TRUCK Contemporary Art in Calgary

Roundel

2011-04-02T11:43:00.000-07:00

Roundel

Pascal Dufaux (Montreal, QC), M.N. Hutchinson (Calgary, AB)
February 11, 2011 through to March 10, 2011

Presented as part of the Exposure 2011—Calgary Banff Canmore Photography Festival, Roundel uses tricks and techniques of photography to give a new perspective on ordinary images and form obscurity from the familiar. By creating a video-kinetic sculpture, Pascal Dufaux attempts to bring a new perspective to our surroundings and ourselves through an observation camera that moves about in closed circuits of slow hypocycloidal rotations. Drawing from his family history, M.N. Hutchinson uses a panoramic camera to create time-based still images that rely on the narrative functions of cinema to explore genealogical mapping.

"Letter Performance"

2010-09-23T11:57:00.001-07:00

The first photograph is the quick information workshop for the Local Library group before heading to the sight of the final performance in Barclay Mall.

The second shot is one of many taken during the performance in Barclay Mall.

Belmont has different techniques for arriving at a phrase for each performance. The phrase for the first and second performances came from workshops. During the first workshop the participants brainstormed and wrote their memories, news and historical knowledge of the Bow River on a map hand drawn by Belmont. The participants were also given index cards to complete many sentences provided by Belmont, from this information Belmont decided on the phrase for the first performance. Belmont took a larger part in pre-planning for the second performance; the workshop participants were given the start of only two sentences to complete. Cécile Belmont through her research and time spent in Calgary had the start of the phrase already chosen. The third and final phrase was taken from a newspaper clipping found by Belmont while doing her research.

When the photographs from the performances are seen together they become a poetic animation of the performances. TRUCK will have monitors set up at the reception playing a series of images from each performance. The CAMPER will also be decorated with research, collected images and items from the performances.

The reception for Letter Performance will be Monday, September 27, 2010 in Olympic Plaza from noon to 5:00pm. There will be large posters produced from each performance available at the reception.

Final CAMPER Residency of Summer 2010

2010-09-22T14:18:00.000-07:00

Cécile Belmont (Berlin, Germany) has been working with various people and groups in Calgary conducting performances. A "Letter Performance" involves a group of people meeting in a public place to perform a predetermined act of messaging or communication. The Performances provoke a reaction and bring people together to create a ‘buzz’. Final performance is Wednesday, September 22, 2010 in Barclay Mall at 6:30pm.

The first image above is from the first performance on September 16th, the participants included a group from the Alberta College of Art + Design, City staff from the Water Centre, and construction workers.

The second image is from the second performance on September 18th in Prince's Island Park. The participants for this performance consist of TRUCK members and friends.

These performances explore how we experience and react in public space.

Reception: Monday, September 27, 2010 in Olympic Plaza from noon to 5pm.

THE OBSERVATORY

2010-08-17T15:04:00.001-07:00

Here are some pics of the piece at Edworthy Park.

THE OBSERVATORY

2010-08-17T13:43:00.000-07:00

Current CAMPER artist José Luis Torres is beginning his final installation for the second installment of TRUCK’s collaboration with the City of Calgary’s Celebration of the Bow 2010. The architecture-inspired structures will be constructed in St. Patrick's Island near where the Elbow River and the Bow River meet. The final project for THE OBSERVATORY will also be the host site for the Reception this Friday, August 20th from noon to 5pm.

Until this site installation Torres has been building the elements of these installations in TRUCK's Main Space. These structures make you slow down and take in your surroundings and gently guide you to focus on the river. The locations of THE OBSERVATORY are mapped through TRUCK’s website, WWW.TRUCK.CA.

THE MUSEUM OF BOW

2010-07-28T13:29:00.001-07:00

After three weeks of research, collecting, construction and installation in the CAMPER, Lewis and Taggart successfully completed THE MUSEUM OF BOW. The artists beautifully and poetically connected the stories, information and items they gathered with the sculptural works displayed inside and outside of the CAMPER. The artists Chloe Lewis and Andrew Taggart were on hand throughout the exhibition portion of the residency to give guided tours in the CAMPER, giving viewers one-on-one information and sharing narratives about the Bow. Here are some pictures of the site-specific installation.

THE MUSEUM OF BOW

2010-07-28T12:49:00.000-07:00

THE MUSEUM OF BOW

2010-07-28T12:14:00.000-07:00

For more information on this CAMPER residency stop by the gallery and see the publication produced by Lewis and Taggart. The text is comprised of a selection of artworks created for THE MUSEUM OF BOW.

The publication is no longer available for sale.

FFWD article on 2010 CAMPER Residencies

2010-07-08T15:28:00.000-07:00

Mentioned in the article "River Art" by Drew Anderson and Rachel Stacey are TRUCK's CAMPER Residencies in collaboration with the City of Calgary for "Celebration of the Bow River 2010" public art project. Take a peak for yourself on the FFWD website or the print version on stands now.

