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.
Event History
2024
- Offprint Paris Art Book Fair 2024
- Acid-Free Lite: LA Art Book Market 2024
- Now Available: Gendered Labour and Clitoridean Revolt
- VABF Symposium on Art Publishing
- Vancouver Art Book Fair 2024
- San Francisco Art Book Fair 2024
- Offprint London 2024
- Seattle Art Book Fair 2024
- Ghent Art Book Fair 2024
- New York Art Book Fair 2024
- Multiple Formats Art Book Fair & Symposium 2024
- Reading Group: A Pragmatic Response to Real Circumstances with Anne Focke and Rhiannon Vogl
- Means of Production: Indigenous Patterns, Forms, and Letters with Kathleen and Christopher Sleboda
2023
- Tokyo Art Book Fair 2023
- Offprint Paris Art Book Fair 2023
- Volume 6 Montréal Art Book Fair
- LA Art Book Fair 2023
- San Francisco Art Book Fair 2023
- Post-Capitalist Architecture TV
- Otis MFA Graphic Design Art Book Fair
- Acid-Free LA Art Book Market
- Joar Nango & David Thomas in Dialogue: Supplement 7 at the Venice Biennale of Architecture
- Offprint London Art Book Fair 2023
- Seattle Art Book Fair
- Multiple Formats: Contemporary Art Book Symposium & Fair
- Print Pomona Art Book Fair
- Reading Group: Can one move along a number line? With Brynn McNab
2022
- Offprint Paris
- Tokyo Art Book Fair
- ACID-FREE Video Catalogue
- Two Hot Horses at the New York Art Book Fair
- Andrea Fraser and Helmut Draxler: In Dialogue
- Performance by Guillermo Galindo and Raven Chacon
- Volume Montréal
- Anthrozoology: Cats & Dogs
- Prairie Art Book Fair
- LIT LIT (The Little Literary Fair)
- San Francisco Art Book Fair
- Otis MFA Graphic Design Arts Book Fair
- The Unarius Academy of Science
- The Age of Unarius
- In Dialogue: Andrea Fraser and Pope.L
- Launch — S T R A Y . W O R L D
- E.S.P. — Parallel Transmissions
- Now Available: Services Working Group
2021
- Now Available: Institutions by Artists: Volume Two
- Conversation: On Gaslight
- Vancouver Art Book Fair
- E.S.P. — Anthrozoology
- Means of Production: The Employee with Joshua Schwebel
- Makeready: What Makes a Book a Book?
- Shannon Ebner: Stray World
- Project Series: Ian Wilson
- The Services Working Group
2020
- Moyra Davey: Two Hot Horses
- Kathleen Ritter: Gaslight
- Penny Slinger: Exorcisms
- E.S.P.: New Mineral Collective
- Means of Production: Sound, Silence, and Process with Guillermo Galindo & Raven Chacon
- Online Screening: Postmodern Times
- Means of Production: Community and the Work of Unworking with Am Johal
2019
- Means of Production: (In)consequential Thinking with Jacquelyn Zong-Li Ross
- E.S.P.: BeDevil
- Launch: Supplement 5: Mr. Peanut Summit
- E.S.P.: Ecologies
- Reading Group: Rebecca La Marre in Conversation with Tiziana La Melia
- Reading Group: The Culture Game with Patrick Cruz
- David Reinfurt: A *New* Program for Graphic Design
- E.S.P.: Visible Language Workshop
- Means of Production: Value Systems with Sarah Williams
- Stagelessness with Grupa o.k.
