To commemorate its 25th Anniversary, the Or Gallery is co-publishing with Talonbooks a second, updated edition of Vancouver Anthology, edited by acclaimed artist Stan Douglas, first published in 1991.

Featuring a larger format, new hardcover design and a new afterword by Stan Douglas, the republication of Vancouver Anthology coincides with a renewal of the Or Gallery’s mandate to incite and promote critical discourse both within and outside of the Vancouver art community.

The essays collected in this book were first presented in the autumn of 1990 as part of a lecture series entitled Vancouver Anthology, a forum in which each contributing writer could test his or her research on the question of art and politics in public, before their papers were sent into print. Every piece of writing included here has changed dramatically since its initial presentation, in part as a reflection of the immediate response it received from the local art community at the forum and, more significantly, as a reflection of responses which continued long after that first instance of presentation. What these presentations are clearly able to provide is a critique of the institutionalization of what had been previously considered alternative art practices, a contemporary notion not unrelated to what the artistic milieu of another generation, continent and historical age might have called the “avant-garde.” Contributors include: Keith Wallace, Sara Diamond, Nancy Shaw, Maria Insell, William Wood, Carol Williams, Robin Peck, Robert Linsley, Scott Watson and Marcia Crosby.

Stan Douglas is a visual artist who lives and works in Vancouver. His films, videos, and photographs have been seen in exhibitions internationally, including Documentas IX, X and XI (1992, 1997, 2002) and three Venice Biennales (1990, 2001, 2005). A comprehensive survey of his work, Past Imperfect: Works 1986-2007, was mounted by the Württembergischer Kunstverein and the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart in the fall of 2007. Between 2004 and 2006 he was a professor at Universität der Künste Berlin and since 2009 has been a member of the core faculty in the Grad Art Department of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. He has been the subject of numerous books and catalogues, including Stan Douglas (Phaidon), Stan Douglas: Abbott & Cordova, 7 August 1971 (Arsenal Pulp) and Stan Douglas: Every Building on 100 West Hastings Street (Arsenal Pulp/Contemporary Art Gallery), and is the editor of Vancouver Anthology (Talonbooks).

Stan Douglas' profile page

• Commended, Alcuin Awards for Book Design

“Exactly the type of work that should be published by our own indigenous book industry.”– Vancouver Sun

“This book is required reading for those wishing to grasp why art in Vancouver is bent in certain directions but not others.” – John O’Brian

“Vancouver Anthology was originally published in 1991; the product of a lecture series organized in 1990 by Vancouver artist Stan Douglas through the Or Gallery. The book of essays derived from these lectures quickly became regarded as one of the seminal accounts of the city’s recent art production and integral to a broad understanding of Canadian art.
Vancouver Anthology was a revelation when I first read it and remains an essential and inspiring document twenty years later. It is a model of how histories can be generated from the still-living past and forwarded as a guide to the future. Each of these essays is evidence of original and independent thinking by artists and writers who have worked at the heart of the Vancouver scene. It is first-rate and first-hand art history.”
– Ian Wallace

"The publication of the second edition of acclaimed artist Stan Douglas’ Vancouver Anthology is a significant contribution to Vancouver contemporary art. Concurrent with this book launch is a group exhibition of works by international artists curated by Eric Fredericksen, which deals with the politics of landscape and other issues pertaining to the notion of Vancouver as ­‘lotusland.’"
– vancouver2010.com