| January is the month many of us proceed with plans to uphold the resolutions we made on New Year’s Eve. One of my resolutions for 2006 is to see more exhibitions and so here goes.
What better way is there to see artwork (and get more exercise) than viewing the creative output of four artists who are displaying their works at the artist-run Plus-15 galleries as part of this month’s Mutton Busting Festival, presented by Bubonic Tourist in conjunction with the High Performance Rodeo. The galleries are in the Epcor Centre for the Performing Arts.
The Art Gallery of Calgary offers an exhibition of contemporary works entitled Popular. Artists including Nicole Burisch, Elizabeth Clark and David Diviney provide their take on popular culture as a way to comment on our everyday experiences.
Newzones Gallery is presenting the new works of Joshua Jensen-Nagle as part of the exhibition Landscape x 10. Using Polaroid film, the New Jersey-born Toronto-based artist transfers images onto cotton-rag panels. The result is atmospheric landscapes that have a painterly, otherworldly quality to them.
Skew Gallery is showing the photography of another Torontonian, Toni Hafkenscheid, with the exhibition HO – the name of a specific scale of model trains. Skew Gallery, in a statement about the show, says, "Hafkenscheid pursues his interest in lure and device. Taken across North America, his recent images propose a singular perspective on ordinary landscapes, urban territory, suburbs. Although they are taken from life, the photographs included in HO have the inherent quality of the static, perfect, even idealized state of models and miniatures. Isolated by out-of-focus foregrounds and backgrounds, neat houses, deserted streets, shops and trains breaking through majestic landscapes make the dark side of things visible. Yet, everything in these idealized images of the world, in these microcosms, seems high-strung, ready to burst should someone make an attempt at individual affirmation."
Likeness: Portraits of Artists by Other Artists is on at the Alberta College of Art and Design’s Illingworth Kerr Gallery from January 13 until February 25. Co-organized by the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts in San Francisco and circulated by Independent Curators International of New York City, this exhibition is a selection of artists’ representations of fellow artists, their friends and family members. The opening reception is January 12 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Speaking of the art college, at the Alliance Française of Calgary (located in the Memorial Park Library building), you’ll find A Piece of Eternity, an exhibition of paintings by ACAD graduate Jesús Núñez, who is also involved in the local theatre and literary communities.
At the Triangle Gallery, the tandem exhibitions Lest We Forget: Canadian Designers On War and With the Emboldened Brush: The Spirited Watercolour Art of Leo Bushman will be presented from January 19 to March 4, with the official openings taking place on January 19 at 7:30 p.m. That night will also kick off Footprint/Imprint, the second annual Winter Art Stroll, which officially takes place on January 21 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. For further information about the Winter Art Stroll, visit the Triangle Gallery next to City Hall.
And finally, if your resolution is to do more than just look at art this year, Truck Gallery is seeking submissions based on the theme "Flow." "In a province where thick sticky oil flows like black gold, Alberta has a steady unbroken stream of cash, information, traffic, goods and people that may frame the ‘global’ experience," says a Truck statement. "Flow can also refer to natural and unnatural systems like water, blood, gas, electricity and digital technology." Visual art submissions to the Flow project must be made by January 31, while the deadline for film/video submissions is April 1. For more information, call 261-7702. |
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