Contemporary Calgary

We're so excited to be presenting an interactive & family-friendly mural art activity as part of the BUMP (Beltline Urban Murals Project) Alley Party! Contemporary Calgary will be on site from 2-6pm at 12th Street and 10th Ave SW.
BUMP celebrates the diversity, talent and vibrant character of the Beltline through works of art that are thought-provoking, whimsical, awe-inspiring, creative and powerful.

Want to learn more about contemporary art? Did you miss Utopia Factory, or our Never the Same symposium last year? Check out our brand new Education section on our website, where we'll be posting artist talks, panel discussions, lectures, articles and more!
www.contemporarycalgary.com/education

Exciting news! The City of Calgary and Contemporary Calgary are pleased to announce a lease agreement has been reached, enabling a new world-class gallery for modern and contemporary art to be opened in the Centennial Planetarium in 2019!
Please see our website to view the full media release.
http://www.contemporarycalgary.com/whats- on/exciting-news

Dear Friends,
Please join us tomorrow (June 19th) at 10:00 am in the Atrium of City Hall for a press conference with Mayor Nenshi regarding the future of Contemporary Calgary. It would be great to have our supporters there to share this exciting news together.
Details:
... Where: City Hall Atrium (800 Macleod Trail SE), North side of Council Chambers
When: Tuesday June 19, 2018, promptly at 10:00 am
Speakers: His Worship, Mayor Naheed Nenshi Kurt Hanson, General Manager, Community Services Jay Mehr, Board Chair, Contemporary Calgary
See you tomorrow morning!
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Our free monthly Contemporary Kids program invites families to learn about modern and contemporary art through unique and engaging art activities developed for children ages 5-12.
The afternoon will begin with a fun image-filled introduction to photograms, where children will learn how modern and contemporary artists have used this medium. We will also discuss how artists use negative space when creating artworks, a technique central to the creation of photograms. Drawing mat...erials and a variety of interesting objects will be provided as well as cyanotype paper.
We are excited to be holding this series at cSPACE in their RGO Treehouse on the 4th floor on the first Saturday of each month! There is ample parking surrounding the building.
Only children need to be registered on Eventbrite, but we do require parents or guardians onsite for this program.
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The young women of Stardale present The Make Believer Project. The performance piece, co-written by acclaimed playwright Eugene Stickland, directed by Helen Young of Urban Stories Theatre and accompanied by a video art piece co-created with Metis artist Jessie Short, it’s a rare chance for audiences to hear the truth of what it is to be young, urban, Indigenous and female.
Contemporary Calgary partnered with Stardale Women's Group to provide an artist mentorship with Jessie S...hort, a curator, writer, and multi-disciplinary artist and emerging filmmaker. Jessie and videographer Noel Bégin worked with the girls of Stardale over the month of April to create a video art piece which will be screened as part of The Make Believer Project performance.
Stardale Women's Group has 21 years experience working in violence and abuse prevention with Indigenous girls aged is 10 -17 years. Their prevention model is based on teaching life skills, literacy and creative expression. To learn more please visit www.stardale.org
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Held over the lunch hour this series invites Calgarians working downtown to enjoy their lunch while listening to talks and presentations by local artists. The unifying theme for our spring series is place, and as part of their lecture our three artists will discuss how their practice incorporates this concept. Contemporary Calgary is thrilled to be partnering with the Calgary Public Library to hold this series at the Central Library, Main Floor North.
Brittney Bear Hat is a 2...011 graduate from the Alberta College of Art and Design there, she majored in Painting with an interest in collage and drawing. Based in Calgary, her work focuses on identity and belonging. Half Blackfoot and half Cree, Bear Hat makes work about memory and how her personal history is what makes her Native. Her work involves the process of taking her own family photos or personal items and combining them with text, retelling stories and memories. With each piece, Bear Hat is trying to figure out what is hers and what she can call home.
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Our free monthly Contemporary Kids program invites families to learn about modern and contemporary art through a unique and engaging art activity developed for children ages 5-12.
The afternoon will begin with a fun art-filled introduction by Calgary artist Caitlind Brown whose artwork Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow is the inspiration for our art activity! Caitlind will bring in an example of the hourglasses from her installation and answer questions about what it is like to be a... professional artist. Children will then be invited to create and decorate their own hourglasses with colourful sand and marbled and painted stickers.
“Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow is a kinetic installation illustrating the complex passage of time as it relates to the site-specific concepts, people, and materials of the historic King Edward School. Designed by artists Lane Shordee, Caitlind r.c. Brown & Wayne Garrett, the installation takes the form of 105 suspended hourglasses, filled with the sand crushed from sandstone bricks collected onsite during cSPACE’s renovations.” https://yesterday-today-tomorrow.org/
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Enjoy a Sunday afternoon watching films selected by local artists! Art Flicks is a monthly series which features Calgary artists, curators and designers who introduce films which have influenced and inspired their work.
Our April Art Flicks will feature Marigold Santos who will introduce Kwaidan (1965).
Marigold Santos pursues an inter-disciplinary art practice involving drawn, painted, and printed works, sculpture, animation, and sound. Her work explores self-hood and iden...tity that embraces multiplicity, fragmentation and empowerment, as informed by experiences of movement and migration.
Film synopsis: After more than a decade of sober political dramas and socially minded period pieces, the great Japanese director Masaki Kobayashi shifted gears dramatically for this rapturously stylized quartet of ghost stories. Featuring colorfully surreal sets and luminous cinematography, these haunting tales of demonic comeuppance and spiritual trials, adapted from writer Lafcadio Hearn’s collections of Japanese folklore, are existentially frightening and meticulously crafted.
Image credit: Janus Films (left) & Marigold Santos (right)
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This free program, incorporating both our Contemporary Kids and Elder Series, invites families and the residents of United Active Living Garrison Green to learn together about contemporary art through a unique and engaging art activity.
The afternoon will begin with a fun image-filled introduction to floating installations, discussing the practices of famous contemporary artists such as Cornelia Parker. Participants will then be invited to create their own floating sculpture out of a variety of colourful, shimmering and reflective materials!
We are thrilled to be partnering with United Active Living Garrison Green to present this program which will be held in their beautiful art studio and theatre space. There is ample parking surrounding the building.

