Nic Wilson: A Wreath of Snakes (Bookstore Edition)

A Wreath of Snakes (Bookstore Edition)
October 9th – 16th
Shop hours: 9 am – 5 pm

“A Wreath of Snakes (Bookstore Edition)” is an ongoing project by Nic Wilson that looks at the place of artists’ texts in the continuum of art making and viewership. This edition of the project takes the form of a bookstore that works as a dissemination point for artist’s texts, a personal collection, and a site for production.

Artists’ Books have presented a problem for traditional gallery presentation because of their reliance on long term physical interaction. The act of reading a book is at odds with the tradition of anti-tactility in most gallery contexts and the inhospitable environments of many institutions. The form of a bookstore invites browsing and the possibility for connection with a book on a viewers own terms, if they chose to purchase it.

The bookstore also offers the opportunity to consider the position of the artist as an employee. I am looking to explore what Michel de Certeau calls “la perruque”. de Certeau describes this as an employee taking back the time that they are selling to an employer to work on personal projects. During my time minding the bookstore I will be generating a new text based on my experience of employment.

Nic Wilson is an artist based in Regina, SK (Treaty 4 Territory) where he is a MFA candidate in the Visual Arts Department at the University of Regina. In the spring of 2017 he was the recipient of a Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarships Program Master’s Scholarship and his most recent work connects the queering of literary cannons with the history of anti-action in art making.

A selection of artists who’s books will be in the store:

Sarah Tripp, Rebecca Martin, General Idea, Jan Verwoert, David Horvitz, Ingo Niermann, Kim Gordon, Maggie Nelson, Ilene Miles, Chris Krauss, Lee Lozano, Claire Ellen Paquet, Bas Medik, Sally Hill, David Maroto and Joanna Zielinska