Oh, What a Peeling!

Sep 11, 2015 at 09:10 am

Ever wonder what a 75-year-old banana looks like?

Meet Anna Banana in the flesh, Sept. 19 as she opens 45 Years of Fooling Around with A. Banana at Open Space.

Although more artistic human than starchy fruit, Anna Banana is organic as it gets. After getting her start in performance art in 1971 as the Town Fool in Victoria's historic Bastion Square, Banana went on to produce the Banana Rag newsletter, which connected her with the International Mail Art Network (IMAN), and artists from New York, Toronto and Vancouver. After moving to California, Banana joined the Bay Area Dadaists and furthered her artistic and publishing careers with VILE. She eventually moved back to B.C, but her career has taken her all over North America and Europe.

Open Space and the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (AGGV) have teamed up to present 45 Years of Fooling Around with A. Banana, a retrospective of works from her bountiful career.

Banana is in residency at Open Space from Sept. 19-Oct. 24, 2015, with an opening reception Sat., Sept. 19 at 4pm (Artist's Talk Sat., Sept. 26 at 2pm). Admission by donation. Banana is presenting the Encyclopedia Bananica, 23 tomes of banana history and pop culture, followed by her major exchange work, Regifting the Bananas (in character as Dr. Anna Freud Banana), in which she will give away more than 1,100 banana items in exchange for a catalogue form.

At AGGV, Banana will open the more serious side of the exhibition, showcasing her current interests and practice. A full-colour catalogue with texts by experts in Banana's work from around the world will accompany the exhibition.

Now, doesn't that sound appealing?

More info at:  http://www.openspace.ca/45_Years_of_Fooling_Around_With_A_Banana

and  http://aggv.ca/exhibitions/anna-banana

Photo credit: Jacquelyn Bortolussi      

Mary Ellen
www.analoguemag.ca

Raised on the East Coast and seasoned in the West, Mary Ellen has called Victoria home for eight years. Before landing on the Left Coast, she did 10 years of hard time in Alberta, where she studied Journalism and Marketing. She's the publisher of Victoria's newest arts and culture publication, analogue magazine (www.analoguemag.ca)