| Last summer, while working at the Art Gallery of Calgary (AGC), a tourist came into the gallery with his wife and asked me if this was the place where he could see Calgary’s collection of Picassos, Monets and Van Goghs. When I told him that Calgary didn’t have a collection of modern art nor a venue large enough to accommodate such a prized lot, he seemed sincerely surprised. "Your city has all this money and people and yet you don’t have an art museum with a collection?" he said, then left the gallery, baffled and a bit miffed.
This made me realize that we did indeed lack an international art institution in our city. If Calgary really is the third biggest city in Canada (as our municipal website seems to claim), then why is it that we still don’t have an institution similar to the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Vancouver Art Gallery or even the newly renamed Art Gallery of Alberta? How can we attract contemporary non-Canadian artists of international stature to Calgary if we don’t have the proper facilities to welcome them?
Although Calgary is home to institutions that have the potential to be major players in the art scene on a national and international level, such as the Glenbow Museum, the Art Gallery of Calgary, the Nickel Arts Museum and the Illingworth Kerr Gallery, not all have the desire or the means to do so. And only two of them own an art collection.
The following might come as a surprise considering the conservative nature of the Glenbow Museum today, but 20 or so years ago it was considered by many artists to be the leading and most innovative art institution in Canada. John Will, a veteran Calgary-based artist with works represented in more than 40 public institutions, shares a glimpse of Glenbow’s past during an interview: "During the late ’70s and early ’80s, the art department of the Glenbow Museum probably made it the most interesting and vital public institution in Canada, bar none. This was due primarily to (the efforts of) Jeffrey Spalding, the head art curator, and Peter White, the assistant curator. Not only did they organize exhibitions of work on a local, national and international level, they brought in a number of incredible performers and visiting artists. People such as Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass, Agnes Martin, Bill Wegman, Judy Chicago, John Elderfield gave free performances and lectures. All this incredible activity seemed to dissipate when these two curators left, and finally came to a grinding halt when the Glenbow cancelled the Second Alberta Biennial of Contemporary Art and decided to take the route of the so-called Blockbuster exhibition."
International artists have exhibited at the AGC but not necessarily artists who have had much of an impact on the global contemporary art scene. Perhaps the new environmental controls that are now being installed in the Top Gallery (upper level of the AGC) will encourage the AGC to try and entice more high-profile international artists to come and share their vision and creations with Calgary.
The smaller art facilities that Calgary does possess in great numbers are more geared towards local, regional and occasionally national art shows. These artist-run centres (Stride, TRUCK, The New Gallery), smaller public art institutions (The Triangle Gallery) and commercial art galleries (TrépanierBaer, Newzones) are doing a great job of supporting emerging Canadian artists by offering them a venue to showcase their work, to meet the public and to share their ideas with others. With the limited means of these institutions and with their selective mandates, they cannot be expected to bring the international art-world to Calgary, even though they succeed in doing so from time to time.
Someone who understands the need for this cultural importation is the new director and curator of the Alberta College of Art and Design’s (ACAD) Illingworth Kerr Gallery (IKG), Wayne Baerwaldt. His current and impressive list of accomplishments includes being this year’s curator of the Biennale de Montréal, the only Canadian member of the Exhibition Committee of Independent Curators International in New York, the former director of the Power Plant in Toronto and the co-commissioner and curator for Janet Cardiff and George Burnes Miller’s double award-winning production, The Paradise Institute, at the 49th Venice Biennale. As an international figure in the arts scene himself, he strives to bring the "outside world" to the IKG.
"The university system in Toronto attracts visiting artists, curators and scholars on a different level," he says. "It’s just that sort of thing that we need more of here – more people coming and going, influencing the students in particular, but also the collectors and the general public through contemporary art programming, film screenings, exhibitions and lectures."
Planned solo and thematic IKG exhibitions, as well as its concurrent programming, show that Baerwaldt wants the gallery to continue having an active role in the quality of artistic education at ACAD. He wishes to follow in former gallery director Ron Moppett’s curatorial footsteps. "Moppett did a great job at mixing things up in the past. We shouldn’t be showing just the local artists, who can be shown in all of the artist-run centres and commercial galleries and other institutions throughout Calgary. Whenever we can, we should provide the exception to the rule and try to make our system more porous by bringing works by an artist that perhaps you wouldn’t expect to see here at IKG." ACAD students won’t be disappointed, with upcoming exhibitions of David Altmejd’s work (this year’s Canadian representative at the Venice Biennale) as well as New York-based conceptual artist Glenn Ligon and a student workshop and public lecture by Montreal and New York-based performance artist Carolee Schneemann.
Baerwaldt admits that it’s hard to bring these artists to Calgary because of the cultural "filters" that surround the city, creating a bubble effect that separates Calgary from the rest of the cultural art world. These invisible and conservative filters that selectively choose what comes in and what leaves the city are created by several Calgary systems – funding, political, economical and educational. As an example, Baerwaldt says that "if we, as an institution, apply to the Alberta Foundation for the Arts for money, they will decide which projects are more geared towards Alberta culture than others. If you’re trying to do a show with a Vancouver artist or international artist, they have no interest, it seems, in allowing that international artist to filter through. Then you have to rely on Canada Council funding, which is very competitive, or on private sponsorship, which is non-existent here, regardless of the conceivable budgets in the private sector.
"This situation doesn’t make for that fluid coming and going," he continues. "There are filters for what is developed and what is not developed in this city. In other places such as New York, the holes of the filter are much larger, so you have more people coming and going. Calgary has to start believing that what curators and institutions do with international artists has some sort of basis in our own culture. You’re filtering your interpretation of that foreign artist through your own living culture."
Like Baerwaldt, the Calgary Arts Development Authority (CADA), in a May 2007 newsletter, also sees the urgent need for more artistic venues to be implemented "as they are in short supply in Calgary, restraining the growth of the arts sector." In April of this year, CADA received approval from city council to put in motion a plan of $150 million in municipal funding. Over the next seven years, it will be reinvested in existing arts facilities as well as helping to build new anchor facilities in the city centre region, thus creating a "cultural cluster." ACAD is currently assessing the idea of repositioning itself in the downtown core with a new building completely devoted to contemporary art. The creation of such a venue would bring Calgary that much closer to being a competing force in the historical development of contemporary art on an international scale.
Until then, however, Baerwaldt hopes that art institutions in Calgary will commit themselves to bringing the best in contemporary art to Calgarians. "All institutions that could respond, big and small, have a role to play in the development of contemporary art in this city." |
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