Michael Bidner

Michael Bidner (1944-1989) worked predominantly in multiples and mail art yet, despite being a pioneer in these media, he remains largely absent from the art narrative of both London Ontario and Canada. "Michael Bidner: Raw" aims to redress this obscurity by presenting the first retrospective of his work, restoring him to a visible place in the narrative of late 20th century Canadian art and counterculture. Bidner was well acquainted with his era<U+2019>s movements of printmaking, mail art, and xerography, taking visual cues from the world of commercial art, the literary press, the gay community (what is now known as the LGBT2Q+ community), and the London punk scene. He famously acquired the first colour Xerox machine in Canada directly from the company itself and went on to host an all night print party in the basement of McIntosh Gallery. He published what could arguably be called one of the most beautiful zines produced in Canada. ADZ <U+2014> "magazine as art", in Bidner's words <U+2014> was a more than a magazine, it was a hypermagazine. It was extreme, bold, irregular, and hilarious. His later publications, Rag, a rich example of gay (LGBT2Q+) activism in print, and RUDE were equally ambitious. Throughout his short career, Michael Bidner created an extraordinary and dynamic body of work that foreshadowed later developments in alternative culture. His innovative work in the gay (LGBT2Q+) community, as well as the fringe communities of DIY print production, continue to resonate in current artistic practices, making his invisibility in the national scene all the more conspicuous. Bidner produced work at the bleeding edge of technology and cultural significance and the time has come to examine and celebrate his many prescient accomplishments. -- McIntosh Gallery website [https://mcintoshgallery.ca/exhibitions/past/2018.html].