[BCMA] Curt Lang Book Launch

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BOOK LAUNCH

THURSDAY DECEMBER 1ST AT 7:30PM

At the World's Edge: Curt Lang's Vancouver, 1937-1998

READING AND SLIDE SHOW WITH AUTHOR CLAUDIA CORNWALL

Claudia will read from a few selected chapters including: "Wild
and Memorable Poets", "Naked in the VAG", "Smoking Gideon", and
"Dreaming in Black and White". She will also show slides from
Curt's 1972 Portfolio.

Foreword by David Beers

Introduction by Greg Lang

Mother Tongue Publishing Ltd. (2011)

This book tells the story of a man and a city. Curt Lang was a
legend in Vancouver. An intellectual and a catalyst, Lang's
interests spanned many worlds. As a teenager, he met Malcolm
Lowry and became friends with Al Purdy. Excerpts of previously
unpublished correspondence between Al Purdy and Curt Lang
reveals much about both their characters. In his twenties, Curt
Lang was a beat, who published poetry and painted. He was
friends with many in Vancouver's creative community—poets, Peter
Trower, John Newlove, and Jamie Reid; artists Fred Douglas,
David Marshall, and Roy Kiyooka; and musicians Al Neil, and
Glenn MacDonald. He became a street photographer in the early
1970s and was a member of the Leonard Frank Memorial Society of
Documentary Photographers, along with Nina Raginsky, Fred
Douglas, Tod Greenaway and Rod Gillingham. (The National Gallery
of Canada's Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography
purchased some of his prints.) Then in his thirties, he built
boats and fished when the money in that industry was so good,
the scene in Prince Rupert was like a Gold Rush. In his forties,
he became involved in the high-tech industry, where he was
awarded two patents, and started several companies. He also
developed hardware and software for the railroad industry that
today is used all over North America. Curt Lang's life
energetically parallels the evolving history of Vancouver from
the hip subculture years to the electronic postmodern 1990s.

At the World's Edge includes many of Curt Lang's previously
unpublished poetry, drawings and photography; as well as a
portfolio of forty rare 1972 Vancouver photographs.

Claudia Cornwall was a friend of Curt Lang and in this part
biography, part memoir she draws on conversations during her
(and her husband's) twelve-year friendship with Curt. A freelance
writer for more than twenty years, Claudia wrote about the
artist Jack Hardman in the second book in the Unheralded Artists
of British Columbia series, The Life and Art of Frank Molnar,
Jack Hardman, and LeRoy Jensen (Mother Tongue Publishing, 2009).
Her book, Letter from Vienna: A Daughter Uncovers Her Family's
Jewish Past  (Douglas & McIntyre), won the Hubert Evans Non
-Fiction Prize in British Columbia for 1996. She has been
published in many Canadian magazines and newspapers, including
the Globe and Mail, Reader's Digest, BC Business, and the Tyee.
Claudia teaches courses at Simon Fraser University and Douglas
College. In 2009, she received a $20,000 journalism award from
the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to support medical
journalism and reporting. Claudia grew up in Vancouver and
studied philosophy at the University of British Columbia and the
University of Calgary. She and her husband live in North
Vancouver.

Greg Lang was born in Vancouver in 1953, and grew up in East Van
's Renfrew Heights. When he was two years old, his brother, Curt,
went off to Europe with poet Al Purdy and his school friend Jim
Polson, and Greg didn't see much of him when he was a kid. When
Greg was in his teens, his brother became part of his life again
. At various times Greg served as "sorcerer's apprentice" in some
of Curt's schemes: renovating houses, chipping slag off welds,
salvaging logs, and fishing. Today Greg runs a small technical
-writing consultancy in Victoria.

David Beers has won national awards for his journalism in Canada
and the United States. He is editor of The Tyee, an award
-winning independent online source of news and ideas based in
Vancouver. He is author of a memoir, Blue Sky Dream: America's
Fall from Grace, and teaches at the University of British
Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.

A review of the book can be found  here
[http://thetyee.ca/Books/2011/11/02/Curt-Langs-Vancouver/]

Visit our site for more information on the gallery
[http://presentationhousegallery.org]

Image credit: Curt Lang, Granville Street, 1972

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We are grateful for the ongoing support from our funders: The
Canada Council for the Arts, the British Columbia Arts Council,
the Province of British Columbia, the City of North Vancouver
and the District of North Vancouver, the Arts Office, Metro
Vancouver, the Yosef Wosk Foundation.

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