a B.A. in Journalism from Ryerson, Toronto,
Ontario (1978), graduated from Emily Carr College of Art and Design in Vancouver, British
Columbia in 1985, and received a M.F.A. from Concordia University in Montréal, Québec
(1991)
click on thumbnails at left to view larger images
Angela Grossmann has devoted much of her career to
examining the themes of displacement and social margins, indicating at once that an
interest in the Holocaust and European history has effected her subject matter. In the
series (sign)ifying the END of the (second) 2nd World War (1990), images of those
lost in the war make the connection obvious. Less direct is Affaires dEnfants (1987),
a series that involved painting on the insides of suitcases abandoned by an agency in
Paris that sponsored summer camp holidays for orphans. The suitcases act as symbols of the
abandoned in society, also as signifiers of privacy and ownership. Grossmann painted the
insides with imagery that heightened a sense that the interior of the suitcase was the
inside of someones private world, a world upon which the viewer trespasses. The 1990
series Scapegoats was based on mug shots taken of prisoners in the British Columbia
Penitentiary during the 1940s. Combining painting and photography, Grossmann creates a
strange world of sad portraits that hover between fantasy and reality, in which we are
forced to face the human side of criminals. Of the work she says: "In our highly
cleansed times, it seems bourgeois institutions feel it necessary to protect us from
unsavoury elements (the bad, the mad, the dead). This work attempts to make
visible some of those hidden from view" (1996). Researching the abuse of prisoners
during the 1940s and the injustice of the penal system, Grossmann approached the prisoners
as a subject through which to question this system. With their lives robbed of dignity,
they echo in their own way the atrocities of the Holocaust and the treatment of Jews
during the same decade. "Because we have devoted the past 50 years to wrestling with
the seemingly impossible certainty that six million Jews were murdered while the world
looked on, and because we remain appallingly complacent to the genocides that are being
perpetrated as the century ends, no one could look at Grossmans melancholy subjects,
or consider her fascination with the dross of the lost, without taking the Holocaust into
account" (Bill Richardson, 1999). Grossmann has taught painting at Ottawa University
(1991 to 1993) and at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design (1996) and currently
teaches painting and theory at the University of British Columbia.
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SOLO EXHIBITIONS
1998 |
Kamloops Art
Gallery, Kamloops, British Columbia |
1997 |
Surrender
Garnet Press Gallery, Toronto, OntarioDiane
Farris Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia
Sylvia White Contemporary Artist's Services, New York,
New York
|
1996-90 |
Diane Farris
Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia |
1993 |
Bourget Gallery,
Montréal, Québec |
1989 |
Angela
Grossmann: A Recent Survey
Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, British Columbia |
1988 |
Angela
Grossmann: Recent Works
Diane Farris Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia |
1987 |
Affaires
d'Enfants
Diane Farris Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia |
1986 |
Diane Farris
Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia |
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
1997 |
Absolute L.A. Invitational
Sherry Frumkin Gallery, Los Angeles, CaliforniaFiguratively Speaking
Diane Farris Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia
Heartfelt
Evergreen Cultural Centre, Coquitlam, British Columbia
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1995 |
The Spectacular State:
Fascism and the Modern Imagination
The Teck Gallery, Simon Fraser University, Basic Inquiry and the Vancouver Holocaust
Society, Vancouver, British Columbia; Articule, Montréal, Québec |
1994 |
'64-'94 Contemporary
