From Ironic to Iconic: The Performance Works of Tanya Mars


From Ironic to Iconic: The Performance Works of Tanya Mars
Edited by Paul Couillard

Design by Sameer Farooq/New Ink
2009, 286 pp. (32-pp. colour section) with index
Includes DVD documentation of Mars’ performance Tyranny of Bliss

With articles by: Paul Couillard, Tagny Duff, Jennifer Fisher, Randy Gledhill, Nelson Henricks, Will Kwan, Paul Ledoux, Joanna Nash, Jennifer Oille, John Oughton and Pam Patterson, Andrew James Paterson, Kim Sawchuk, Dot Tuer

Tanya Mars has been a key figure in Canadian art since she burst on the scene in 1974 with her first groundbreaking exhibition, Codpieces Phallic Paraphernalia. Provocative and political, Mars has relentlessly shown us that the way to the jugular is through the funny bone, creating a series of compelling “three-dimensional pictures” that have made her one of Canada’s most acclaimed and important performance artists. This anthology offers a comprehensive look at her career, including a DVD with photo and video documentation of many of her major works.

“An innovative leader in the performance art scene here and internationally, Tanya Mars makes art that is courageous, humourous, operatic and original. Ironic to Iconic gives the reader a cogent and too little-known background to Mars’ career and her role in the development of performance art in Canada.”
~Jessica Bradley, curator and director of Jessica Bradley Art + Projects


Artists


Documentation


Performance


Writing


Engagements


Series


Books & Ephemera

Books Red

Books about artists (and sometimes by artists) allow artists' work to be accessed by more people in more places. Artist books have the uncanny ability to both expand and convolute artists’ practices. Unabashedly enjoying the pun, Books Red is a fragrance composed entirely of materials derived from sources that are red, at one moment in their lifespan. The fragrance is formulated to be impossibly ever-lasting, forever extending in all directions.

Top Notes

rose hip, tomato

Middle Notes

red tobacco, moroccan rose, geranium

Base Notes

poppy, cade, redwood forest