You may not be aware of it but in alleyways and bus stops on billboards and telephone poles hidden within newspapers sleepy suburbs and maybe even your cellphone the incursion of guerrilla art has begun. It’s the second coming of the Calgary Biennial and it’s here to challenge you.
Originally a joke thought up by artist and curator Steven Cottingham in 2012 the first Calgary Biennial was designed to riff off of the glamorous Venice and New York biennials a quick way to pad the resumés of himself and his friends.
But the exhibition took on a life of its own. Spreading from a single living room to five alternative venues and pop-up galleries it became a means to highlight the diverse array of talented and driven underground artists who choose to live and work in Calgary. And for Cottingham it was also an opportunity to subvert the underdog status that had been unfairly laid on the city.
And now under the title Atlas Sighed: The 2014 Calgary Biennial the idea has grown and evolved. Since the last event projects such as Wreck City have demonstrated the value of alternative and evanescent art forms to potential partners. Sponsors have been secured to mitigate costs and through a grant from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts this year’s artists will be paid. With stability comes innovation.
“Unlike the first one where I wanted to celebrate the city in this one I want to challenge it” says Cottingham. “I wanted to bring work outside of the safe studio and gallery spaces and make work that was accessible in a conceptual and a physical way.”
And artists have responded. Between December 1 and March 31 more than a dozen contemporary artists will participate with a variety of projects from the small and unobtrusive to bold in-your-face displays.
The first three in the lineup are Alannah Clamp Bogdan Cheta and Natalie Lauchlan. Their contributions involve running newspaper ads subtly questioning urban architecture transforming public spaces in the downtown core and engaging communities on opposite sides of the city through linked interactive banners respectively.
Drawn by the fluid nature of the Biennial and the opportunity to project their work into the public sphere these artists embrace the peripheral position their work will occupy. “[The Biennial] doesn’t assert itself through institutional authority” says Cheta. “It’s something that everyday people will glimpse maybe by accident or on purpose from the corner of their eye….
“I think the impact lies in the idea that the city belongs to its people and that we can write or rewrite our own spaces and build our own everyday lives in relation to each other.”
Along with re-appropriating public spaces from advertisers and developers Atlas Sighed is also intended as a direct challenge to the conservative status quo inherent in many spheres of the city. Upcoming biennial projects will try to stimulate conversations around social justice — Brittney Bear Hat’s Blackfoot explores the sincerity with which her ancestors are honoured and Steven Beckly’s Reunion highlights the normalcy and simple beauty of same-sex couples.
With many projects lacking explicit permission to exist — for example Lauchlan’s banners will be hung from community fencing — Cottingham is anticipating potential resistance. He will also be printing the exhibition guide in newspaper form and inserting it in Calgary Sun boxes downtown. Essentially items will be put in public spaces in a similar way to a garage sale sign or a flyer for guitar lessons.
“I kind of hope there will be some negative backlash” he says. “That means that things are being done and progress is being made.”
So be on the lookout. Through their subtlety a lack of reference to tie them back to the biennial and the very real possibility of deliberate or unintentional destruction the projects in Atlas Sighed could be missed.
Regardless the artists and organizers do not need your attention yet through the reach of the projects and their ambient and peripheral nature there is a strong possibility they will get it whether you realize it or not.
Atlas Sighed: The 2014 Calgary Biennial is on exhibition until March 31 at various locations.
