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Merike Talve (January 31, 1957 – November 27, 1997) was a Canadian curator, artist and independent writer who lived and worked in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Her body of work was centred on Contemporary Artists exhibiting in Vancouver in the 1980s. Her writing contributed to the documentation of Vancouver art exhibition related activities during this time period. She was known for her writing and curatorial activities related to contemporary art, including installation art, time-based media art, and the feminist art movement.

Early life and education

Merike Talve was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada on January 31, 1957. She was a performer and a Rhythmic Gymnastics instructor in Richmond in 1976. Talve studied at Emily Carr College of Art and Design, where she earned a diploma in two-dimensional art. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art history from the University of British Columbia in 1981.

Career

In the early 1980s, Talve worked for the Vanguard magazine and the Surrey Art Gallery in British Columbia, Canada. She was appointed as the curator to the Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1987. Her curatorial activities at the Contemporary Art Gallery and Surrey Art Gallery included organizing exhibitions of the work of Canadian artists, such as Stan Douglas, Katherine Knight and Laura Vickerson, Kent Tate, Martin Honsich as well as writing critical reviews for exhibitions with artists, such as Paul Wong, Sara Diamond, Kim Tomczak, Vera Frenkel, among others.

Talve's body of work included essays and critical reviews, such as "Absense of Body Presence of Voice," from Voice Over (1985); Television Interference (1984); and Wallflower Order (1983). For the exhibition Luminous Sites: Ten Video Installations.(1986), In "Some Are Weather-Wise; Some Otherwise: Criticism and Vancouver," from the book Anthology: A Project of the Or Gallery (1991) William Wood examines "the question of who writes about what" in art criticism. Wood's cited Talve's critical review "Joey Morgan: Fugue" in Parachute magazine. In his essay, he discussed "genres of criticism." Wood described Talve's approach (in part) by stating that, "Talve settles into straight exposition, delaying any inflection of her description till the end. Her judgment at that point is a studied ambivalence, a trait shared by a good number of Morgan's reviewers." Talve's "Vestiges of the Avant-Garde in Installation", provided a conceptual and historical framework for this exhibition. Eugeni Bonet [es] referred to Talve's essay "Vestiges of the Avant-Garde in Installation" in "La instalación como hipermedio (una aproximación)" from his book Escritos de vista y oído' (2016). In this essay, Bonet's cited in part Talve's views as follows,

Sin embargo, esta circunstancia posmoderna del arte de la instalacion no esta renida, en opion de merike talve, con el hecho de que pueda simultaneamente ser considerado como la unica de las formas contemporaneas de arte qu soporta directamente el peso de la vanguardia, tanto por recrear una interrelacion entre el arte y la realidad cotidiana – a traves de los elementos y cosas que extrae del prosaico entorno, como porque, muy a menudo, comporta un compromiso critico y etico caracteristico de las antagonias vanguardistas.
However, this postmodern circumstance of installation art is not affected, in Merike Talve's opinion, with the fact that it can simultaneously be considered the only contemporary art form that directly supports the weight of the avant-garde, both for recreating an interrelation between art and everyday reality – through the elements and things that it extracts from the prosaic environment, such as because, very often, it involves a critical and ethical commitment characteristic of avant-garde antagonisms. [sic]

Her work was published in Canadian art magazines, including the Vanguard magazine, ISSUE magazine, Video Guide, C Magazine, Parachute magazine, and the Parallelogramme. Her critical reviews included exhibitions that were presented at the Western Front Gallery Surrey Art Gallery, Or Gallery, UBC Fine Arts Gallery, Simon Fraser University Co-op Gallery, Emily Carr College of Art and Design Charles H. Scott Gallery, Non Commercial Gallery, Main Exit Gallery, Video Inn and Coburg Gallery in Vancouver.

