The Salt, the Oil, the Milk is an exhibition of pictures and notes about a slow performance. The project forms part of a series of work about trade economy, food production, and advanced industrialism that Bill Burns has been working on for several years.
Bill began his slow performance called variously The Great Trade or The Great Donkey Walk in Amden Switzerland in 2018. With the help of two Donkeys, Bill carried salt from the local salt mine up some gentle slopes in the Swiss Alps and so this project began. Goat milking, donkey walking, sheep shearing, honey rendering, cheese making and occasionally country singing are Bill’s modes. This exhibition includes several dozen drawings that Bill refers to as “pre-documents”, pictures that depict events that have yet to occur, as well as “documents”, pictures of events that have already occurred.
On October 8, a performance of The Salt, the Oil, the Milk will take place at the Oculus on the Humber River Trail. The performance will include a procession of musicians, goats, farmers, beekeepers and possibly a donkey. The musicians will play songs about milk, honey, campfires and donkeys. At the end of the day Bill will mix the milk and honey together. He calls this the “Mixing of Milk and Honey”.
The artist will be in attendance every Saturday of the exhibition. A number of events will take place on these Saturday afternoons.
Bill would like to thank the following people for their help on this project, it could not have happened without the help of Sarah Mackinnon, Carrie Perrault, Dax Morrison and Luisa Milan.
Bill Burns is an artist and the artistic director of the Dogs and Boats and Airplanes Children’s Choir in Toronto. His works are included in collections around the world including the Museum of Modern Art Special Library Collection, New York; Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Vaduz; Tate Britain – Artists’ Books Collection; The Getty Center, Los Angeles; the MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina; Remai Modern, Saskatoon; and the Cabinet des estampes, Geneva.
He has published numerous books and essays including When Pain Strikes, a scholarly anthology, (Burns, Busby and Sawchuk, editors and contributors, University of Minnesota Press, 1999: Minneapolis; Bird Radio, (Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther Koenig and KW Institute for Contemporary Art, 2007: Cologne and Berlin) and The Guide to the Flora and Fauna Information Service:0.800.0FAUNA0FLORA, (Institute of Contemporary Arts, 2008: London, England) and Two Boiler Suits and a Playlist, (YYZ BOOKS, 2010: Toronto) A boxed edition of three of his books about plants and animals and war was published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther Koenig 2011: Cologne. Hans Ulrich Obrist Hear Us, a memoir about Bill’s life as an artist is published by Black Dog Publishing and YYZ BOOKS, 2015: London and Toronto.
Bill Burns was born in Regina, Saskatchewan and has an MA from Goldsmiths’ College in London, England.