Hank Bull

Hank Bull (born 1949) is a Canadian multidisciplinary artist, organizer, and musician based out of Vancouver, BC.

Life and work

Hank Bull was born in Calgary, Alberta. He was raised in Ontario and Nova Scotia. He spent a formative year in Europe in 1968, visiting art museums. He studied at the New School of Art, Toronto, under Nobuo Kubota and Robert Markle.

In 1973, Bull moved to Vancouver, where he joined the Western Front Society. There he met Kate Craig, Eric Metcalfe, Glenn Lewis, Martin Bartlett, and Patrick Ready, working with them on radio, shadow theatre, and performance art projects.

In 1980, Bull and Craig made an extended trip to Japan, Indonesia, India, Cameroon, France, Austria, and Croatia (Yugoslavia). They established lasting relationships with artists in these countries. [citation needed]

In the 1980s, Bull joined an international network of artists experimenting with telecommunications technology.

In 1998, Bull co-organized the Jiangnan Project, a series of Vancouver exhibitions on modern and contemporary art from China. This led to the founding of Centre A, the Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art. At Centre A, Bull worked with curators Steven Tong, Sadira Rodrigues, Alice Ming Wai Jim, and Makiko Hara to produce over 100 exhibition projects.

He continues to practice painting, photography, video and music.[citation needed]

Exhibitions

Bull's work has been included in the Venice Biennale (1986), Documenta (1987) Ars Electronica (1989), and the Leipzig Medien Biennale (1994).

In 2015, a survey exhibition, Hank Bull: Connexion, was organized by the Confederation Centre Art Gallery in Charlottetown and curated by Joni Low and Pan Wendt. Based on Bull's personal art collection and his archive of props, costumes, videos, books, and correspondence, the exhibition travelled to five public galleries across Canada.

His work is represented by Stephen Bulger, Toronto, and Wil Aballe, Vancouver.

Collections

Bull's work is included in private and public collections, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, le Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, the Burnaby Art Gallery, and the Video Data Bank in Chicago.

Publications

Awards

In 2014, Bull received an honorary doctorate from the Emily Carr University of Art and Design.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Hank Bull – Video Data Bank". www.vdb.org.
  2. ↑ "CCCA Artist Profile for Hank Bull". The Centre for Contemporary Canadian Art. Archived from the original on 11 August 2015. Retrieved 27 May 2016.
  3. ↑ Hawkins, Sandra M. "Delicate boundaries" (PDF). Canadian Medical Association Journal. Canadian medical Association. Retrieved 28 May 2016.
  4. ↑ Mackie, John (7 October 2022). "This Week in History, 1974: Mr. Peanut runs for mayor". The Vancouver Sun. Retrieved 9 July 2026.
  5. ↑ "El radioarte: Entre lo posible y lo imaginario". telos.fundaciontelefonica.com. Archived from the original on 29 July 2017. Retrieved 8 January 2020.
  6. ↑ "About Centre A". Centre A. Retrieved 28 May 2016.
  7. ↑ Cheng, Deanna (27 October 2023). "Centre A: Canada's only public art gallery dedicated to contemporary Asian perspectives". New Canadian Media. Retrieved 9 July 2026.
  8. ↑ "Hank Bull, First Responder at CACV AGM". Community Arts Council of Vancouver. 7 November 2010. Retrieved 28 May 2016.
  9. 1 2 "The Galerie de l'UQAM celebrates an important figure of visual arts in Canada with the exhibition "Hank Bull: Connexion"". UQAM. Retrieved 28 May 2016.
  10. ↑ Seller, Shyla (2017). "Hank Bull: Connexion". Archivaria. Archivaria 84: 182 – via JSTOR.
  11. ↑ "Hank Bull: Connexion is a vivid flashback to the collaborative, counterculture 1970s". Georgia Straight Vancouver's News & Entertainment Weekly. 31 January 2017. Retrieved 5 August 2019.
  12. ↑ Michalczuk, Olivia (2 November 2016). "Hank Bull's Connexion connects the dots". The Manitoban. Archived from the original on 25 March 2025. Retrieved 19 August 2025.
  13. ↑ "Collections: Hank Bull 1949 -". National Gallery of Canada. Retrieved 28 May 2016.
  14. ↑ "Eric Metcalfe, Hank Bull. Sax Island. 1984 – MoMA". The Museum of Modern Art.
  15. ↑ "Hank Bull". Video Data Bank. Retrieved 28 May 2016.
  16. ↑ "Emily Carr confers 2014 Honorary Doctorate upon Hank Bull". www.ecuad.ca. Emily Carr University of Art and Design. 19 June 2015. Retrieved 27 May 2016.