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Iain Baxter& |
| project: Bagged Place |
Bagged Place, 1966
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Various
materials, installation created at the UBC Fine
Arts Gallery, Vancouver.
This project was created for the sixth Festival
of Contemporary Arts and shown at the University
of British Columbia’s art gallery. Therein,
Baxter reconstituted an entire four-room apartment,
in which every element—walls, furniture and
sundry objects—was carefully bagged in clear
plastic. The invitation card, which parodied real-estate
advertisements—“For Rent! Bagged Place!”—urged
all interested parties to tour this strange, sanitized
apartment. As Baxter would later explain, his intervention
differed from those of Christo in that “[b]agging,
as opposed to wrapping, is a North American habit
that puts things into their own space.” The
omnipresence of plastic in Baxter’s practice
becomes a critical referencing of the sterilization
standards inherent in the abusive packaging of consumer
goods, and the consequent harmful effects on the
environment. Bagged Place was recreated
in 1987 for the exhibition From Sea to Shining
Sea at the Power Plant, Toronto.
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