Michael Snow — the Toronto-born interdisciplinary artist revered in Canada and abroad for his work with sculpture, painting, experimental film and music-making — has died. Snow's January 5 passing was confirmed to multiple outlets by Tamsen Greene, senior director of New York's Jack Shainman Gallery, which represented the artist. A cause of death was not revealed. He was 94.
The National Gallery of Canada called Snow "a giant in the art world" in a statement upon news of his passing, writing "Snow's influence spans multiple generations; his legacy one of transforming in unprecedented ways the relationship between the artwork and the viewer. His creative experiments challenged perceptions and ultimately changed how we might understand art, the world and one other."
Two of Snow's most recognizable pieces of public art greet Toronto locals and visitors at a pair of landmark destinations. "Flight Stop," found downtown in the city's Eaton Centre, features 60 large fibreglass-covered Canada geese taking wing. "The Audience," which depicts gold-painted sports fans in acts of celebration, is found a short distance away on the facade of the Rogers Centre stadium.
As a filmmaker, Snow's best-known production is 1967's Wavelength, a 45-minute, fixed-camera feature widely considered a landmark release in experimental filmmaking. The film's title inspired the name of the Toronto International Film Festival's avant-garde programming slate (Wavelengths), and "partly inspired" the name of the city's long-running concert series and arts organization, Wavelength Music.
Reflecting on the concert series' infancy with The Grid in 2014, co-founder and programmer Jonny Dovercourt recalled Snow screening Wavelength and performing in an avant-garde trio as part of an earlier edition.
The National Gallery of Canada called Snow "a giant in the art world" in a statement upon news of his passing, writing "Snow's influence spans multiple generations; his legacy one of transforming in unprecedented ways the relationship between the artwork and the viewer. His creative experiments challenged perceptions and ultimately changed how we might understand art, the world and one other."
Two of Snow's most recognizable pieces of public art greet Toronto locals and visitors at a pair of landmark destinations. "Flight Stop," found downtown in the city's Eaton Centre, features 60 large fibreglass-covered Canada geese taking wing. "The Audience," which depicts gold-painted sports fans in acts of celebration, is found a short distance away on the facade of the Rogers Centre stadium.
As a filmmaker, Snow's best-known production is 1967's Wavelength, a 45-minute, fixed-camera feature widely considered a landmark release in experimental filmmaking. The film's title inspired the name of the Toronto International Film Festival's avant-garde programming slate (Wavelengths), and "partly inspired" the name of the city's long-running concert series and arts organization, Wavelength Music.
Reflecting on the concert series' infancy with The Grid in 2014, co-founder and programmer Jonny Dovercourt recalled Snow screening Wavelength and performing in an avant-garde trio as part of an earlier edition.
As a musician, Snow recorded and released solo material and was a co-founding member of the Canadian Creative Music Collective (CCMC), playing piano, trumpet, guitar and synthesizer with the free improvisation outfit. In 1976, the group would found the Music Gallery, a vital performance space that now calls 918 Bathurst Street home. The collective would also found accompanying record label Music Gallery Editions, which issued albums by CCMC and myriad albums of experimental and traditional music.
Snow's musical experimentation continued in his work as a solo artist, beginning with 1975's Musics for Piano, Whistling, Microphone and Tape Recorder. His 1988 release 2 Radio Solos — capturing two pieces played on a 1962 Nordmende radio receiver in a remote, lamp-lit cabin — was deemed "as much an artefact in time as it is a musical presentation" by Exclaim! upon its reissue in 2009, while 1999 solo piano release 3 Phases saw him divide his self-taught playing into "piano antique," "piano biologique" and "piano mécanique" categories.
Snow was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1981, and was promoted to a Companion in 2007 for "his contributions to international visual arts as one of Canada's greatest multidisciplinary contemporary artists."
