Tanya Mars
Tanya Mars is a feminist performance and video artist who has been involved in the Canadian art scene since 1973. She was a founding member and director of Powerhouse Gallery (La Centrale) in Montreal (the first women’s art gallery in Canada), editor of Parallelogramme magazine for 13 years, and very active in ANNPAC (the Association of National Non-Profit Artist-run Centres) for 15 years. She has also been an active member of other arts organizations since the early 70’s, currently on the Board of Directors of Art Metropole.
In the 70s and 80s Mars’ work focused on creating spectacular feminist imagery that placed women at the centre of the narrative. Since the mid-90s her performances have included endurance, durational and site-specific strategies. Her work is political, satirical and humorous. She has worked both independently and collaboratively to create large-scale as well as intimate performances.
She has performed widely across Canada, as well as internationally in Chile, Mexico City, Sweden, Ireland, France, Poland, China and Finland.
Mars is co-editor with Johanna Householder of OCAD of Caught in the Act: an anthology of performance art by Canadian women (2004) published by YYZ books and they are currently working on a second volume that is being supported by FADO. She is a member of the 7a*11d Collective that produces a biennial International Festival of Performance Art in Toronto. She currently teaches performance art and video at the University of Toronto Scarborough and is part of the graduate faculty of the Master of Visual Studies Program at the University of Toronto. In 2004 Mars was named artist of the year for the Untitled Arts Awards in Toronto. She is the recipient of a 2008 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts and was recently an International Artist in Residence at La Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. In addition a book on her work published by FADO and edited by Paul Couillard, Ironic to Iconic: The Performance Works of Tanya Mars , was launched in May of 2008.
Mars lives and works in Toronto and summers off-the-grid in Middle Ohio, Nova Scotia.
Artist Code: 210
Videography
2024, 04:08 minutes, Audio, no dialogue
2024, 05:31 minutes
1998, 10:00 minutes, colour, English
1996, 38:00 minutes, colour, English
1996, 36:00 minutes, colour, English
1993, 15:30 minutes, colour, English
The End of Nature- inhouse viewing only
1991, 37:30 minutes, colour, English
1990, 79:00 minutes
1990, 22:00 minutes, colour, English
Pure Nonsense - for inhouse viewing only
1987, 56:30 minutes, colour, English
Pure Sin - for inhouse viewing only
1986, 42:00 minutes, colour, English
1985, 16:30 minutes, colour, English
24 Postcards- inhouse viewing only
1983, 80:00 minutes, colour, English
Picnic In The Drift - inhouse viewing only
1981, 85:00 minutes, colour, English
Critical Writing
by . The Globe and Mail, June 10, 2004.
by . Caught In the Act: an anthology of performance art by Canadian women, 2004. Toronto: YYZ, 2004.
by . Caught in the Act: anthology of performance art by Canadian women, 2004. Toronto: YYZ, 2004.
by . Caught In the Act: an anthology of performance art by Canadian women, 2004. Toronto: YYZ, 2004.
by . Caught In the Act: an anthology of performance art by Canadian women, 2004. Toronto: YYZ, 2004.
by . Caught In the Act: an anthology of performance art by Canadian women, 2004. Toronto: YYZ, 2004.
by . Caught In the Act: an anthology of performance art by Canadian Women, 2004. Toronto: YYZ Books, 2004.
by . The Toronto Star, Dec. 6, 2001.
by . Fuse, May 1994, v. 17, no. 4.
by . The Globe and Mail, Oct. 27, 1990.
by . Fuse, Fall 1989, v. 13, no. 1 & 2.
by and . Canadian Art, Summer 1989, v. 6, no. 2.
by . Video Guide, 1988, v. 9, no. 4.
by and . Walter Phillips Gallery Exhibition Brochure, Aug. 4, 1987. Banff: Walter Phillips Gallery, 1987.
by . The Globe and Mail, Nov. 26, 1983.