A man in a darkened workshop, surrounded and obscured by dust clouds. A pair of larger-than-life hands, holding a mallet, ready to strike. Spectacles that play with the idea of turning lies into truth and cynics into believers. A cinder block, precariously suspended above a fragile glass, held in place by a single line of tension. Welcome to John Greer: retroActive.Sculptor, conceptual artist, and unconventional art maker John Greer has been telling stories through his work for more than fifty years. Drawing on his present and past experiences, his travels and exploits, and his anxieties and fears, his work offers poignant meditations on the human environment, all the while challenging the viewer's perspective with humour, intelligence, and a trail of narrative.RetroActive offers a comprehensive view of Greer's work and his commitment to the discourse of sculpture. Stunningly designed by Susanne Schaal and featuring the photographs of Raoul Manuel Schnell, the book contains more than three hundred representations of Greer and his work - in situ, in galleries, in process - bringing into focus Greer's significant contributions to the world of art and ideas. Also included in the book are essays by Ray Cronin, Andria Minicucci, Dennis Reid, Ron Shuebrook, David Diviney, Sarah Fillmore, and Vanessa Paschakarnis.John Greer taught at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design for almost three decades, where his thinking and teaching helped shape contemporary sculpture in Canada. His work has been included in more than fifty solo and sixty group exhibitions and is held in public and private collections around the globe. In 2009 Greer was the recipient of the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts, Canada's highest distinction in the field of art and culture.

David Askevold broke into the art scene when his work was included in the seminal exhibition Information at New York's MOMA 1970, which cemented Conceptualism as a genre. He later became recognized as one of the most important contributors to the development and pedagogy of conceptual art; his work has been included in many of the genre's formative texts and exhibitions.

This illustrated volume takes readers on an eclectic journey through the various strains of Askevold's pioneering practice -- sculpture/installation, film and video, photography and photo-text works, and digital imagery. David Askevold moved from Kansas City to Halifax in 1968 to lecture at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design.

During the early 1970s, his famous Projects Class brought such artists as Sol Lewitt, Vito Acconci, John Baldessari, Dan Graham, and Lawrence Weiner to work with his students, focusing critical attention on his adopted city and on his own unorthodox approach to making art. He quickly became on one of the most important conceptual artists practicing in Canada and throughout his career he remained at the vanguard of contemporary practice.

"David Askevold: Once Upon a Time in the East" features essays by celebrated writer-curators Ray Cronin, Peggy Gale, Richard Hertz (author of "The Beat and the Buzz"), and Irene Tsatsos as well as several of Askevold's contemporaries including Aaron Brewer, Tony Oursler, and Mario Garcia Torres. It accompanies an exhibition that will open at the National Gallery of Canada in October 2011 and will tour thereafter to the Confederation Centre of the Arts in Charlottetown and the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in Halifax.