Geoffrey Farmer
Encyclopedia
Geoffrey Farmer is a Canadian artist based in Vancouver. Farmer studied at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design
in Vancouver and the San Francisco Art Institute
. He is represented by the Catriona Jeffries Gallery, Vancouver.
using combinations of a broad range of elements, including: drawing, photography, video, sculpture, performance, and found materials. Farmer’s work offers an exceptionally subtle take on the legacies of minimalist and postminimalist art. Minimalism
emphasized the artwork’s ability to instill in the viewer a powerful sense of their own presence; Farmer’s work begins with this idea of the art gallery as a site of phenomenological experience. Postminimalism
represents a refinement of minimalism in the way it emphasizes the role the gallery context plays in creating the meaning of an artwork. Farmer adds to both traditions by focusing on the contingent nature of meaning itself, especially emphasizing its fragile and elusive nature. Contingency in Farmer’s art extends to the strategies he devises to foster a self-reflexive engagement with his work. Whereas minimalist artists, such as Donald Judd
and Dan Flavin
, were said by art critic
Michael Fried to theatricalize the gallery-going experience, Farmer uses the idioms of theatre and performance as analogies of the process of meaning construction. This places him within the international trend, in which "installation art is a theatrical set without a stage play to give it meaning." For instance, Farmer's piece Hunchback Kit (2000-7 at the Tate
uses a hard shell case with custom foam insert to house props for the staging performances of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Farmer creates the art exhibition as a set of components made available for the viewer’s interpretation. In this process, he casts himself in the role of the ‘artist’, continuing to add to and transform an exhibition during the time it is on view. In For Every Jetliner Used in an Artwork… (2006), for instance, Farmer presented a video in the exhibition of himself working to alter an installation during the night while the show is closed. By explicitly portraying the exhibition as being ‘in process’, Farmer ensures that “a degree of openness and instability is built in to his work.” According to Mark Clintberg writing in The Drawing Room, London for Canadian Art International Farmer's work The Last Two Million Years(2007), takes the ephemerality of time as its theme, making small delicate sculptures from the pages of an Encyclopedia. Creating hybrid figurative objects out of disparate historical time periods, Farmer undoes the fixity of museological display and the agreed sequence of historical events.
Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design
Emily Carr University of Art and Design is a public post-secondary University located on Granville Island in Vancouver, BC, Canada...
in Vancouver and the San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco Art Institute is a school of higher education in contemporary art with the main campus in the Russian Hill district of San Francisco, California. Its graduate center is in the Dogpatch neighborhood. The private, non-profit institution is accredited by WASC and is a member of the...
. He is represented by the Catriona Jeffries Gallery, Vancouver.
Art Practice
Geoffrey Farmer creates installation-based artworksInstallation art
Installation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...
using combinations of a broad range of elements, including: drawing, photography, video, sculpture, performance, and found materials. Farmer’s work offers an exceptionally subtle take on the legacies of minimalist and postminimalist art. Minimalism
Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
emphasized the artwork’s ability to instill in the viewer a powerful sense of their own presence; Farmer’s work begins with this idea of the art gallery as a site of phenomenological experience. Postminimalism
Postminimalism
Postminimalism is an art term coined by Robert Pincus-Witten in 1971 used in various artistic fields for work which is influenced by, or attempts to develop and go beyond, the aesthetic of minimalism...
represents a refinement of minimalism in the way it emphasizes the role the gallery context plays in creating the meaning of an artwork. Farmer adds to both traditions by focusing on the contingent nature of meaning itself, especially emphasizing its fragile and elusive nature. Contingency in Farmer’s art extends to the strategies he devises to foster a self-reflexive engagement with his work. Whereas minimalist artists, such as Donald Judd
Donald Judd
Donald Clarence Judd was an American artist associated with minimalism . In his work, Judd sought autonomy and clarity for the constructed object and the space created by it, ultimately achieving a rigorously democratic presentation without compositional hierarchy...
and Dan Flavin
Dan Flavin
Dan Flavin was an American minimalist artist famous for creating sculptural objects and installations from commercially available fluorescent light fixtures.-Early life and career:...
, were said by art critic
Art critic
An art critic is a person who specializes in evaluating art. Their written critiques, or reviews, are published in newspapers, magazines, books and on web sites...
Michael Fried to theatricalize the gallery-going experience, Farmer uses the idioms of theatre and performance as analogies of the process of meaning construction. This places him within the international trend, in which "installation art is a theatrical set without a stage play to give it meaning." For instance, Farmer's piece Hunchback Kit (2000-7 at the Tate
Tate
-Places:*Tate, Georgia, a town in the United States*Tate County, Mississippi, a county in the United States*Táté, the Hungarian name for Totoi village, Sântimbru Commune, Alba County, Romania*Tate, Filipino word for States...
uses a hard shell case with custom foam insert to house props for the staging performances of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Farmer creates the art exhibition as a set of components made available for the viewer’s interpretation. In this process, he casts himself in the role of the ‘artist’, continuing to add to and transform an exhibition during the time it is on view. In For Every Jetliner Used in an Artwork… (2006), for instance, Farmer presented a video in the exhibition of himself working to alter an installation during the night while the show is closed. By explicitly portraying the exhibition as being ‘in process’, Farmer ensures that “a degree of openness and instability is built in to his work.” According to Mark Clintberg writing in The Drawing Room, London for Canadian Art International Farmer's work The Last Two Million Years(2007), takes the ephemerality of time as its theme, making small delicate sculptures from the pages of an Encyclopedia. Creating hybrid figurative objects out of disparate historical time periods, Farmer undoes the fixity of museological display and the agreed sequence of historical events.
Every Letter in the Alphabet
A year-long project commissioned on the occasion of the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paraolympics in Vancouver Farmer’s Every Letter in the Alphabet (2010) is located in a storefront space in the city. Farmer commissioned twenty-six language-based works, one for every letter of the alphabet, including readings performances and poster projects to appear in the space, and throughout the city, during 2010.Monographs
- Geoffrey Farmer by Pierre Landry, Jessica Morgan, Scott Watson (Musee d'art contemporain de Montreal / ABC Art Books, 2008)
- Geoffrey Farmer by Thierry Davila, Diedrich Diederichsen, Vanessa Desclaux, Geoffrey Farmer (Witte de With, 2008)
External links
- CV and bibliography, pdf
- Geoffrey Farmer at Catriona Jeffries Gallery
- Geoffrey Farmer at Art Metropole
- Geoffrey Farmer at the Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff, Canada
- Geoffrey Farmer in The World as a Stage
- Geoffrey Farmer at Johnen Gallery, Berlin
- Geoffrey Farmer at the National Gallery of Canada
- Geoffrey Farmer at the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal
- Geoffrey Farmer, Canadian Art, Winter, 2007
- Every Letter In The Alphabet, City of Vancouver
- Art Forum review, September 2008