Who: Craig Leonard
What: Artist
Where you can find him: Craig Leonard performs “Sun Ra to Sun O))) – A Blasted History of Noise” an hour-long audio performance presenting over 100 significant noise albums from 1965 to the present, Sept. 12 at Modern Fuel. The show starts at 8 p.m. and tickets are $8 in advance or $10 at the door.
Where do you live and work–and why?
I live and work in Halifax, N.S. A full-time teaching position at NSCAD (Nova Scotia College of Art and Design) drew me back east. I was born in Halifax, but grew up in Sarnia, Ont. I had no plans on moving back, but after grad school I had fantasies of teaching at NSCAD because of the reputation it developed during its conceptual art heydays in the late 60s and early 70s. I landed a job there with good fortune.
How do you describe your art?
I am interested in lots of mediums—sound, sculpture, video, printed matter and performance—so each project I get into can take on a different form. In general though I engage with history—primarily musical and literary—through intervention, revision and reinterpretation, and I allow the subject to dictate its form.
What inspires you?
Mystery and freedom.
What’s Anarchivism?
Unruly archivism that hates protocol.
What’s Amusicology?
A combination of amusement and dilettante musicology.
What’s the nicest thing someone has said about your work?
“My five year-old loved it!”
What’s the meanest thing someone has said about your work?
“It feels a bit lazy to me.”
What are your current obsessions?
Bourgeois aesthetics, the Victorian era, record collecting, intuition, free time.
When someone says “Kingston,” you think…
The site of many pinnacles. I had so many crucial turning points in the city it’s hard to list. It’s a city crucial to my personal and artistic development.
What are you currently working on?
An anarchivist, Merzbau-esque project at Eyelevel Gallery in Halifax from Sept 9-Oct 18, and of course, more teaching.
—Emily Whalen
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