Fillip

Mr. Peanut Summit
October 6th, 2016

Fillip is pleased to present a panel discussion at the Or Gallery on Thursday, October 6, at 7 pm, on the history and legacy of the artist networks and performative practices that developed in Vancouver in the 1970s.

Moderated by Los Angeles–based curator and art historian Zanna Gilbert, the panel will focus on the work of and collaborations between Anna Banana, Michael Morris, and Vincent Trasov. In 1972, Trasov assumed the identity of Mr. Peanut donning a hand made paper mâché replica of the mascot of the Planters Peanut Company. The legume quickly became Trasov’s cipher, an ambiguous persona that served as an almost grotesque response to the conceptual turn that called for the dematerialization of the art object. The artist soon produced The Mr. Peanut Mayoralty Campaign of 1974, a twenty-day performance developed in collaboration with members of the Vancouver arts community including Michael Morris, who developed Mr. Peanut’s P.E.A.N.U.T. platform (Performance, Elegance, Art, Nonsense, Uniqueness, and Talent), and John Mitchell, who served as campaign manager and spokesman.

Trasov’s Mr. Peanut will serve as a starting point for a discussion that addresses the diverse and interconnected practices of the panelists, touching on Trasov and Morris’s work with Image Bank, the artist correspondence network for the exchange of ideas and information by post, and Anna Banana’s own anthropomorphic performance and her work with VILE magazine.

The Mr. Peanut Summit is organized in conjunction with Mr. Peanut Drawings, a forthcoming artist’s book published by New Documents. The event is produced by Fillip in collaboration with the Or Gallery and New Documents.

Panel Participants

Anna Banana is a Robert’s Creek–based conceptual, performance, and mail artist. In 1971, she founded the Banana Rag, a newsletter that connected her with the International Mail Art Network (IMAN). In 1973, she founded VILE magazine in San Francisco, a publication that was a parody of both LIFE magazine and General Idea’s FILE Megazine and that documented the work of international mail artists. A retrospective of her work, Anna Banana: 45 Years of Fooling Around with A. Banana, was recently organized at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria.

Zanna Gilbert is a Research Specialist at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. Her research focuses on artists’ networks, mail art, Fluxus, and conceptual art, as well as modern and contemporary art in Latin America. From 2012 to 2015, she was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Drawings & Prints at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. She completed her PhD with Tate Research and the School of Philosophy and Art History at the University of Essex.

Michael Morris is Vancouver-based painter, photographer, video and performance artist, and curator. His work is often media based and collaborative, and his practice is involved with developing networks and the production and presentation of new art activity. He is a co-founder of the Western Front Society. With Vincent Trasov he founded Image Bank in 1969, a method for personal exchange between artists, and the Morris/Trasov Archive in 1990, currently housed at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver.

Vincent Trasov is a Vancouver- and Berlin-based painter, video, and performance artist. He is a co-founder of the Western Front Society. With Vincent Trasov he founded Image Bank in 1969, a method for personal exchange between artists, and the Morris/Trasov Archive in 1990, currently housed at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver. In the early 1970s, Trasov assumed the role of Mr. Peanut, eventually running for Mayor of Vancouver in 1974 with the assistance of fellow artists Michael Morris and John Mitchell.