On The New Alberta Contemporaries

Whitney Horne, Purgatorium, 2011.

Earlier this week I took in The New Alberta Contemporaries at the Esker Foundation, a Calgary gallery spawned by art patrons and collectors Jim and Susan Hill.  It is a noble endeavour with the goal of providing much needed, high quality gallery space and innovative programming. 

The New Alberta Contemporaries is curated by Caterina Pizanias and includes a plethora recent BFA and MFA program graduates.  The exhibition is meant to provide a leg up for emerging artists, fresh out of school, who face the daunting challenge of building careers from the ground up.  Let’s face it, Canada’s nouveau riche generally lack the philanthropic spirit displayed by the Hills and artist run centres seem increasingly devoted to the works of established artists (many of whom have been showing for decades) or a small cabal of the newly initiated.

I will now briefly launch in to the obvious flaws of the exhibition.  Bear with me, as it must be done and will be over soon.  To begin with the show is too large and, thus, does not fit the gallery space.  The number of artists could easily be shrunk by a third to a half, giving the best and brightest a showcase in which to shine.  As it is now, work is awkwardly crammed together, making it difficult to view without the distraction of other works pushing in around the edges.  I found it hard to “read” each artists work because I couldn’t experience it without being aware of it’s visually noisy neighbours.  

Second, in a space already jammed to the rafters with art, I couldn’t get over the further inclusion of lofty quotes from the likes of Sol LeWitt and Jeanette Winterson.  They are everywhere, plastered to the wall in vinyl, desperately crying out “Look at me, I’m providing smarty-pants context!”  The art works do not need these curatorial interventions to be better understood by the great unwashed and, in fact, they greatly detract from the pieces, like academic boom boxes spewing quote-y-ness.

Finally, the large format works are hung way too high, a problem remedied by any experienced preparator.

OK, now on to the good stuff.  While the show is uneven, there are some real, honest-to-goodness gems hidden in the crowd.  I am over-the-moon infatuated with Whitney Horne’s installation Purgatorium.  Horne’s work is a candy-coloured Popsicle of delight.  It’s cheeky and yet absolutely appealing in it’s materiality.  Her 2D Warrior Motel states “If you are looking for a sign from God, this is it,” and for a mere $49/night (however, there are no vacancies), while Pure Sin, comes in “7 Delicious Flavours.”  In the foreground, a cute, pint-sized critter (reminiscent of Alison Mitchell’s pink, multi-nippled beasties from Ladies Sasquatch) is housed in a fun-fur covered, frothy cage.  Close by, an orange fun-fur upholstered stool welcomes you with a seat of protruding nails.  Purgatorium seems to be all about cheap, shiny promises that will somehow bite you in the ass.

Next on my “hits” list are Patrick Reed’s linocut, monoprints with drawing, and collage titled tanz langsam #2 and tanz langsam #3.  In the first, a disembodied arm wearing a boxing glove floats on an orangey pink, decorative field with a series of hands holding cigarettes and another offering a lighter.  In the second, we see the boxer striking out at a mirage opponent.  Besides being smitten with Reed’s scratchy, graphic, comic strip aesthetic, I love the ambiguity of the works.  Both imply a narrative never fully realized in the images themselves but open to interpretation.

Another favourite is Maria Madacky’s Recollections, a series of acrylic gel panels with graphite and rust hung together as a large multi-paged, 16’ x 8’ work. Although I found it difficult to really enjoy the piece in the Esker space, as it is hemmed in on each side by other artist’s work, I have seen this work displayed at the Trianon Gallery in Lethbridge as part of a larger solo exhibition.  What I enjoy so much about Madacky’s work is that the process is literally embedded in the final product.  There is a sense of intense labour, repetition, and decay always present.


I conclude with Shanell Papp’s Anxiety, 10’ x 5’ wall hanging made of straight pins through black, gessoed fabric.  Anxiety is stunning in its elegance: a shiny, cold, mountain peak rising before us.  It is magnificent but, I confess, knowing Papp’s other work, I have a preference for her playful and more irreverent pieces: a crocheted skeleton complete with organs (from Lab shown at le petit trianon), and pools of velvety fabric blood (from Blood Pools shown at the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery).  The real gift Papp has is for making us look at things we feel uncomfortable about, like our corporeality or our social awkwardness.  

Honorable mentions go to Raina Enss’ Ghost, Eveline Kolijin’s Mesh Suite-Woodland Allemande, Ryan Wolters’ untitled ink drawings on mylar, Craig Le Blanc’s polyurethane rubber signs and Piece, and Daniel Kirk’s containerz (quest for a sense of place).