Buy tickets online for Robert Dayton’s An Evening with The Canadian Romantic.

An Evening With The Canadian Romantic will be an unforgettable evening, an incomparable melding of performance, music and food at the Dunlevy Snackbar (433 Dunlevy Avenue, Vancouver). You don’t need to take our word for it, though — just scan the Vancouver press:

• Nardwuar The Human Serviette Radio Show, January 9
• The Vancouver Courier, January 11
• Scout Magazine’s list of 10 things to do this week
• An article about The Canadian Romantic and Robert Dayton’s band July 4th Toilet, on straight.com’s blog
• A mention in Shawn Conner’s article about July 4th Toilet on The Tyee

$25 gets you two performances and a distinctively multicultural (and therefore intensely Canadian!) dinner. For an extra $15 you can reserve a copy of the new Canadian Romantic book, at an introductory price that probably won’t last long. A few tickets are still available, but capacity is limited. Reserve now to avoid disappointment later!

Buy Tickets Now

Here’s another preview of our upcoming event and publication, The Canadian Romantic. A supple, lithe volume of tenderly hand-drawn illustrations, as well as an evening of intense, sensitive and perverted performance awaits you at Robert Dayton’s An Evening With The Canadian Romantic at the Dunlevy Snackbar on Friday, January 13.

You’ll be admitted to a dinner-theatre and musical experience unlike any you have encountered before, and witness the launch of a book which will change the course of Canadian Romantic literature. Hurry and reserve your tickets today — seating is limited, and tickets are sold only in advance. Buy now online, or visit us at the Pitt during open hours (noon to 5 Wednesday through Friday).

Join us Friday, January 30 for an opening and book launch for Chris Bose’s The Apology, the fifth commission in our series Ill Repute, artworks drawn from the wrong side of history. Chris’s book, also titled The Apology, will be on sale, and we understand there will be tea and bannock.

If you can’t make it, there’s something really important that you can do. We’ll also be hosting Chris’s work in our front window until the end of January (nightly screenings from after sunset until 11 pm), and presenting it on the web at http://theapology.helenpittgallery.org/.

Here are a couple of previews of The Canadian Romantic, coming to Vancouver on Friday, January 13 for one evening  at the Dunlevy Snackbar. (Tickets $25 in advance — buy here!)

First, here is one of the pages from the book we’re co-publishing with Publication Studio Vancouver, and launching at the performance and dinner on the 13th. (We’ll drop a few more previews in coming days.)

And here’s a very special introduction to the Canadian Romantic:

Don’t miss this — buy tickets online, and preorder your copy of the book now!

Buy tickets online: http://www.publicationstudio.biz/events/canadian-romantic

Looking for a surprise for that special someone? Why not pick up tickets for two to the Vancouver appearance of The Canadian Romantic on January 13 — dinner, two sets of music and performance, and the launch of a new book, at the Dunlevy Snackbar.

Space is limited, so get your tickets early! If you can’t make it, you will still be able to order copies of The Canadian Romantic book online, just a few short days from now.

Join us for an artist talk by Patrick Cruz and the launch of a publication accompanying his installation Yin Yang Temple, on Saturday December 17 at 2pm at UNIT/PITT Projects, 15 East Pender Street, Vancouver.

Patrick Cruz’s installation Yin Yang Temple was the first commission launched in UNIT/PITT’s series Ill Repute. Originally created in October 2011, it is an elaborate “listening station” consisting of a wild clash of paintings and other artifacts, and a soundtrack provided by constantly shuffling playlists, broadcast on low-power FM radio. These playlists were contributed by Cruz’s friends and colleagues, making this a collective work that underlines the social nature of his work, and the social production of artist-run culture.

Drop by 15 E Pender between noon and 5 pm on Saturday, December 17, and join us in ending the 2011 programming year.

Since April 2011, when we moved in to 15 East Pender Street, we have shown about a dozen exhibitions and other types of projects. That’s a busy schedule for any gallery, let alone one that was pretty much declared dead back in 2009. The latest of these is Ill Repute, a series of five commissions from emerging artists, meditating and riffing on how so much of what has touched the Pitt over the past 36 years has been somehow on the wrong side of history. If you haven’t seen the installations by Patrick Cruz, Sxwchálten (Dustin Rivers), and Chun Hua Catherine Dong & Ek Rzepka, Saturday is the last chance; and if you would like to get a book and poster by Wil George, this will be your last chance this year.

