Oh sure, Edmonton is all fancy and cultured these days, with a spiffy new art gallery and an equally spiffy exhibition, the Alberta Biennial of Contemporary Art. Well, Edmonton, we have a spiffy new gallery with an equally spiffy exhibition, too. Hell, we’re even making up words down here.

Although Pith Galleries has been operating since December of last year, it wasn’t really open until May 29. Sure, there have been three shows in the old Inglewood bottle depot space, but now it’s official. And to celebrate, it’s exhibiting the Pith Biennale of Conschmemporary Art.

Yeah, that’s right Edmonton. You might have a biennial, but we have a biennale. You might have contemporary art, whatever the hell that means, but we have conschmemporary art. Suck that.

“It’s kind of a bratty move on our part. The idea came up a year ago when friends were applying for the biennial and we were thinking ‘What should we do with this gallery?’” says Sarah Adams-Bacon, Pith’s gallery director.

“We just thought it would be interesting calling into question the seriousness and the gravity that kind of surrounds those sorts of exhibitions.”

With tongue firmly planted in cheek, the folks at Pith decided that biennale sounded much more refined and obnoxious than the nasally, pedestrian biennial. It’s all part of its mandate to be a bit provocative, a bit subversive and to have a whole lot of fun.

So this isn’t the fancy-schmancy art fest that’s going on up north at the moment, but it’s still art. “A lot of it is lighthearted, but we’re not being flippant about the work itself,” says Adams-Bacon. “We’re really excited about the work.”

Paper bags painted by Kim Neudorf and Jenine Marsh, Brandan Doty’s paintings of a hockey goalie spewing blood and knife blades warming up on a red hot stove element, and one big blue bear by Tess Maciag are just some of the conshmemporary pieces gracing Pith’s walls.

The show has no theme, per se. The artists were invited to participate in the show because they fit the deviant mandate of the gallery, but they weren’t given any direction on what to show.

“Another part of our mandate is to really encourage experimentation and freedom for the artist to not feel blocked in,” says Adams-Bacon. Artists are encourage to switch things up if need be.

What’s important for the gallery is to show artists who aren’t really being shown anywhere else, certainly not at big fancy galleries with big fancy exhibitions. I’m looking at you Edmonton. Pith doesn’t put out calls for submissions or rely on the ability of artists to eloquently describe their work in print. It shouldn’t be about who can best sell and package their work.

“We only program through active curation, we don’t do calls for submissions or anything like that,” says Adams-Bacon. “I personally feel like calls for submissions really dilute work that is shown because you end up only getting the artists that are totally on the ball that filter through. You don’t really get the best art that way.”

And now that the galley is (mostly) put together, it’s time for the next phase of Pith. Frosst Books will open on the main level, carrying zines, graphic novels and books on architecture and design, and Wilkosz + Way photography will be opening a community dark room. The studios in the back are full and busy and there will be a party to help paint the outside of the building.

But for now, there’s just a fancy little exhibition and new gallery that helps elevate Calgary’s cultural cachet in a way that ought to make our fancy neighbours to the north just a little bit jealous. You say biennial, we say biennale.