The New Bill Canada

Bill Canada
Mike Slattery
Catherine Cross Uehara

April 06 – 29, 2017
Reception / Thursday, April 06, 6–8pm

The New Bill Canada is a way of life!
The New Bill Canada makes you feel good inside and out.
The New Bill Canada is a belly laugh in response to an inside joke gone public for the first time!
You don’t know what is good for you anyway. Take those vitamins on an empty stomach. That’s good! Good for you!

The New Bill Canada is one singular sensation involved in an arduous six or eight legged race.
What was once one maybe two, is now three or four!
Is the New Bill Canada a slur, an epithet, a conceptual framework, a backhanded compliment or the highest praise?

Let’s find out!

Bill Canada and Mike Slattery, fresh out of grad school, were founding members of -Ten in One Gallery (Chicago 1990-99), “a profoundly influential” artist run space and a “premiere venue for conceptually oriented young artists” for the better part of a decade. They were part of a tight knit and gritty community of like minded artists committed to improvisation and collaboration that met up and “powerspaced” every Thursday evening after the Simpsons. In 2001 Catherine Uehara first saw the collaborative work in a slideshow presentation and insisted on coaxing some of that old spirit out of Mike, collaborating on projects in and around Chicago as recently as 2014. Often referred to as “the new Bill Canada” in the context of the old Chicago crew, this will be the first time Catherine and Bill will have met and worked together on a project.

Part homage, part archive, part reunion, part messy new/old collaboration, the New Bill Canada re-unites Bill Canada and Mike Slattery, friends, artistic collaborators with “the new Bill Canada”, Catherine Uehara. Bill Canada is one man but also two, (artistically three), or four people (he has a daughter!) an idea and a legend. Catherine Uehara is the New Bill Canada, but so is present day Bill Canada. What happens when the man, the idea, and the idea of his replacement come together in the same room? Who is the New Bill Canada and what is he or she wearing?