Dick Averns includes CAMPER in Calgary update for Akimblog

2010-06-24T14:07:00.000-07:00

Check out Dick Averns post on Akimblog about the CAMPER Residencies for this summer along with other Calgary and Alberta arts events.

Participant Photos from 'Calgary ArTours'

2010-06-03T14:45:00.000-07:00

As part of Cat Schick's piece in 'Calgary ArTours', 2 photo walking tours were held in downtown Calgary on May 8th and 15th, 2010. Following no set route but going wherever the participants chose, the inner city was explored and documented. The aim was to get people to look at the downtown core differently as well as exchange information and experiences. Below are some of the images taken by participants.

'Calgary ARTours' Photographs by Patricia Dawkins

2010-06-03T14:32:00.000-07:00

'Calgary ARTours' Photographs by Linda Cunningham

2010-06-03T14:22:00.000-07:00

Images 1 and 2 are from Cat Schick's first of two photo walking tours held on May 8th, 2010. Images 3 and 4 are from the May 15th tour.

'Calgary ARTours' Photographs by Brian Jensen

2010-06-03T14:08:00.001-07:00

1. Crowded Crosswalk
2. Bridge Reflection, Eau Claire
3. Cloud Crane
4. Peek a Boo Tower
5. Fire Escape

Graceful Attention: Stephen Kelly’s Open Tuning (Wave Up)

2010-05-26T16:48:00.000-07:00

CONTRIBUTOR: RICHard SMOLinski
(unedited)

You never expect to experience grace in a public space. More usual are brusque movements, dispirited shuffling, and distracted gesticulations, but moments of balletic poise and rapt attention are much less common. While I should be more careful with word-choice, since “grace” is loaded with spiritual connotations, it seems the most apt descriptor. Even more unlikely, this unanticipated experience of grace occurred at a rather grace-neutral locale and at the sort of function not normally known for its gracefulness—the opening reception for Stephen Kelly’s Open Tuning (Wave Up) at TRUCK Contemporary Art in Calgary.

Having read the pre-exhibition press materials, I was aware that the exhibition was comprised of several sound-emitting/sound-generating sculptural objects. Interpreting data collected from sensory devices located off the coast of Nova Scotia, the kinetic objects promised to re-situate the oceanic flux and flow within TRUCK’s white-cube gallery space. Within the exhibition’s pamphlet essay, Kari McQueen’s description of the looping soundscape made it seem as if these swells of sounds would offer a somewhat subtle listening experiences. Under such circumstances the opening reception seemed especially unpromising, the loud chatter and art scene gossip would likely drown out the work and make it difficult to discern what the work offered. Regardless, I decided to attend the opening and be a body dutifully accounted for by the attendance clicker—if the show seemed intriguing I would return for a more extensive engagement.

My misgivings regarding the opening reception were unfounded; it was the ideal time to experience Open Tuning. I arrived fairly early and was one of the first people into the space. There I found the sculptures, several were wall-mounted and a couple hung from the ceiling. The pieces seemed built from scavenged mechanical detritus, remnants of printers and stereo components jerry-rigged together to yield decidedly low-tech forms. Moving with metronomic regularity and dependability, the gangly and awkward objects were welcomingly familiar and approachable.

Drawn closer to one work, the sculpture’s delicate sounds soon attracted the majority of my attention. Somewhere between a swelling hum and a droning buzz, the sound rose and fell, distantly recalling the rhythms of the ocean tide. Straining to discern these soft undulations of tone, I found myself slowly swaying back and forth, loosely tethered to the sculpture but drifting in concert with the oceanic sound emanating from this unlikely source. Soon I noticed that other visitors were performing a similar dance. Attentive to the gentle waves of sound, these listeners moved delicately and deliberately, with heads cocked first towards one speaker and then another. Closely observing the other listeners, I noticed a certain absence of focus around the eyes, as if the optical sense had yielded to aural. Through this rapt attention, the listeners projected a distanced-presence, at once in the moment while transported elsewhere by the subtleties of the sound.

While static visual images and many video projections mandate immobility and often fix the viewer in space, Open Tuning gracefully animated its listeners. Despite the delicacy of its dynamics, the work invites its audience’s rapt attention and concentration. While openings are normally boisterous affairs too distracting to develop a response to the work, Stephen Kelly’s work situated a quiet, yet stimulating milieu. The reception, then, was the ideal time to experience the effects of the work and observe how Opening Tuning entranced and activated its audience. Indeed, I was so intrigued by the experience that I decided not to return, thinking that this rare performance of listening and graceful attention was all one could want from a gallery visit.

