Talk: Lucy Lippard

Through writing, curating, and social and cultural activism, Lucy Lippard has brought awareness to the relationship between the context and conditions of an artwork's production, presentation and circulation. Her writing and exhibitions express how social movements such as feminism and Indigenous sovereignty have shifted how we interpret and value art objects and gestures. In turn, the inauguration of new artistic forms and processes such as performance and text art influence how we relate and respond to political pressures.

Lippard's publication "Undermining: A Wild Ride Through Land Use, Politics, and Art in the Changing West" expanded from her experience living and working in New Mexico since the 1990s. The book explored the entangled economies, politics and cultural values of fracking, mining, Indigenous land and water rights, eco-tourism, public art, architecture and sacred sites, among others. The book unfolded from her earlier writing on place-based art, conceptualism and land art, to more deeply explore the broad impacts of development and progress in the twenty-first century.

Vancouver and British Columbia are part of the same changing west that Lippard writes about, and the forces at play in our political and economic landscape bear the same burdens on Indigenous rights, ecological health and cultural values. Her public talk on "Undermining" at SFU continued the relationship she has had with Vancouver for over four decades. She curated the exhibition 955,000 in 1970 at the Vancouver Art Gallery and offsite locations, and she contributed to the catalogue for Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun: Unceded Territories at the Museum of Anthropology.