Decades
Charles H. Scott Gallery, Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, Vancouver, British
ColumbiaThe Expressive Portrait
The Exposure Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia
Artfair Seattle
(Diane Farris Gallery) Seattle, Washington (part of public displays project)
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1993 |
MONTAGE 93:
International Festival of the Image
Rochester, New York |
1991 |
Christmas Exhibition
Diane Farris Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia |
1990 |
ART/LA '90
Los Angeles, CaliforniaArtropolis '90:
Lineages and Linkages
The Roundhouse, Vancouver, British Columbia
|
1989 |
Graham Gilmore, Angela
Grossmann, Derek Root
49th Parallel Gallery (Diane Farris Gallery), New York, New York |
1988 |
Great Strides
Stride Gallery (in association with the University of Lethbridge collection),
Calgary, Alberta |
1987 |
Art Cologne '87
Cologne, West GermanyFresh Air: Eight
Vancouver Painters
Kamloops Art Gallery, Kamloops, British Columbia
Vancouver Painters
Paul Kuhn Fine Arts, Calgary, Alberta
West Coast Painting: New Directions
Canada House, London, England
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1986 |
Four Vancouver Young
Romantic Painters
Centre Culturel Canadien, Paris, France |
1985 |
Young Romantics
Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, British ColumbiaFive Young Artists
Diane Farris Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia
Futura Bold Installation
Convertible Warehouse, Vancouver, British Columbia
Anne Billy, Pierre Dorion, Angela Grossmann, Landon
Mackenzie
49th Parallel, New York, New York
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1984 |
Futura Bold
Unit Pitt, Vancouver, British ColumbiaWarehouse
Show: Local Contemporary Art
Vancouver, British Columbia
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Blanchette, Manon. "Aux confins de la
tradition et de l'ouverture." Vie des arts (Summer 1987): 26-28. Canada Council Art Bank Catalogue, 1972-1987. Ottawa,
Ontario: Canada Council, 1987.
Carter, Sam, Letitia Richardson, Maurice Yacowar, et al. 64-94:
Contemporary Decades, 64-69. Vancouver, British Columbia: Charles H Scott Gallery,
1994.
Danzker, Jo-Anne Birnie. Graham Gilmore, Angela
Grossmann, Derek Root. Vancouver, British Columbia: Diane Farris Gallery, 1989.
Genereux, Linda. "Canadians regroup in N.Y." Metropolis
1, no. 44 (23 March 1989): n.p.
Grace, Sherrill. "Painting on edge, 1987." American
Book Review (Spring 1988): n.p.
Hasselfelt, Karen. Angela Grossmann: Recent Works.
Vancouver, British Columbia: Diane Farris Gallery, 1988.
Kaplan, Joel. "Graham Gillmore, Angela
Grossmann." Vanguard 16, no. 4 (September/October 1987): 30.
"New era of painting on show at Canada House." Canada
Today, no.13 (November 1986): n.p.
Richardson, Bill. "Job satisfaction. Artist Angela
Grossmann calls her new show My Vocation because painting is her profession and
her passion." National Post, 10 March 1999, p. B-7.
Szilasi, Andrea. Lush: (Luxuriance). Montréal,
Québec: Articule, 1995.
Templeman-Kluit, Anne. "The Young Romantics at the
Vancouver Art Gallery." Vancouver Magazine (June 1985): n.p.
Thomas, Gilda. "Four Young Romantics of
Vancouver." Vie des arts 31, no. 25 (December 1986): 58.
Varney, Ed, Ann Rosenberg, Librado M. Anonuevo, et el. Artropolis
90: Lineage and Linkages. Vancouver, British Columbia: AT Eight Artropolis Society,
1990.
---, Joyce Woods, Irene Dual Chan, et al. Warehouse
Show: Local Contemporary Art. Vancouver, British Columbia: Warehouse Show, 1985.
Watson, Scott. "Angela Grossmann: Affaires
d'enfants." Canadian Art (Fall 1987): 119-20.
---. Review of Futura Bold. C Magazine (Spring
1985): 22-23.
---. Young Romantics. Vancouver, British
Columbia: Vancouver Art Gallery, 1985.
---, Pierre Dorion. Anne Billy, Pierre Dorion, Angela
Grossmann, Landon Mackenzie. New York, New York: 49th Parallel, 1985.
Wolff, Theodore F. "New York art galleries that
sizzle in summer." Christian Science Monitor (June 1985): n.p.
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