Jenny Fisher, Floating House
The winter exhibition at the Art Gallery of Calgary opens today and runs until April 4, 2009.
From the Art Gallery of Calgary website:
Experimental Art + Culture investigates the role and relevance of experimentation and collaboration in contemporary art through the examination of diverse practices that operate outside the normal art world hierarchies, lending to an invaluable immediacy, relevance and flexibility. These exhibitions attempt to demonstrate the important role of contemporary art in fostering new ideas and perspectives that directly influence culture.
Quick Thoughts: Exhibition Descriptions
Most of the description above was definitely not written for laypeople – including myself. While I think exhibition descriptions do need to sound cool and exciting (it’s marketing, right?), making them understandable by the common art appreciator is what’s really going to expand the art community in Calgary.
I’m not quite sure how “diverse practices” brings about “invaluable immediacy, relevance and flexibility” or what exactly those three things mean to art, but they definitely made me feel a little alienated.
That being said, I think that the last section (bold, above) is the most powerful part of the description and does a great job of telling me about the sorts of concepts to which I can expect to be exposed through this exhibition.
The real shame is if people read a description like that and don’t go thinking that Experimental Art + Culture isn’t for them or is somehow over their heads. I’m posting this exhibition because I find the works of IAIN BAXTER&, Jon Pylypckuk, and Burnt Toast Studio wonderful and I know that there is something for everyone between their works.
With that out of the way, let’s continue with Experimental Art + Culture!
Participating Artists
IAIN BAXTER&, Jon Pylypchuk, and Burnt Toast Studio
If you’d like to learn a little bit more about IAIN BAXTER& and Jon Pylypchuk, please check out my recent post on Meeting Jon Pylypchuk and IAIN BAXTER& (if anyone had the opportunity to go, I would love to hear about it. Please leave a comment.) The post includes a couple of their works and a quick artist bio, including links where you can learn even more about them and their art.
Alden Alfon, Blueprint For a Fold Out Book
From the Art Gallery of Calgary website:
Burnt Toast Studio is an independent printmaking collective in the Highland Park area of Calgary. Originating with six members who met while studying at the Alberta College of Art & Design in 1993, their continuation as a collective has forged an artistic camaraderie that creates cross-influence and collaborative work. This exhibition features the work of ten current members of the group.
You can learn more about each of the members and view their prints at the Burnt Toast Studio website – a collection of very talented artists.
What Do You Think?
I would love to know what you think about Experimental Art + Culture. If you go to see it, please leave us all a comment giving us your impression of the works and exhibition as a whole.
Bonus points if you can explain the “invaluable immediacy, relevance and flexibility” – I kid.
Have fun and remember to get out and support local artists.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Experimentation and collaboration in contemporary art is essential i feel. Everyone has their own taste in art, variety in art gives one’s culture a greater richness.
Hey Tom,
I couldn’t have agreed with you more. For me, art is something that is organic and it ought to grow with each generation of artists. It should build on the progress made in previous generations to open up new avenues for future ones.
I’m tempted to copy and paste your comment into the “What is art?” discussion!
Experimental Culture + Art is all around us. There are so many artists in this world, artists that work so hard for the things that they do.
My new website, SHARPOBJEX.net, focuses on promoting these artists. We also do a few review for mainstream media, but only if they have artistic merit. Even so, experimental culture is our forte and we hope to expand it further.
Glad to find like-minded people. You should visit us when you have the time.