David Wisdom's Views of Vancouver
Fiona Morrow
Vancouver — From Thursday's Globe and Mail, Thursday, Jun. 11, 2009 09:54AM EDT
When David Wisdom, erstwhile host of the CBC Radio shows
Nightlines ,
Radiosonic ,
Radio On and
Pearls of Wisdom , found himself an ex-employee of the public broadcaster 18 months ago, he looked around for a way to pass his free time.
Consider that this is a man who had previously alphabetized his singles record collection and played 10 tracks a week on
Nightlines until he reached the z's – some nine years later – and it's clear that Wisdom does not falter in the face of a big project.
Turning his sights on a pile of boxes filled with photographic slides dating from the 1960s to now, he decided it was time to get organized. So, he sat down and systematically scanned and photo-shopped between 9,000 and 10,000 images.
“I resurrected them,” he says. “And in the process I realized that I had something.” Something is right – his organizing has now led to a public exhibition and two artist talks (with slides, of course), all at Simon Fraser University.
What he has is a remarkable collection of images of Vancouver, its buildings and its people – many of them long-time friends such as artists Jeff Wall, Ian Wallace and Rodney Graham and sci-fi writer William Gibson. The transparencies may have been gathering dust in recent years, but in the late 1960s and 1970s, Wisdom was an enthusiastic creator of communal slide shows.
[...]
Tomorrow, Wisdom will return to host a second, expanded show at SFU with a spectacular lineup that includes slide shows from a number of his cohorts. Graham will present his favourite album covers (recently shown in the Louvre), animator Marv Newland is bringing his best car pictures and artist Neil Wedman will concentrate on the sidewalks of Vancouver.
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Wrestler Gene Kiniski, Seymour Street, 1971.
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