• Price Free

Spring is always a great time to get out and enjoy yourself, and if you find yourself near Arts Commons, trust us when we say a seasonal exploration is worthwhile. Featuring a new lineup of visual and media arts to check out, you’re sure to find a few surprises in its unique halls.

A Moment of Quiet Reflection

March 1 – June 29, 2018
+15 Soundscape, Arts Commons

Tona Ohama is an electronic recording artist based in Western Canada who bought his first synthesizer in 1975 at the age of 15. Listen to his meditation about finding a moment of quiet reflection within your busy day. Repetitive bass and piano notes act as constant breathing and heartbeat while field recordings from downtown Calgary ebb and flow and are reflected in the synthesizer tracks that move in and out like waves.
artscommons.ca

Invisible Evidence

March 2 – April 27, 2018
Lightbox Studio, Arts Commons (beside Martha Cohen Theatre)

Kristine Zingeler uses the Lightbox Studio as a crossroads. As a composer and a painter, she explores and reveals the beautiful similarities between two mediums that at first glance seem distant and unrelated.
artscommons.ca

Circlestances, Continuum, The Microverse, and Contained Flow

March 2 – May 25, 2018
Window Galleries, Arts Commons (beside Max Bell Theatre)

With four unique installations from artists Darija S. Radakovic, Carrie Phillips Kieser, Rachel Ziriada and Mikhail Miller, and Anna Burger-Martindale, each one explores the use of physical space, from minimalism to complex visual clutter.
artscommons.ca

Block Parent

March 2 – May 25, 2018
Ledge Gallery, Arts Commons (+15 level overlooking Centre Court)

Through a series of sculptural paintings, Jillian Duschuk’s Block Parent explores the idea that our homes can act as masks. A happy neighbourhood filled with cute character homes could instill a sense of comfort to many pedestrians walking by, but that mask can hide the truth.
artscommons.ca

Line Dance, The Dwindling Dispute, and Infinitude

March 2 – May 25, 2018
Broadcast Lab, Arts Commons

Featuring three visually powerful short films from John Osborne, Kloetzel & Co, and Scott Portingale, make sure you swing by one of three screens to take a gander. The films loop throughout the run.
artscommons.ca

+15 Window Galleries Closing Reception

March 15, 2018, 6:00 – 7:00pm
+15, Arts Commons

Celebrate each of the exhibits hosted in the +15 at this closing reception. Artists will be on hand to speak about their work and everyone is invited to head to the Palomino (109 7th Ave. SW) for drinks afterwards (save 15% off your bill by showing a card from one of the exhibitions). Admission is free and all are welcome.

Good Follower

March 26 – May 25, 2018
The New Gallery’s +15 Window

Sora Park’s research-based practice deals with an ethnographical and anthropological interpretation of subcultures and various issues that emerge. Good Follower utilizes made-up symbols and linguistic cues to depict the artist’s body as it goes through a process of learning how to intentionally oppose socially constructed heteronormative behaviors.
thenewgallery.org

No Rain, No Flowers

March 29 – May 24, 2018
Alberta Craft Council’s +15 Window

A playful representation of clouds and rain, and the necessity of both to grow flowers abundant, swing by to see this nice little metaphor for life created by Stefanie Staples.
albertacraft.ab.ca

Hot Mess

April 6 – May 31, 2018
TRUCK Contemporary Art’s +15 Window

In Madeleine Mayo’s Hot Mess, fluorescent pink light radiates with deceptive openness while an unstoppable leak threatens to affirm the unruly desire for more. Mayo’s practice combines painting and sculpture to employ figurative and abstract tropes to experience of colour, mimetic representation, and her own subjective relationship to love and desire.
truck.ca

To Mutilate/To Create

April 11 – May 30, 2018
Stride Gallery’s +15 Window

An exhibition that culminates into a video, sculpture, and text-based installation, Signy Holm explores the idea of function and reason, and through simple physical interventions, convention and boundaries are questioned.
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Drawing The Curtains: An Oblique Act of Concealment and Lemons, Oranges and Sage

April 12 – May 31, 2018
Untitled Art Society’s +15 Window

Basil AlZeri explores the intricacies of living, where struggling to live and dying to not that different from one another. This evolving installation features ombre curtains in a range of skin tones, the castings of a pot that once held an olive tree, and a casted plug that holds the space of the former plant.
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Magic Girl

May 4 – June 29, 2018
Lightbox Studio, Arts Commons (beside Martha Cohen Theatre)

By creating an intimate space where stories are told, dreams are formed, and curiosity is explored, Rachel Zwambag uses make believe to tell ambiguous narratives, indulging in magic to make something out of nothing like a potion or an imaginary friend.
artscommons.ca

+15 Window Galleries Closing Reception

May 10, 2018, 6:00 – 7:00pm
+15, Arts Commons

Celebrate each of the exhibits hosted in the +15 at this closing reception. Artists will be on hand to speak about their work and everyone is invited to head to the Palomino (109 7th Ave. SW) for drinks afterwards (save 15% off your bill by showing a card from one of the exhibitions). As always, admission is free and all are welcome.

Happenings #12

May 14, 2018, 6:00 – 9:00pm
Arts Commons, Mezzanine Level of Centre Court (above Ca’Puccini)

Celebrate all the great creations at the next Happenings—an art party that is free and open to all ages. Head to Arts Commons for a Monday night of hands-on activities, live performances, and so much more. This time around the theme is whimsy and play.
artscommons.ca

Ongoing Exhibitions

0-3 (Bandera)

Until March 23, 2018
The New Gallery’s +15 Window

Calgary-based emerging artist Miguel Michelena is Venezuelan, American, and Canadian. His work has been based in his multi-cultural background and the current political and social crisis that his home country, Venezuela, is facing. While addressing this matter, he simultaneously raises questions about identity, stereotypes, and the social challenges of being a multinational immigrant.
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The Silence that the Walls Feed Back to Me

Until March 28, 2018
Stride Gallery’s +15 Window

Christina Mathieson examines her role as witness to one’s demise—body mutation, the departed soul, and a levitating spirit—and creates a workplace of loss, an intimate relationship to the grotesque, and a self-reflection on Memento Mori.
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In a Constant State of Flux

Until March 31, 2018
TRUCK Contemporary Art’s +15 Window

Playing with elements of display, illusion, time, and labour, Candice Davies’ In a Constant State of Flux presents mundane objects and occurrences, so that their function, worth, and political utility can be called into question.
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Witness

Until March 31, 2018
Untitled Art Society’s +15 Window

A photographic installation that re-examines an assault that took place outside a gay bar in Humboldt Magnussen’s hometown in hopes to create a dialogue about best practices for action when witnessing violence.
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