For Drive into the Sunset, we asked seven Los Angeles artists/collaborative teams to produce a work that could function as a prop, set, or backdrop in a road movie as well as a work of art to be exhibited at the Western Front Gallery. The road itself, the physical space that exists between the artist (in Los Angeles) and the gallery (in Vancouver), was dealt with by each artist as a possible yet undetermined installation site for the works. Each artist, either by producing a piece directly for our journey, or by indirectly referring to this site and its motifs, propelled us to consider new provocative trajectories, based on their own ideas of the significance of the road trip. The cultures associated with the American road, the landscape of the west coast, and the interior and architectural spaces of travel, are all themes that have arisen out each artist’s interpretation of this premise.

On august 8th 2002, with a U-Haul full of the works you see before you, we headed due north, transporting the art from Los Angeles to Vancouver. Along the way, in collaboration with artist Valerie Schultz, we documented the trip in the form of a road movie in which we installed each work at various points along the way. The film, entitled Seven Works 2089.69 Miles is presented here alongside the show as both documentation of each piece and as an extension of our own curatorial practice. By inserting the works into the site of transit our goal was to extend the curatorial activity of placement to the areas in between the locations of production and final presentation. In thinking about the prop as mobile, as an object that both sets a stage and builds a context for itself, we set out to document various installation possibilities determined by the objects we were given.