Passing Through: Iain Baxter & Photographs, 1958-1983

Throughout his career, Iain Baxter& has challenged ideas about what art is and what it does. Using everyday objects and processes, Baxter& creates works that engage audiences in contemporary social, political, and environmental issues. One of Canada’s most recognized conceptural artists, Baxter& has been taking photographs since the 1950s. While many aspects of his practice have been well document, his photographs remain largely unknown. Passing Through includes 80 colour prints, Polaroids,  and duratrans taken between 1958 and 1983, most of which have never been exhibited.

Much of Baxter&’s photophraphy documents the everday world. His peripatetic nature and consuming passion for real-life experiences has resulted in a remarkable body of images that are both highly personal and revelatory of Canadian society during the decond half of the 20th century.

Informed by the notion of driving as a manifestation of consciousness in North American culture, most of these photographs were taken as Baxter& travelled across Canada. His photographic oeuvre, seen in its entirety, functions as a fragmented narrative puncuated by digressions and distractions. Strangers and friends, forbidding industral sites and backard parties, expansive natural landscapres and smalltime roadside attractions reveal the breadth of the Canadian experience during this critical period.