Published reviews/essays

• "Elizabeth MacKenzie." Vanguard (Jan 1983) 11.10: 19.
• "The Meat and the Mystery:" Lynn Hughes and Michael Jolliffe. Vanguard (Feb 1983) 12.1: 10–12.
• "Wallflower Order:" Marion Barling. Video Guide (Apr 1983) 5.2 : 5.
• "Street Culture:" Kim Tomczak, et al. Video Guide (1984) 6.4 : 4–5.
• "Third Hand:" Arni Runar Haraldsson. C Magazine (Fall 1984) 3 : 22–23.
• "Fugue:" Joey Morgan. Parachute 36 (Sep–Nov 1984): 64–65
• "Television Interference:" Paul Wong, et al. Video Guide (May 1984) 6.3 : 4-5.
• "Martin Honsich." Surrey Art Gallery (1985).
• "Absense of Body Presence of Voice," Voice Over: Sara Diamond et al. Contemporary Art Gallery (1985) 1–20 ISBN 0920751024.
• "Alan Storey's Draw." Vanguard (Feb 1985) 14: 44.
• "Crafty women and the hierarchy:" Kati Campbell. C Magazine (Winter 1985) 4: 19–21.
• "Vestiges of the Avant-Garde in Installation," Luminous Sites: Ten Video Installations: Vera Frenkel et al. Video In /Western Front (1986) 1–64, ISBN 0920974147.
• "Trigger:" Colette Urban. Vanguard (Sept 1987) 16: 29.
• "Installations:" Katherine Knight and Laura Vickerson. Surrey Art Gallery (1987) 1–8, ISBN 0920181147.
• "New sculptural works:" Daniel Laskarinet, et al. Contemporary Art Gallery (1988) 1–8, ISBN 0920751180.
• "Learning from salmon:" Deborah Koenker. Contemporary Art Gallery (1988) 1-8, ISBN 0920751199.
• "Repo:" Georgiana Chappell, et al. Contemporary Art Gallery (1988) 1-10, ISBN 0920751202.
• "The Stalker:" Kent Tate. Contemporary Art Gallery (1988) 1–12, ISBN 0920751210.
• "Television spots:" Stan Douglas. Contemporary Art Gallery (1988) 1–34, ISBN 0920751237.

Personal life

Talve was married to Jonathan Gary Fisher. Her parents, Harri Talve and Marie (Õunpuu) Talve, met and married in Vancouver. Both her parents were born in Estonia. Harri, at the age of 13, relocated to Denmark due to displacement because of the war. Marie's family had relocated to Sweden. Harri immigrated to Canada in 1950 at age 20 and Marie in the early 1950s. The couple married and settled in Richmond. Merike Talve died in Vancouver on November 27, 1997.

