January Exhibitions
Visual art on view this month
Stave off the cold and take in some art this January by exploring an exhibition at a new or favourite local gallery. Any one of these visual arts finds will kick your new year into creative gear!
Artifact or Fiction
December 26, 2023 – January 14, 2024
cSPACE Eau Claire Neighbourhood Hub (381 2nd Ave. SW)
Free to attend/participate
A series of public events based on the archives, memorabilia, artwork, art projects of a 40-year public art practice in Calgary. Artist Sharon Stevens animates her collection through storytelling, comedy, shrines, performances, talks, info sessions, culminating in a final disposition and fire.
eau-claire.cspaceprojects.com
Momentum
January 2 – 27, 2024
Framed on Fifth (1207 5th Ave. NW)
Free to explore
The abstract works in this show by FMD FREE are intriguing and mysterious, offering a wealth of free thinking and association with expressive colours, textures and lines from the artist’s memory of places and spaces in dreams or imagination.
framedonfifth.com
Justine Bui: Rosy and Fair
January 4 – February 4, 2024
Contemporary Calgary (1207 5th Ave. NW)
With admission
Using bright colours and eye-catching displays, this pop-up shop installation explores how playful marketing can hook customers and sell them items that perpetuate harmful myths and emotional harm, even causing negative physical damage.
contemporarycalgary.com
Voices
January 12 – 27, 2024
Framed on Fifth (1207 5th Ave. NW)
Free to explore
Voices is an immersive exhibition by Laura Anzola that explores the complexities of migration, drawing parallels between immigrant journeys and the vast migrations of humpback whales, highlighting distances traversed, resilience and adaptability.
lauraanzola.com
From Skyworld to Cyberspace
January 19 – March 9 2024
Illingworth Kerr Gallery, Alberta University of the Arts (1407 14th Ave. NW)
Free to explore
Artist Skawennati gathers a number of works which, together, trace a line from our place of origin somewhere in the heavens to the virtual realm. From Skyworld to Cyberspace is a result of Skawennati’s investigation of cultural construction, contemporary Indigenous self-representation and our relationships with the digital world.
auarts.ca
Lucia Hierro: Corotos y Ajuares
January 20 – April 28 2024
Esker Foundation (4th floor, 1011 9th Ave. SE)
Free to explore
Corotos y Ajuares brings together a series of soft sculptures and a site-specific mural that focus on everyday items like disposable takeout containers, a paper menu, and a pair of aprons, reflecting Hierro’s experiences as an artist within the Dominican diaspora in Manhattan and the Bronx.
eskerfoundation.com
Juan Ortiz-Apuy: Tropicana
January 20 – April 28 2024
Esker Foundation (4th floor, 1011 9th Ave. SE)
Free to explore
This exhibition by Juan Ortiz-Apuy is specially designed for kids and teenagers aged 6 – 14. It casts a critical eye on modern consumer society and advertising aimed at children, which often features animals, colours, sounds and shapes.
eskerfoundation.com
Leonard Suryajaya: Parting Gift for Quarantine Blues
January 20 – April 28 2024
Esker Foundation (4th floor, 1011 9th Ave. SE)
Free to explore
Parting Gift for Quarantine Blues is a site-specific installation that cumulatively reflects on Suryajaya’s past, present and future relations. The installation weaves together images from his two most recent bodies of work.
eskerfoundation.com
Rhonda Weppler and Trevor Mahovsky: Edelweiss
January 20 – April 28 2024
Esker Foundation (4th floor, 1011 9th Ave. SE)
Free to explore
Edelweiss is an immersive and evolving exhibition that invites audiences into a dream-like reflection on memory, home and the passage of time. This installation continues the artists’ investigation of mimicry, alternative economies, communities and relationships that can form around familiar objects, and the flow of these objects through our lives.
eskerfoundation.com
Last Chance + Ongoing Exhibitions
Diane McGeachy: In Good Company
Until January 17, 2024
Congress Coffee (Suite #1A, 215 36th Ave. NE)
Free to explore
Diane McGeachy’s new show In Good Company is an exhibition of everyday use, somewhat ‘amphora’ inspired, hand-built ceramic forms alongside 10 paintings on paper that serve to reveal the character and presence of these vessels.
congresscoffeeyyc.com
ᐊᐧᓴᑲᒪᐱᐊᐧᐠ wasakamapiwak wearable art collective
Until January 27, 2024
Sparrow Artspace (36 4th St. NE)
Prices vary
Wasakamapiwak is a collective of Indigenous artists living and working in Treaty 7 territory, bound together by an engagement with creating wearables. Join the artists for discussions, workshops and visual arts during their residency at Sparrow Artspace.
sparrowartspace.com
Angeline Simon: take more
Until February 4, 2024
Esker Foundation (4th floor, 1011 9th Ave. SE)
Free to explore
The ceramic sculptures in take more offer glimmers of insight into artist Angeline Simon’s childhood, the specificity of her familial traditions and, more broadly, the significance of food and shared meals within Chinese-Malaysian culture.
eskerfoundation.com
Canadian Music Hall of Fame: Nickelback
Until February 2024
Studio Bell, home of the National Music Centre (850 4th St. SE)
With admission
This exhibition features numerous instruments, personal items, concert footage and behind-the-scenes photos. The gallery includes a large video wall outfitted with a full stage display with many of Nickelback’s outfits and customized instruments.
studiobell.ca
Printed Textiles from Kinngait Studios
Until March 3, 2024
Glenbow at the Edison (2nd floor, 150 9th Ave. SW)
Free to explore
Printed Textiles from Kinngait Studios presents the little-known story of a group of artists and printmakers who produced a collection of graphic textiles in Kinngait (formerly Cape Dorset), Nunavut in the 1950s and ’60s — a period of social change that disrupted traditional language and relationships to the land.
glenbow.org
Three Dimensions
Until March 17, 2024
Contemporary Calgary (701 11th St. SW)
With admission
Three Dimensions is an exhibition showcasing the multidisciplinary art practice of Jennifer Marman & Daniel Borins. The show features three installations which combine painting, sculpture, kinetics, interactivity, virtual reality and video.
contemporarycalgary.com
Resistance & Respiration
Until April 14, 2024
Contemporary Calgary (701 11th St. SW)
With admission
How is breathing an athletic act, a dyad of push-pull, a feat of endurance, a political horizon? This exhibition aims to imagine breathing, and breathlessness, as a productive cause for giddiness, a sensation for whirling and a tendency for staggering.
contemporarycalgary.com
11,104 Days: From Artists to Zenith
Ongoing
Newzones Gallery of Contemporary Art (730 11th Ave. SW)
Free to explore
In honour of its 30th anniversary, 11,104 Days: From Artists to Zenith displays each of Newzones’ represented artists, including spectacular new work created by gallery artists in celebration of this milestone.
newzones.com
Music & Wellness
Ongoing
Studio Bell, home of the National Music Centre (850 4th St. SE)
With admission
National Music Centre’s permanent Music & Wellness exhibition taps into the power of music on mental and physical health through a series of powerful video interviews that create an immersive sense of personal conversation.
studiobell.ca
Have a visual arts event that’s not listed? Email us at events@calgaryartsdevelopment.com or fill out this form.
