The Last Art College ─ Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 1968-1978

How did a small art college in Nova Scotia become the epicenter of art education--andto a large extent of the postmimimalist and conceptual art world itself--in the 1960s and 1970s?Like the unorthodox experiments and rich human resources that made Black Mountain College animprobable center of art a generation earlier, the activities and artists at Nova Scotia College ofArt and Design (aka NSCAD) in the 1970s redefined the means and methods of art education and theshape of art far beyond Halifax.

A partial list of visiting artists and facultymembers at NSCAD would include Joseph Beuys, Sol LeWitt, Gerhard Richter, Dan Graham, Mel Bochner,Lucy Lippard, John Baldessari, Hans Haacke, Yvonne Rainer, Robert Frank, Jenny Holzer, RobertMorris, Eric Fischl, and Dara Birnbaum. Kasper Koenig and Benjamin Buchloh ran the NSCAD Press,publishing books by Hollis Frampton, Lawrence Weiner, Donald Judd, Daniel Buren, Michael Asher,Martha Rosler, and Michael Snow, among others. The Lithography Workshop produced early works by manyof today's masters, including John Baldessari, Vito Acconci, and Claes Oldenburg. With TheLast Art College, Garry Kennedy, the college's visionary president at the time, gives usthe long-awaited documentary history of NSCAD during a formative era. From gallery openings to danceperformances to visiting lectures to exhibitions to classroom projects, the book gives a richhistorical and visual account of the school's activities, supplemented by details of specificevents, reminiscences by faculty and students, accounts of artists' talks, and notes on memorablecontroversies.

Garry Neill Kennedy is a Canadian conceptual artist who was awarded the Portia White Prize by the Arts Council of Nova Scotia in 2000 and a Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2004. From 1967 to 1990 he was President of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design.