| French artist Marcel Duchamp said, "I am interested in ideas, not merely in visual products." And this month, artists and curators agree, with exhibitions that comment on topics ranging from a world in peril to queries about an ancient civilization in Peru.
At The Banff Centre’s Walter Phillips Gallery, Superman, killer rabbits and beheaded British aristocrats play key roles in a new exhibition that runs until March 3. According to curator Richard Hill, World Upside Down is a place where "symbolic order is turned on its head."
He adds, "It also draws from pop culture, examining the symbolic inversion of films such as Planet of the Apes and the killer rabbits in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
If that isn’t enough, the exhibition features the DC comic Superman: Red Son, written by Mark Millar. Red Son describes an alternate comic book reality in which a baby Superman’s rocket crashes to earth landing in the former Soviet Union, where Superman grows up on a collective farm in Ukraine.
Also included in World Upside Down is the work of Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Art Spiegelman with works from his graphic novel In the Shadow of No Towers.
There is a Calgary connection to World Upside Down with local artists Terrance Houle and Jarusha Brown being commissioned to create a billboard project at 16 Avenue and 73 Street N.W.
At Calgary’s Image 54 Gallery are the paintings of Marlessa Wesolowski in an exhibition titled Urban Dialogue. This Saskatchewan-based artist focuses her observations on the hustle and bustle of the cityscape.
Artmode Gallery presents the wine-inspired paintings of Jeff Beir in his exhibition Private Label. Opening on October 5 at 5 p.m., art lovers and those who appreciate a good bottle of vino are encouraged to stop by. Beir was recently confirmed as one of several Canadian artists who have been invited to the 2007 Biennale in Florence, Italy.
Running until October 7 at The New Gallery is Sisyphus, featuring works by The WhiteBoxPainters (Brent Budsberg, Mark Escribano and Shana McCaw).
At the Nickle Arts Museum on the University of Calgary campus is Ancient Peru Unearthed: Golden Treasures of a Lost Civilization. Comprised of artifacts from the pre-Inca Sicán culture of northern Peru, the show will run at the Nickle Arts Museum until January 14, 2007.
Newzones Gallery is hosting an exhibition of new works by Calgary painter Bradley Harms. Using acrylics and the oh-so-cool colours of the 1970s, Harms creates paintings that are orderly, quirky and among the best new abstract works to be painted in Canada for more than a decade. Originally from Winnipeg, Harms is a graduate of the fine arts program at the University of Calgary, with further training at the Art Institute of Chicago. Blitzen is the name of the show and it runs at Newzones until October 14.
At the Art Gallery of Calgary, in the media gallery, is Ambivalence Blvd by Dick Averns. A breath of fresh air in the occasionally pretentious world of media arts, Averns delivers pieces that are part of an ongoing series that explores how public spaces are commoditized. An instructor at Alberta College of Art and Design, Averns is the only art instructor I know who uses an airplane galley cart in the classroom to expand perceptions about the world we live in.
Also at AGC are the sculptural stylings of Katie Ohe in an exhibition titled Monsoon. Ohe is best known for the kinetic works that she has meticulously fashioned for more than four decades. This time she presents a series of seductive cloud forms. |
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