Suzen Green’s Cabled Dickey with Eye Tubes 2006
Annual Artcity festival erupts with dialogue on arts and culture in crisis
Calgary is bursting at the seams artists and galleries are in crisis over where to find affordable space and radical politics are increasingly at odds with towing ye olde Conservative party line.
As this growing inventory of concerns has intensified over the past year the Artcity Festival of Art Design and Architecture re-enters the dialogue once again with another precocious invitation to interrogate and reflect on our relationship with arts and culture in the city. They’re right on the money with this year’s theme of “rupture” a timely discussion given our city’s increasing schism between economic prosperity and cultural poverty.
After all 2007 has already seen the move of Calgary’s artist-run stalwart The New Gallery after redevelopment in Penny Lane forced it out of its long-term gallery space and Calgary Arts Development called for a suspiciously corporate arts “branding strategy” for culture in Calgary as several of our city’s nationally acclaimed artists lost their studios to greedy landlords. Pies flew at Mayor Dave Bronconnier and new Premier Ed Stelmach to highlight homelessness and a new coalition of artists and activists formed the Calgary Housing Action Initiative.
Amidst all the uncertainty about how artists and cultural workers will survive Alberta’s boom many of the artists in Artcity’s visual arts program turn their attention towards critiques of the commodification of art gentrification and public space. Rewind five years in Artcity’s history and there were several vacant downtown spaces to repurpose for temporary gallery exhibitions during the September celebration. Recent years have seen a move from traditional spaces towards infiltration of the city with performance temporary installation and graffiti. This shift seems born not just out of artistic innovation but also serves to reflect the economic reality of arts programming in a city where space comes at a premium. This is all that’s left. Programming director Wednesday Lupypciw confirms that the loose structure of this year’s visual arts program “responds to shifting needs of artists but it is also rooted to the fact that artists are adapting their work to scarcity of resources and space.”
Toronto artist Swintak attacks the issue with a biting parody of the “public” ideals that constitute a perfect city. Under the guise of a faux development company called The Urban Quicksand Association she will perform a hybrid performance lecture and information session on various topics for the progress-minded urbanite. She takes aim at the blistering pace of condo development that Lupypciw describes as a process of mass destruction and rapid rebuilding that has become ubiquitous. Perhaps the Urban Quicksanders will encourage Calgarians to take a look at how the erasure of our parking lots old buildings and other intermediary zones is contributing to urban homogenization.
In order to facilitate this kind of audience critique Artcity’s walking tour hits several iconic civic sites including City Hall Olympic Plaza the Calgary Board of Education building and Eau Claire Market. Olympic Plaza is a familiar haunt for Artcity’s festival pavilions but Doug Scholes’s This is What Happens When a Thing is Maintained is in stark contrast to the comparatively benign installations that Artcity has presented at the city square in past years. His installation is a doppelganger for a scene that’s all too familiar in today’s civic landscape: construction sites cordoned off by temporary metal fencing. Inside hundreds of fragile beeswax bricks will be assembled into a gorgeous if not pleasantly aromatic architectural space. This temporary building will crumble before our eyes contrasting the relentless erection of condos office towers and multi-level parking garages in the downtown core and beyond.
A touchstone of the architectural programming was the Peep Show Design competition an international call for artists designers and architects to design small pavilions that also housed art projects over the last several years. This year’s decision not to mount the pavilions is supplemented by collaborative “live” architecture workshops with architect Aarón Gutiérrez hailing from Amorphica Design Research Office in San Diego. While the pavilions have been a longstanding legacy of the festival Lupypciw speaks of the live architecture workshop as a reflection of current “trends within the world of architecture that are about freeing up the practices of design and building to make room for ideas.”
Lest the relationship of art to the city’s march of progress be construed as too terribly antagonistic Suzen Green’s playful knitted graffiti and Michael Coolidge’s Free Bowl Tournament offer a softer critique. Lupypciw is excited about the fact that “they’re using architectures that already exist in the urban scheme but re-imagining them with a sense of playful possibility and ownership into an otherwise industrial standardized array of buildings.” Green’s electric-coloured hats socks and knitted garments will dress several public sculptures downtown with ambitiously tall pairs of knee-high socks for each figure in the “family of man” sculpture. Next week Green will discuss crafty graffiti and the process of making her whimsical warmers.
The Artcity Festival of Art Design and Architecture takes place from September 7 to 16. Visit www.art-city.ca for more information on venues and events.
Out and about at ArtCity
• Sporting life — Tag along on a guided walking tour. Commentary from programming director Wednesday Lupypciw illuminates the vigorous critical issues behind this year’s exhibitions. Hopefully there’s time to stop for a round of Michael Coolidge’s Free Bowl lawn bowling adapted for play in the concrete city core. The tournament is complete with a bowler’s clubhouse situated inside of City Hall — a big score for the cultural coup!
• Art party HQ — ArtCity’s rowdy opening fêtes go down in history year after year as the art community comes out en masse to launch the new arts season. This year they’ve upped the ante by adding a huge visual arts spectacle — this year’s highly anticipated surprise project will be revealed at midnight!
• Ahoy land-locked-lubbers! — Oceanic adventures set sail at two of ArtCity’s partner venues: the Stride Gallery and EMMEDIA Gallery. Jason De Haan’s project space exhibition where the ocean meets this guy and Caitlin Thompson’s Prairie Nautical offer relief for those with coastal preoccupations.
• Double-bill discussion — The curiously titled video screening Kind of Sort of Yours But Actually Mine collects video works on the membrane between private and public followed by a rowdy art chat led by Christian Bök. Calgary artist Noel Begin depicts a hyper close-up of an aphid colony invading his backyard. It’s a fascinating look at the everyday life of aphids but they’re also destroying his garden. How’s that for a commentary on crowded city life?
