Preview
ARTIST TRADING CARDS
The New Gallery
Runs until June 5
World of Science (Calgary Science Centre)
Artists in Calgary are finding galleries aren’t the only venues to showcase their art. There’s a new way of exhibiting, involving binders, plastic sleeves and display cases, known as artist trading cards.
These 2.5- by 3.5-inch cards are very similar to hockey and baseball cards. The difference is that they display miniature signed and dated works of art, and are exchanged by artists and non-artists at regular trading sessions.
The history of artist trading cards goes back to Zurich, Switzerland, when artist Vanci Stirnemann displayed 1,200 cards at a bookstore in May 1997. After taking in Stirnemann’s exhibit, local artist Chuck Stake brought the idea to the Alberta College of Art and Design, which featured trading cards at Calgary’s annual Artcity in 1998.
Since then, trading sessions have expanded to 20 locations all across Canada, including Victoria, Kelowna, Regina, Winnipeg and Toronto, with Calgary acting as the North American headquarters for this style of exhibition. As well, face-to-face trading has been supplemented by cyber-trading, where artists show their cards over the Internet and arrange to send each other cards by mail.
A good portion of local artist Paul Brown's collection is included in a current exhibit by The New Gallery being presented at the newly branded Telus World of Science (formerly the Calgary Science Centre).
Brown says he enjoys the idea of a show that’s both low maintenance and easily accessible. A conventional art exhibit will take months of preparation, but with trading cards, he can set something up within a matter of minutes.
Along with making the artwork, Brown also likes the idea of getting together with fellow artists to discuss each other’s cards and collecting other artists’ work.
"The whole idea is about having a collection of other people’s art," he says. "After people have admired your art and taken it away, you’re left with the pieces of theirs that you like the most, that you've chosen out of their binders."
The sessions are also a chance to meet regular art patrons, says Brown.
"Often, when your pictures are hanging in the gallery, you never get face to face with the vast majority of people who see them. Here, if someone is looking at my binder, and if they pause at a picture, I can say, for example, ‘That was based on a photo I took in Egypt, when I was there a couple of years ago.’ You can take it out and you can explain the process of how you made it."
Another great thing about the cards is that you don't have to be a professional artist to make them. The New Gallery has held a number of workshops in local elementary and junior high schools in the past year to show children how to create them.
Anything goes when it comes to making the cards, from the techniques and materials used to the subjects that are represented. Mediums may include fabric, watercolour paper, wax or metal. Methods applied include painting, drawing, gluing, spraying and rubber-stamping.
Brown, a former computer scientist, exhibits one trading-card series made up of spam e-mail messages, and another consisting of fractals.
Trading sessions and workshops have been happening regularly as part of First Thursdays, an arts and culture program that holds a variety of events in various venues in the downtown core. And the trading cards will be returning to The New Gallery full-time in September, when they’ll celebrate their eighth anniversary during this year’s Artcity. |
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