Even after we close for the season, though, the web-based components of some of these projects will continue on; you’ll also be able to see videos by Wil George, Sxwchálten (Dustin Rivers), and Christie Lee Charles in our front window from 8 to 11 pm every night, alternating with videos from the We Give A Shit Because We Can project. The video screenings will keep on going through the holidays, so if you’re in our neighbourhood at night you might want to stop for a minute or two (and if you’re waiting for an eastbound bus on Pender just past Carrall, it’s something to pass the time — you’re welcome).

And then there are the books: some titles related to projects we did this year are still to come, but we have an impressive back catalogue from this year alone. You can purchase these at the Pitt, and some of them are available for purchase online as well.

Sxwchálten (Dustin Rivers): Vancouver Can’t Argue With The Dead opens Saturday December 10, 8pm
Ek Rzepka artist talk Sunday December 11, 2pm

This weekend, UNIT/PITT’s Ill Repute series of emerging artist commissions continues with two events: the launch of Vancouver Can’t Argue With the Dead by Sxwchálten (Dustin Rivers) on Saturday, December 10 at 8pm; and a talk to go with Chun Hua Catherine Dong & Ek Rzepka’s crowdsourced work We Give A Shit Because We Care, on Sunday, December 11 at 2pm.

There are still more events to come in this series before we close for the holidays: a video launch, additional publications, evening video screenings, and web-only content. Subscribe to our mailing list for details, or follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

Ill Repute is a series of commissions intended as critical riffs on the history that has intersected with the Helen Pitt Gallery (Unit/Pitt, Pitt International Galleries, Helen Pitt Gallery Artist Run Centre, P.I.G. Gallery, and all of the other things we have been called). The series so far has included Patrick Cruz, Wil George, Chun Hua Catherine Dong & Ek Rzepka, and Sxwchálten (Dustin Rivers); installations, audio, online works, books and video are all part of the project. What is emerging is a picture of ideas and tendencies that have endured and resisted extinction despite ending up on the wrong side of history.

With support from the City of Vancouver’s 125th Anniversary Grants Program. Ill Repute is also supported by a project grant from the British Columbia Arts Council. UNIT/PITT Projects is grateful for ongoing support from the City of Vancouver, the British Columbia Arts Council, the Canada Council, and from artists, cultural workers, volunteers and individual donors, without whom we would be unable to continue.

Continuing the breakneck pace of programming this year, the Ill Repute series continues with Vancouver Can’t Argue With the Dead by Sxwchálten (Dustin Rivers). This project includes  video on the window monitor, a publication, and photo-based work in the gallery (which already houses Patrick Cruz’s Yin Yang Temple and Chun Hua Catherine Dong & Ek Rzepka’s We Give A Shit Because We Care). The publication is going to be the second book in the Ill Repute series; the first was Wil George’s Survival In Its Many Shapes, which we launched last month.

Ill Repute was envisioned as a series of riffs on the history of the Pitt, and by extension the history of Vancouver, especially the “wrong” side of that history: movements of resistance, scandals, subcultures, undergrounds, and life outside the law. Since the Pitt’s history includes First Nations curators, artists and cultural workers, we asked Cease Wyss to curate some commissions from emerging First Nations artists. What those artists bring to the concepts of “history” and “resistance” is distinct because of the scope of history and the personal nature of resistance in their lives. And that shouldn’t be surprising.

Back in 2010, when the Pitt had an office but no permanent gallery, we received a very nice postcard from the Ministry of Casual Living in Victoria, inviting us to bring a show there. What resulted was Exhibition To Be Destroyed, Again and the book of the same title (the first of many Pitt/Publication Studio co-publications).

Now the Ministry is in a similar position. After a decade or so of being a window gallery at an obscure retail crossroads in Victoria BC, redevelopment is forcing them to become nomadic. We wish them the best, and here’s hoping there’s another collaboration in our future somewhere.

http://mondaymag.com/articles/entry/closing-of-two-fernwood-galleries-opens-up-new-possibilities

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/tom-hawthorn/eviction-wont-shutter-ministry-of-casual-livings-artistic-ambitions/article2259656/