Glenbow exhibits a cross-section of Calgary art of the 1960s
The Glenbow has kicked off a five-part exploration of Calgary’s artistic past with its current exhibition Made in Calgary: The 1960s . The progression of the series from here is logical enough — it will move up a decade at a time over the course of a year — but the choice of the 1960s as the starting point merits explanation. To provide one exhibition curator Mary-Beth Laviolette points to a quote from artist John Hall: “The community was very small at the beginning of the decade and quite a bit bigger as it ended.”
This simple statement is important because Made in Calgary is about community just as much as it is about art. The 1960s saw the establishment of the Alberta College of Art as well as a fine arts department at the newly independent University of Calgary. With the expansion of educational entities came a fuller spectrum of artists. “By the 1960s [Calgary’s] art community is really beginning to develop what I call a critical mass; it’s becoming a muti-generational community” says Laviolette. Senior artists mentored the up-and-comers and the new institutions encouraged an influx of horizon-broadening newcomers.
Calgary’s population increased to 400000 from 250000 in the ’60s and our artistic transformation was similarly rapid. “If you look at the history of modern art that’s about a 150-year development and if you look at the introduction of modernism into smaller centres like Calgary it happens over a 30-year period. The time becomes totally compressed” says Laviolette.
The exhibition is divided into three sections: Couples Friends and Colleagues and Newcomers. All of this combines into a concoction of highly varied original works by Calgary artists. You’ll find senior artists of the time like Janet Mitchell’s whimsical works; Illingworth Kerr’s intense expressive landscapes; Maxwell Bates’ imaginative depictions of people such as his piece Bongo Man . You’ll also see some of the earliest works of now-established artists like an early triptych called Garbage by John Hall painted when he was a fresh art school grad.
Within the exhibition’s various offerings you’ll see a healthy proportion of abstraction. “If you were an abstract artist you were current you were considered contemporary you were part of the larger international scene” says Laviolette. “If you were doing landscapes as many artists had been doing for decades you were just considered to be a regional artist and not really current with the times.”
There’s also a healthy assortment of artistic media. Besides the paintings you’ll see plenty of ceramics and stoneware such as Jean Mihalcheon’s ancient-looking sculptures of heads or a carved image of a young woman by Swedish-trained Olle Holmsten as well as weavings and fibre arts like a cape-shaped depiction of a twining Eastern dragon by the artist ManWoman. Although today we might not think twice about any sort of media being alchemized into art some of these approaches were still gaining respect at the time they were created. “In the ’60s the boundaries between craft and fine art are really beginning to blur and some artists are beginning to have the opinion that working in ceramics or making a weaving is just as valid a type of art as painting is” says Laviolette.
The art is beautiful in its own right regardless of the fact that it’s representative of a decade but a bit of a time warp might enhance your appreciation of the show further. As art-makers develop so must audiences. “If [viewers] liked the Group of Seven in the ’60s they were pretty advanced. Most people’s ideas about art or what it should be or what it should look like was still stuck in the 19th century” says Laviolette.
Today we might not find anything in Made in Calgary shocking but the output of Calgary’s artistic community of 50 years ago is impressive. The good news is that we’ve only grown with each passing year.