Visual linguist RICHard SMOLinski and the art of Portmateau

2009-10-23T11:31:00.000-07:00

About a week ago, Calgary artist RICHard SMOLinski introduced a participatory audience to the technique of portmanteau word-coinage and facilitated the collaborative composition of a narrative upon the walls of TRUCK’s resource centre. This event was presented as part of TRUCK Gallery's Contemporary Art Soap Box Series - an open format public lecture series in which cultural producers take the stage to explore different aspects of contemporary production.

"Infamously used throughout James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, by Lewis Carroll in Jabberwocky and currently being exploited in an advertising campaign by Koodo Mobile, the portmanteau blends two or more words to create new and unusual terms that may either renew or corrupt language. Armed with this technique and a thousand magnetic alphabetic characters, SMOLinski and his participants constructed a physical text upon the walls, doors and filing cabinets of TRUCK’s reception area."

Approximately 40 people were in attendance for this textual demolishtioconstrutionarritivegenisis, and as an observer I was stuck by the strength of the perfromative nature of this collaborative event. Of course the deconstructive power of the SMOLinski's technique was apparent in true Derridian style, the engagement by the audience in attendance spoke more to the power of language as a critical milieu. Few things are as contemporary, and as primal, as language. Indeed few in the room could resist the pull to participate in the exploration of a territory that is both familiar and unknown. This collaboration transformed the 40 or so individuals into a single Beast with a penchant for "word-coinage."

It would be easy to attribute the success of this event to a simple psychological dynamic revolving around word association, or a semiotic whirlwind of code associations, but the thoughtful, purposeful/editorial, aesthetically consensual approach that organically evolved suggested that the group engaged in the process of art making that engaged theory and technique without subordinating itself to it!

The text continues in our front reception area with an open invitation to all gallery goers to dive into the pool of magnetic letters laid out on our meeting tables to contribute to the narrative spattered across our walls.

Contributor: Renato Vitic

Sleepless Nights: Visions from Western Canada

2009-08-19T09:13:00.000-07:00

Robin Arsenault, Ken Buera, Kay Burns, Jason de Haan, Craig Le Blanc, Robin Moody, Kris Lindskoog, Walter May (Calgary, AB), Phillip McCrum (Vancouver, BC)

Runs from September 5, 2009 through to October 4, 2009 @ Kling and Bang Gallerí at Laugavegur 23, 101 in Reykjavík, Iceland

Born near Víðimýri, Iceland in 1853, Stephan G. Stephansson immigrated to the United States as a teenager and later moved to Markerville, Alberta towards the end of the nineteenth century. As a farmer he worked the land by day and, an insomniac, by night he honed his craft as a poet. Referred to as “The Poet of the Rocky Mountains”, he never left Canada to visit his native country until he was well into his sixties. Nonetheless, despite a nearly lifelong residence in North America, his prolific output and broad acclaim gained him recognition as one of Iceland’s most celebrated literary figures. In 1908, Stephansson’s oeuvre was documented in a six volume publication entitled Andvökur, or Sleepless Nights.

Sleepless Nights: Visions from Western Canada, a group exhibition that brings together nine contemporary artists from the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia, looks to (re)engage the cultural and historical connections between Western Canada and Iceland. This exhibition not only borrows from Stephan G. Stephansson in its titling but, as well, draws inspiration from his unique poetic style, which through experimental means looked to blend divergent cultural influences in the merging of traditional Scandinavian metre with the philosophies of North American freethinkers of the period. Stephansson’s use of intricate metaphor and neologisms, and his interest in themes such as the romanticized landscape and the transient nature of life, resurface in
new a meaningful ways through the current explorations of the artists included in this exhibition.

Sleepless Nights: Visions from Western Canada was developed in response to Sundogs: Contemporary art from Iceland, a 2008 exhibition that saw the work of artists Ásdís Sif Gunnarsdóttir, Erling T.V. Klingenberg, Hekla Dögg Jónsdóttir, Pall Banine, Ragnar Kjartansson and Sirra Sigrun Sigurdardottir on display at TRUCK in Calgary, Alberta. Curated by David Diviney, a Nova Scotia based artist/curator, these two exhibitions
serve as a continuation of his collaborative research with Icelandic artists and institutions that began over a decade ago.

This exhibition is produced by Kling&Bang Gallerí in partnership with TRUCK and is supported by Alberta Foundation for the Arts’ Cultural Relations Project Grant Program, The Embassy of Canada to Iceland in Reykjavik, and The Consulate General of Iceland in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Many of the artists in the exhibition have received individual travel and/or project assistance from various provincial and federal agencies
including Alberta Foundation for the Arts and Canada Council for the Arts.

For media inquiries please contact Renato Vitic, Director, TRUCK, Contemporary Art in Calgary, at director@truck.ca or (403) 261-7702.

Image:

Jason de Haan
Barba de Sal (Salt Beard), 2009
Salt and borrowed sculpture from the collection of Museo Regional, Queretaro, Mexico