Curated by David Diviney

The work of David Askevold was central to Conceptual art’s redefinition of what art could be, and it was—and remains—a rebuke to the movement’s stereotype as being merely dry and rational. Though clearly quite logical in structure, Askevold’s work is also peculiar, trippy, and unpredictable. He shows us another way of “living in our heads,” exploring how associative thoughts shift and play with meaning. This exhibition, organized by the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and in development before the artist’s death in 2008, gathers forty examples from the full range of his career since 1968, including sculpture and installation, film and video, photo-text pieces, and computer-generated images. Along with the recent Askevold show at Le Consortium in Dijon, France, this retrospective (and its catalogue) should kick-start the recognition that the Canadian artist’s work deserves.

— Ann Goldstein