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Michael Snow continues to explore and push the boundaries of yet another field, music.


National treasure, Michael Snow is recognized as one of Canada's greatest artists, a leading experimental filmmaker and a pioneer in his "structural" approach to various disciplines of image and sound. His influence, inspiration and contribution to Canada's cultural landscape on an international level is unparalleled. Much of Snow's contemporary art investigates the specific materiality of a medium as he masterfully shifts from one discipline to another. As a modern day Renaissance man he may approach film with the mind of a painter or music with the mind of a sculptor always inviting viewers to experience his unique investigations into the very nature of perception. Painter, photographer, sculptor, filmmaker, video and installation artist, sound artist and musician Snow's conceptual explorations and processes playfully and intellectually transform structures and perspectives on many different levels.

 

Michael Snow revolutionized the possibilities of what cinema can be with his landmark films Wavelength and La Région Centrale. In these films, his investigations into pure film and sound create, for some, a transcendental experience. His rise to international prominence began with the seminal Walking Woman series, a body of work spanning seven years. The series presents, in various mediums, (painting, sculpture, photography, film) a single cut-out figure, continually transformed. In Toronto, he has four permanent public sculptures. Flight Stop at the Eaton Centre and The Audience at the Rogers Centre are synonymous with our Canadian heritage and the urban interior/exterior landscape of the city.

 

Fields of Snow takes the form of a journey with Michael Snow on his recent travels being honoured with various retrospectives around the world, while simultaneously tracing the history of his musical career as he connects with various musicians from his past and present. It will feature six decades of Snow's lesser known musical side and honour his significant contribution to contemporary art.

 

A view into his solo work, collaborations and compositions, the film reveals Michael Snow's innovative insights and artistry extending into the realms of sound. As the artist has said "Some of my most radical discoveries have been in music and sound".


"I make up the rules of a game and I play it. If I seem to be losing, I change the rules".
- Michael Snow


He has received numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship (1972) the Order of Canada (Officer, 1982; Companion, 2007), and the first Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts (2000) for cinema. Snow was made a Chevalier de l'ordre des arts et des lettres, France (1995) and in 2004 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Université de Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne. (The only other artist to receive this award was Picasso)