References

1. ^ Talve, Merike (author) (1986). "Vestiges of the Avant-Garde in Installation". In Henry, Karen (co-curator); Augaitis, Daina (co-curator) (eds.). Luminous Sites: Ten Video Installations. Vancouver Canada: Video Inn / Western Front Gallery. pp. 7–9. ISBN 9780920974148. Retrieved 11 March 2020. Vestiges of the historical avant-garde are found in the shifting forms and delinquent nature of installation. Certain qualities earmarked by the avant-garde, such as newness, confrontation, and in insistence on creating a relationship between art and the outside world, are generally shared by installation's precursors, and in some ways by installations in its present form. Installations may unwittingly be the only one of contemporary art's forms to directly bear the burden of the avant-garde. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help)
2. ^ Bonet, Eugeni (26 May 2016). "La instalación como hipermedio(una aproximación)" [Installation as hypermedia (an approximation)]. Eugeni Bonet: Escritos de vista y oído [Eugeni Bonet: Writings of sight and hearing] (pdf). Barcelona, Spain: Museu D'art Contemporani de Barcelona. pp. 296, 318. Retrieved 10 March 2020 – via issuu.com. Sin embargo, esta circunstancia posmoderna del arte de la instalacion no esta renida, en opion de merike talve, con el hecho de que pueda simultaneamente ser considerado como la unica de las formas contemporaneas de arte qu soporta directamente el peso de la vanguardia, tanto por recrear una interrelacion entre el arte y la realidad cotidiana – a traves de los elementos y cosas que extrae del prosaico entorno, como porque, muy a menudo, comporta un compromiso critico y etico caracteristico de las antagonias vanguardistas. Aunque, como consecuencia de todo ello – del peso de la vanguaradia transormado en peso de la historia – , tambien se situa a uno paso de ser neutralizada por esta sociedad: una condicion familiar y temida por el movimiento vanguardist en sus ultimos anos. However, this postmodern circumstance of installation art is not affected, in Merike Talve's opinion, with the fact that it can simultaneously be considered the only contemporary art form that directly supports the weight of the avant-garde, both for recreating an interrelation between art and everyday reality – through the elements and things that it extracts from the prosaic environment, such as because, very often, it involves a critical and ethical commitment characteristic of avant-garde antagonisms. Although, as a consequence of all this – from the weight of vanguaradia transformed into the weight of history -, is also one step away from being neutralized by this society: a family condition and feared by the avant-garde movement in his last years. [sic]
3. Belton, Robert James (2001). Sights of Resistance: Approaches to Canadian Visual Culture. University of Calgary Press. p. 355. ISBN 9781552380116.
4. Bradley, Jessica; Johnstone, Lesley (April 1994). Sight lines: Reading Contemporary Canadian Art. Artexte Information Centre. p. 427. ISBN 9782980063299.
5. ^ "Photo Communiqué". 9. Photo Communiqué. 1987: 4. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
6. ^ Talve, Merike (curator/author). "Publications by Curator: Merike Talve". Retrieved 6 March 2020 – via ArcPost. {{cite web}}: |first= has generic name (help)
7. Talve, Merike (curator/author). "Merike Talve". Retrieved 6 March 2020 – via e-Artexte. {{cite web}}: |first= has generic name (help)
8. ^ Talve, Merike (curator/author) (1988). Learning from Salmon: Deborah Koenker (PDF). Vancouver, Canada: Contemporary Art Gallery. pp. 1–8. ISBN 0920751199. Retrieved 18 February 2020 – via e-ARTEXTE. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help)
9. ^ Talve, Merike (curator) (1987). New Sculptural Works: Warren Murfitt, Daniel Cogdon, Daniel Laskarin. Vancouver, British Columbia: Contemporary Art Gallery. pp. 1–8. ISBN 0920751180. Retrieved 4 April 2020.
10. ^ Perry, Art (19 Sep 1988). "Stalk the light". The Province (Vancouver). p. 43. Retrieved 16 March 2020 – via Newspapers.com. Tate's show is about power, mainly the misuse and misunderstanding of power... It's about the power of power, no matter what the cost.
11. ^ Talve, Merike (curator) (1988). Television Spots. Vancouver, Canada: Contemporary Art Gallery. pp. 24, 25, 44, 57. ISBN 0920751237. Retrieved 5 March 2020 – via e-ARTEXTE.
12. ^ Johnson, Eve (18 Sep 1985). "Wit and wisdom of four wordy women". The Vancouver Sun. p. 33 – via Newspapers.com. Whatever the Voice Over catalogue may have to say about it – and after trudging through both Pakasaar's essay and Merike Talve's "Absense [sic] of Body Presence of Voice" several times I'm still not entirely clear what that might be – Voice Over lets us know that women artists are still angry.
13. ^ "Artexte: Contemporary Art Catalogues, Artists' Books and Independent Publications from Canada, Europe and the United States, No. 7" (PDF). 1988. pp. 22–23. Retrieved 6 March 2020 – via e-Artexte.
14. ^ "Merike Talve". Royal BC Museum – Genealogy. 1997. Retrieved 29 March 2020.
15. "Open House in Richmond". Richmond Review (Richmond, BC). 10 September 1976. p. 25. Retrieved 1 April 2020.
16. ^ Godley, Elizabeth (25 Aug 1987). "Haunting image of Berlin Wall is drawing artist back to Germany". The Vancouver Sun. p. 33. Retrieved 19 February 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
