Traffic: Conceptual Art in Canada 1965-1980

Conceptual art is widely considered to be the most transformative art movement of the late 20th century. Marked by political unrest in the 1960s, it challenged the idea of art as a form of individual expression or special technical skill. Rather than adding objects such as paintings or sculptures to a world already full of “things,” conceptual art engaged critically with the conditions that have defined art as well as new systems of meaning-making in an age of mass media. Traffic: Conceptual Art in Canada 1965-1980 is the first major exhibition to track the impact of conceptual art as it was taken up across the country. Comprising work by more than 90 Canadian and international artists, it examines the complex, rigorous and diverse forms in which conceptual art appeared and the ways in which its premises were inflected by the specific needs, interests and geographic situations of Canadian artists, collectives and communities. Traffic is organized along regional lines while at the same time emphasizing the effervescent, sometimes contentious, lines of traffic between them.