FFWD Weekly
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Visual Arts by Anne Severson ARTS UPDATE In this hectic season of graduation, art students provide insight into new directions emerging in today’s rapidly changing art scene. While it’s a cliché to say that spring is for the restless, there is energy and excitement in the studios and galleries around town. Be prepared in the next month for over 150 graduating students exhibiting from the Alberta College of Art & Design and the University of Calgary. Relating to these two major banner exhibitions, will be smaller spillover displays that will have greater freedom in the development of individual expression outside bureaucracy. While there will be an uneven diversity, there will also be some rich finds. Supernova is the first in this alternative set of small shows that expand beyond the single artwork allowed in ACAD’s overcrowded official graduation exhibition later this month. Supernova, a sculpture exhibition open to the public with the generous corporate support of the Transcanada Building (801-7 Avenue S.W.), will be displayed in the lobby from April 5 to 15. The public is encouraged to attend the opening on April 8 starting at 7 p.m. With food, refreshments and music by Mike Hesketh 4-TET, how can you miss this happening? Another ACAD-generated show is Skyscrapers, Robots and Lego, an exhibition featuring the work of third-year painting major Damien Manchuk and third-year printmaking student Ryan Statz. Friday, April 2 is your last chance to catch the event, which also features music by Nathan and Nicola Haynes, and which is on display in the college’s main mall. Former Alberta College of Art & Design instructor Iain Baxter will be presenting a public lecture on April 8, 10 a.m. in the ACAD main lecture hall. Just passing through Calgary, he will be heading for Banff to set up his Landscape Works at the Walter Phillips Gallery, an exhibition available for viewing on April 9 with an official reception later in May. There’s a wonderful surprise at the Nickle Arts Museum with the debut curatorial exhibition by the new curator of art, Christine Sowiak. Sowiak selected the artists in her exhibition Blue for their conceptual, deliberate and consistent use within their practice of the universally favourite colour blue. Sowiak has written a free 16-page, illustrated catalogue that contributes another layer of meaning to the principle of blue, leading us to look at the colour in its myriad of social, material, environmental, psychological and cultural references and associations. Celebrating the Nickle Arts Museum’s 20th anniversary will be an exhibition of works from their own collection. Open for viewing on April 2, the official opening on April 9 at 4:30 invites anyone who has participated in exhibitions over the past 20 years to come and carouse together. For more information, contact the Nickle at 220-7235 (or Web page www.ucalgary.ca/~nickle).

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