Dennis Wheeler

Filmmaker, writer, curator, educator. Dennis Wheeler received a Master of Arts from the University of British Columbia in 1971. He is remembered for films such as ... a strict law bids us dance (1975), a documentary on the potlatch practices of the Kwakwaka’waka First Nations. He also wrote and edited books, such as Form and Structure in Recent Film (1972), the catalogue accompanying an exhibition of the same name, featuring the work of artists such as Hollis Frampton, Michael Snow, and David Rimmer. Wheeler was part of the small group—including Lucy Lippard, Nancy Holt, and Christos Dikeakos—who witnessed Robert Smithson’s legendary Glue Pour (1970) in Vancouver. Wheeler passed away from leukemia in 1977.