June Exhibitions
Check out new visual art exhibitions around the city this June! Each month, we spotlight a new or outgoing visual arts exhibition in the city, followed by a roundup of others you can see this month.
On March 30, 2024, The Alberta Craft Gallery in Calgary launched the exhibition Ornament & Crime, motivated by the 1908 essay of the same name by modernist architect Adolf Loos, which criticizes ornament in useful objects. The exhibition features 45 artists from across Canada and is described as “a hyperbolic spectacle of exaggerated adornment with all the delightful trimmings they (the artists) can muster.” From Charmaine Babiak’s polymer clay perogies adorned with florals, to Elise Troung’s blinged out mint-coloured bodice dress, you’ll be amused and bemused at the varying artistic interpretations of the theme.
You can check out Ornament & Crime until June 22, 2024 at the Alberta Craft Galley + Shop located on the 2nd floor of cSPACE Marda Loop.
More June exhibitions:
Black Drones in the Hive
May 25 – August 25, 2024
Esker Foundation (4th Floor, 1011 9 Ave. SW)
Free to explore
Black Drones in the Hive unfolds in a series of visual chapters to reveal the strategic erasures which have enabled Canadian canons such as the Group of Seven to exist without question or complication. Combing historical texts, petitions and archives ranging from the local to international, Deanna Bowen weaves together narrative threads of migration, power networks and hierarchies of remembrance.
eskerfoundation.com
Wendy Toogood: Narratives
June 1 – 19, 2024
Wallace Galleries (500 5 Ave. SW)
Free to explore
The works in this exhibition by Wendy Toogood cover a 40-year time frame, from earlier works exploring the use of various fabrics without any recognizable imagery, to Mexican-inspired cloth constructions and paintings, to works documenting Toogood’s life and interests in Nakusp, BC.
wallacegalleries.com
nikihci-âniskotâpân | bloodline
June 8 – September 1, 2024
Glenbow at The Edison (Second Floor, 150 9 Ave SW)
Free to explore, registration required
Through nikihci-âniskotâpân | bloodline, viewers are immersed in Meryl McMaster’s works, witnessing her explorations of family history, identity and ties to her ancestors. This survey exhibition provides a comprehensive overview of her career, showcasing the visual art of a remarkable Canadian artist whose trailblazing large-scale photographic works reflect her mixed nêhiyaw/Métis and anglo/Dutch ancestry.
glenbow.org
Ghosts of Canoe Lake: New Work by Marcel Dzama
June 27 – October 27
Contemporary Calgary (701 11 St. SW)
With admission
Marcel Dzama is one of Canada’s most intriguing expatriates, an artist who works in myriad media to express his fantastical and sometimes unsettling vision. In this exhibition, Dzama revisits themes of landscape drawn from Canadian art history and his own memories of a childhood spent in the wilds of Manitoba and northern Saskatchewan — all while confronting a natural world threatened by climate change.
contemporarycalgary.com
For more visual arts events and exhibitions, head over to the arts and culture events section of yycwhatson.ca
