Softcover, 184 pages
4.75 x 7.5 inches
New Documents
2019

The Halifax Conference presents a transcript of an artists' conference held at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design on October 5–6, 1970, transcribed and adapted by artist Craig Leonard.

The conference was conceived to bring about a meeting of artists in as general a manner as possible, so that the concerns of each artist would be the ultimate reason for the gathering.

Infamously, the conference was held in the college’s boardroom, while students and other interested parties watched the proceedings on a video monitor in a separate space. The result was a conversation that devolved—technologically and ideologically—into a quasi-tragicomic farce, punctuated by remarkable moments of rupture initiated by activist resistance to the Conference from the outside and dissenting voices from within.

Attendees at the Conference included Carl Andre, Joseph Beuys, Ronald Bladen, Daniel Buren, Gene Davis, Jan Dibbets, Al Held, Mario Merz, Robert Morris, Robert Murray, N.E.Thing Co. (Iain and Ingrid Baxter), Richard Serra, Richard Smith, Robert Smithson, Michael Snow, and Lawrence Weiner.

Edited by Jeff Khonsary

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New Documents is a Vancouver and Los Angeles based art book publisher.