Held over the lunch hour this series invites Calgarians working downtown to enjoy their lunch while listening to talks and presentations by local artists. The unifying theme for our spring series is place, and as part of their lecture our three artists will discuss how their practice incorporates this concept. Contemporary Calgary is thrilled to be partnering with the Calgary Public Library to hold this series in the main foyer of Central Library.
Svea Ferguson is a Calgary-...based sculptor and installation artist whose work has been shown across Canada and internationally, and was recently included in the 2017 Alberta Biennial of Contemporary Art. Her practice explores material agency and the ability of inert material to express and reflect human physicality. Each project addresses a range of human circumstances that are realized through sculptural forms related to our bodies and shared experiences. She views these sculptures as abstracted bodies, inviting the viewer to recognize their own physicality in a synthetic, everyday material.
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Our free monthly Contemporary Kids program invites families to learn about modern and contemporary art through a unique and engaging art activity developed for children ages 5-12.
No longer just a flat starting surface, paper is used by a variety of contemporary artists to create fascinating and immersive sculptures and installations. This program will begin with an image-filled introduction to international artists who manipulate paper in unique and unexpected ways in their ...artistic practices. Children will then be presented with a colourful array of paper which they can roll, crinkle, twist, layer, loop and paste to create their own art piece!
We are excited to be holding this series at cSPACE in their RGO Treehouse on the 4th floor on the first Saturday of each month! There is ample parking surrounding the building and a newly opened coffee shop on the main level.
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Enjoy a Sunday afternoon watching films selected by local artists! Art Flicks is a monthly series featuring Calgary artists, curators and designers who introduce films which have influenced and inspired their work.
Our first Art Flicks of the spring season will feature inspired artist Sondra Meszaros who will introduce Belle de Jour (1967). She will be discussing her academic and artistic exploration of representations of female sexuality in relation to the themes of the fil...m.
We are thrilled to be hosting this event at Model Citizen, the seductive and art-filled speakeasy located on the same block as Model Milk.
*Limited seats available - registration required
Synopsis: Catherine Deneuve’s porcelain perfection hides a cracked interior in one of the actress’s most iconic roles: Séverine, a Paris housewife who begins secretly spending her after­noon hours working in a bordello. This surreal and erotic late-sixties daydream from provocateur for the ages Luis Buñuel is an examination of desire and fetishistic pleasure (its characters’ and its viewers’), as well as a gently absurdist take on contemporary social mores and class divisions. Fantasy and reality commingle in this burst of cinematic transgression, which was one of Buñuel’s biggest hits.
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Held over the lunch hour this series invites Calgarians working downtown to enjoy their lunch while listening to talks and presentations by local artists. The unifying theme for our spring series is place, and as part of their lecture our three artists will discuss how their practice incorporates this concept. Contemporary Calgary is thrilled to be partnering with the Calgary Public Library to hold this series in the main foyer (north side of main floor) of Central Library.
O...ur March talk will feature renowned photographer Dianne Bos, who will discuss her most recent exhibition The Sleeping Green: no man’s land 100 years later. The photographs featured within this exhibition explore the ‘no-mans-land’ of the WWI battle fields of Ypres, Passchendaele, Vimy and Somme. Bos used a variety of vintage and pinhole cameras to create these photographs and as part of the printing process also incorporated objects from the sites such as rocks, leaves and a bullet. These photographs were taken between 2014 and 2016, a century after The Great War.
Dianne Bos was born in Hamilton, Ontario, received her B.F.A. from Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick, and currently divides her time between the foothills of the Rockies and the Pyrenees. Her photographs have been exhibited internationally in numerous group and solo exhibitions since 1981.
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Calgary, thank you for your continued support! We would be honoured to have your vote for Best Art Gallery in #BestofCalgary2018.
Today is the last day to vote! https://www.bestofcalgary.city/

Our free monthly Contemporary Kids program invites families to learn about modern and contemporary art through a unique and engaging art activity developed for children ages 5-12.
The afternoon will begin with a fun image-filled introduction to light art with a special focus on the artists who inspired our art activities: Yayoi Kusama and Keith Sonnier. Children will then be invited to create their own multidimensional glow-in-the-dark piece as well as a fluorescent tube scul...pture. We have organized a special black lit space to bring your glow-in-the-dark and fluorescent artworks to life!
We are excited to be holding this series at cSPACE in their RGO Treehouse on the 4th floor on the first Saturday of each month! There is ample parking surrounding the building and a newly opened coffee shop on the main level.
Only children need to be registered on Eventbrite but we do require parents or guardians onsite for this program.
Please note, because this is a free event and space is limited, all registrants will receive a reminder email the week of the event to confirm their attendance. If your schedule changes and you are no longer able to attend please email Charlotte charlotte.legallais@contemporarycalg ary.com and she will ensure your spot is made available to those on our Eventbrite waitlist.
Above images: Second from right: Yayoi Kusama, "Infinity Mirrored Room - Filled with the Brilliance of Life" Left: Keith Sonnier, "Dot Dash Corner" (1979)
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Love this space! Exhibits are always amazing and always free!

Love this space! Exhibits are always amazing and always free!