An avid supporter of the Vancouver School of conceptual photography, prodigious contemporary art collector Phil Lind (1943–2023) was drawn to artworks that shone a light on social and political histories. Steeped in conceptual art, Phil Lind’s collecting impulses drew him to photographs, paintings, and sculptural work by artists who emerged in the 1980s and thereafter and whose work probed the social force of imagery.

Featuring an essay by curator Adam Welch and 90 reproductions of works from the Lind collection, Lights Years both illuminates Lind’s own collection and casts a light on artists that emerged in Vancouver during the 1980s. Included in this elegant volume are lens-based works — including large-scale light boxes and multimedia installations — by Stan Douglas, Rodney Graham, Ron Terada, and Jeff Wall, as well as photographs, paintings, and sculptures by Ai Weiwei, Thomas Demand, William Eggleston, General Idea, Antony Gormley, Philip Guston, William Kentridge, Thomas Ruff, Laurie Simmons, and Wolfgang Tillmans.

Adam Welch is the Associate Curator, Modern Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Prior to joining the AGO in 2023, he held curatorial roles at the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Museum at the University of Toronto, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. His recent curatorial projects include the retrospective General Idea (2022), Joseph Beuys (2015–2017), The Advent of Abstraction (2016–2017), and the reinstallation of the Indigenous and Canadian Galleries (2017) at the NGC. He holds an MA from Columbia University and a PhD in the History of Art from the University of Toronto. Welch’s dissertation, Borderline Research: Art between Canada and the United States, 1965–75, explored relationships between artists, curators, and dealers across the Canadian-American border.

Adam Welch's profile page