17. "UBC grads". Richmond Review. 27 May 1981. p. 13. Retrieved 25 February 2020.
18. ^ Orafson, Oraf (January 1989). "Visual Arts: Year in Review". The Georgia Straight. p. 22. The Stalker at the Contemporary Art Gallery: humour, ecology, multi-nationalism, and beautiful 3-D work all in one spot.
19. ^ Johnson, Eve (21 December 1985). "This dream world is a bit too far out". The Vancouver Sun. p. 33. Retrieved 18 February 2020 – via Newspapers.com. Curator Merike Talve writes that Honisch "accepts his enigmatic visions for what they are, offers them up to the world for scrutiny and delights in the fact that they will never be fully intelligible, not even to himself."
20. ^ Talve, Merike (Author); Pakasaar, Helga (curator) (1985). Voice Over: Kati Campbell, Sara Diamond, Amy Jones, Ingride Koenig. Contemporary Art Gallery. ISBN 0920751024. Retrieved 21 March 2020 – via e-Artexte. {{cite book}}: |first1= has generic name (help)
21. ^ Talve, Merike (author) (1984). "Street Culture: Kim Tomczak, John Alpert and Keiko Tsuno, Martha Rosler, Michael Goldberg, Ardele Lister, Kit Tizgerald and John Sandborn, B. Levine, Skip Blumberg, Bob Harris and Rii Kanzaki, Dara Birnbaum". Video Guide. 6 (4): 4–5 – via Vtape. {{cite journal}}: |first= has generic name (help)
22. ^ Henry, Karen (Curator); Augaitis, Daina (curator); Talve, Merike (author) (1986). Luminous Sites: Ten Video Installations. Talve, Merike (author). Western Front / Video In. ISBN 0920974147. Retrieved 16 March 2020. {{cite book}}: |first3= has generic name (help)
23. ^ Muntadas (1998). Muntadas: proyectos. La Fundación. p. 169.
24. ^ Pernes, Fernando; Muntadas (1992). Muntadas: intervençöes : a propósito do público e do privado. Fundação de Serralves. p. 123.
25. ^ "Viewpoints on Video.- Brian MacNevin". The Second link: viewpoints on video in the eighties (PDF). Walter Phillips Gallery, the Banff Centre School of Fine Arts. 1983. pp. 37–38. ISBN 0920159001 – via Moma.org. Marion Barling's videotape manages to capture the 'collaborative strength' of this group and a spirit which "...slices below the aging skin of formal anti-content Modernist tradition to a feminist art with different and urgent values."
26. ^ Wood, William (1991). "Some are Weather-wise: Some are Other Wise: Criticism and Vancouver". In Douglas, Stan (ed.). Vancouver Anthology: A Project of the Or Gallery. Vancouver, British Columbia: Talonbooks; Or Gallery (co-publisher). pp. 152–154. ISBN 978-0-88922-614-2. To expand the question of who writes about what, it is worthwhile to look at the genres of criticism, starting with the short review, usually penned by the occasional critic-an off-duty journalist or a curator, an intrigued artist or writer. In this particular case, Merike Talve's review of Morgan's Fugue in Parachute is appropriate, as is Roy Arden's Vanguard review of Ken Lum's Youth Portraits. These are exemplary reviews in the terms of the typologies already described. Talve uses almost a thousand words of description prior to maybe three hundred of discussion, while Arden's ration would be precisely the reverse. Admittedly, Morgan's Fugue, involving two specific sites, one real-time and one reconstructed duration, and much administrative delay, calls for explanation in a big way, yet Talve settles into straight exposition, delaying any inflection of her description till the end. Her judgement at that point is a studied ambivalence, a trait shared by a good number of Morgan's reviewer's.
27. Talve, Merike (Dec 1983). "UNIT/PITT Project". ISSUE Magazine. 1 (3). (Helen Pitt Gallery).
28. Talve, Merike (1986). "Jody Berland and Peggy Gale". Parallelogramme. 12: 88.
29. ^ Talve, Merike (Fall 1984). "Third Hand" (pdf). C Magazine. 3: 22–23. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
30. ^ Talve, Merike (Winter 1985). "Crafty women and the hierarchy" (pdf). C Magazine. 4: 21–23. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
31. ^ Talve, Merike. "Latest Publications". VIVO Media Arts Centre. Retrieved 14 March 2020 – via VIVO.
32. Bradley, Jessica; Nemiroff, Diana (1986). Chants D'expérience//Songs of Experience. National Gallery of Canada. p. 190. ISBN 9780888845436.
33. Nemiroff, Diana (1986). Canadian biennial of contemporary art. National Gallery of Canada. p. 152. ISBN 9780888845955.
34. Talve, Merike (curator). "1980 to 1989 Past Exhibitions". Surrey Art Gallery. Surrey, British Columbia. Retrieved 6 March 2020 – via SAG.
35. "Alan Storey". 1986. Retrieved 6 March 2020. Alan Storey's Draw (cf. Merike Talve's review of the Vancouver installation, Vanguard, February 1985) is brilliant compression of the bureaucratization of art, the bureaucratization even of expressiveness itself.
36. ^ "Merike Talve". The Vancouver Sun. 2 December 1997. p. 26. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
37. ^ "Talve, Harri". The Vancouver Sun (Vancouver, BC). 9 January 2010. p. 31. Retrieved 2 March 2020.
38. ^ "Marie Talve". National Post. 27 April 2007. p. 27. Retrieved 25 February 2020.

• 1957 births
• 1997 deaths
• Artists from Vancouver
• Emily Carr University of Art and Design alumni
• University of British Columbia alumni
• 20th-century Canadian women artists
• Canadian people of Estonian descent
• Canadian women curators