- E.S.P.: Visual Fields
2018
- Means of Production: On the Difficult with Jaclyn Bruneau
- Means of Production: Living as an Artist with Eli Bornowsky
- Means of Production: W.A.G.E. with Andrea Fraser
- Kandis WIlliams: Reproduction is Not a Metaphor
- Andrea Fraser: Museums, Money and Politics
- Means of Production: How to Make a Book with Steidl
- Means of Production: Photography as Tool with Winfried Heininger
- Listening Group: VWAM
- Means of Production: Research with Mercedes Eng
- Means of Production: Criticism with Steffanie Ling
- Reading Group: A History of Resistance with Grace Ndiritu
- Means of Production: Printing with Brick Press
- Reading Group: On Kathy Acker
- Chris Kraus on Kathy Acker
2017
- Reading Group: Nathan Crompton on Utopias
- Reading Group: Antonia Pinter
- Listening Group: The Red Krayola
- Supplement Launch: Berlin
- V-Girls: The Question of Manet's Olympia
- Hotel Theory Reader: Vancouver Launch
2016
- Reading Group: Zanna Gilbert
- Mr. Peanut Summit
- Reading Group: Grant Arnold
- Reading Group: Martine Syms
2015
- John C. Welchman: Joseph Kosuth's The Second Investigation in Vancouver
- SWARM XVI: Fillip, Punk 'til You Punk
- Eternal Network
2014
- Christopher Régimbal on Institutions by Artists
- Fillip Office Open House!
- Fillip 19 Launch and Screening
- Screening: The Hart of London
- Triple Canopy
2013
- Slide Shows at X Marks the Bökship
- Institutions by Arists Launch at Et al.
- Intangible Economies at Artists Space
2012
- Institutions by Artists
- Institutions by Artists: Print Centre
- Intangible Economies at Art Berlin Contemporary
- Sumi Ink Club
- Grouper: Sleep
- Robert Ashley Speaking Thru Will Holder
- Fillip 16: Berlin Launch
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- Pa/per View Art Book Fair
- It's a Book, It's a Stage, It's a Public Place
- Destroy All Monsters Screening
- Fillip at ARCO Experts Forum
2011
- Intangible Economies
- Quiz Night
- David Horvitz: Room 129
- Recent Publications
- Of Times Recent and Distant
- Secondary Information: The Persistence and Absence of Criticism
2010
- The AAAARG Library
- Everything is Dangerous
- Fillip 12 Now Available
- Unter dem Motto
- International Chilliwack Biennial
- Motto Storefront: Ooga Booga
- Motto Storefront: Working Format
- Motto Storefront: Metahaven
- Motto Storefront: Oscar Tuazon
- Motto Storefront: Andjeas Ejiksson
- Motto Storefront: Avalanche Launch and Screening
- Motto Storefront: Rob Giampietro
- Motto Storefront: Stuart Bailey
- Motto Storefront
- John C. Welchman on Paul McCarthy’s Pirate Project
- David Horvitz Artist Talk
- Ryan Trecartin: Screening and Artist Talk
- Mark Manders: Window with Fake Newspapers and Traducing Ruddle
- Getting Something Into One's Head
- Fillip Review Panel: Vancouver Art Gallery’s Offsite, Anne Truitt, and Expanded Literary Practices
2009
- Autogestion Book Launch
- Antonia Hirsch at Space, London
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- Fillip Library and Reading Room Launch
- Fillip Summer Sale
- Corinn Gerber of Passenger Books
- Stockholm and Berlin Launches
- David Horvitz of ASDF
- Montréal Launch and Collaboration
- Issue Nine Vancouver Launch
- Judgment and Contemporary Art Criticism
- Fillip Review Panel: February 2009
2008
- Vancouver Launch of Two Artist Multiples
- The Apartment Inhabits the Fillip Studio
- Nick Thurston of Information as Material
- Rotterdam Dialogues: The Critics
- Fillip Review Panel: October 2008
- Stuart Bailey of Dexter Sinister
- Next: Documentary Perspectives in Contemporary Art
- Paul Chan Screening
- Issue Seven Vancouver Launch & Talk
- 22nd KIOSK Exhibition in Rennes
2007
- Fillip at castillo/corrales, Paris
- Fillip at the New York Art Book Fair
- LA Launch and Talk
- A History of Tokyo Art Speak
- Issue Five Vancouver Launch