Martin Bartlett: Begin Anywhere Here to Play: Variation for Sixteen Hands
Gibson Art Museum, Burnaby, BC - To Feb 14, 2027
The two not unrelated exhibitions that make up the Gibson’s current program take music as their point of departure. Begin Anywhere is an overdue appreciation of the work of the late electro-acoustic composer and SFU professor Martin Bartlett (1939–1993), while Here to Play features the work of eight artists—Raymond Boisjoly, Steven Brekelmans, Amber Frid-Jimenez, Rodney Graham, Carole Itter, Khan Lee, Lauraine Mak and Kathy Slade—in a range of media, including painting, sculpture, photography, print and textiles.
Begin Anywhere comprises machines (synthesizers), materials (musical scores), artifacts and organizations created by Bartlett over the course of his professional life—from his MA thesis (Mills College, 1968) to his co-founding of the Western Front artist-run centre in 1973 to his founding of the Vancouver Community Gamelan in 1986 to his last compositions, completed before his death from AIDS-related complications. “One of the unique qualities of music,” wrote Bartlett in a 1972 Canada Council grant report, “is that it doesn’t hang around, taking up space. The moment passes, the forms dissolve, the energy is released and sound sinks back into silence.”
A key work in Here to Play is Rodney Graham’s large-scale photo triptych 3 Musicians (Members of the Early Music Group “Renaissance Fare” Performing Matteo of Perugia’s Le greygnour bien at the Unitarian Church of Vancouver, Late September, 1977) (2006). A recent acquisition of the SFU Art Collection, 3 Musicians inspired students participating in the Gibson’s Spring 2026 Curatorial Practicum Cohort to gather artworks by local artists who, like Graham, merge concepts and materials, often to humorous effect.
