Study for my Heroes in the Street (Stan)

1986

39.75H x 29W inches

Ian Wallace

Wallace says of his Heroes in the Street series, “The street is the site, metaphorically as well as in actuality, of all the forces of society and economics imploded upon the individual, who, moving within the dense forest of symbols of the modern city, can achieve the status of the heroic.” The hero in Study for my Heroes in the Street (Stan) is the photoconceptual artist Stan Douglas, who is depicted here (and also included in the Kadist Collection) as an archetypal figure restlessly drifting the streets of the modern world. Patches of canvas cover parts of this otherwise representational photograph and ask the viewer to consider the role that editing and play in our perception of the urban landscape and modernity.

British-born and Vancouver-based, Ian Wallace is known for his conceptual art practice and critical writings. Since the mid-1980s, the artist has explored the relationship between documentary photography—often featuring sites of urban development—and abstract monochrome painting, to investigate the characteristics of media-specificity and the limitations of representation.

Colors:

• drift.v.06
• edit.v.03
• street.n.01
• original.n.02
• perception.n.04
• urban.a.01
• photo-conceptualism
• conceptual photography
• vancouver school
• appropriation art
• canadian
• conceptual art
• cultural commentary
• british