Earlier this week I was in Edmonton and took in the latest exhibition at the AGA. Now, if you haven’t had the chance to visit the new gallery I would strongly suggest that you think about doing so in the near future - it is a really beautiful addition to the downtown core. The competition for the desigin of the new building closed in 2005 with the commission being awarded to Randall Stout Architects, Inc. After five years of planning, building and anticipation the gallery opened in January of this year.
The three images on the left are of the building, which I found on the Randall Stout Architects, Inc. home page (http://www.stoutarc.com/)
Currently the gallery houses six shows; Reframing a Nation, Edward Burtynsky: Oil, Laura St. Pierre: Urban Vernacular, Henri Matisse; A celebration of Light and Line, Sheila Spence; All About Star, The Symbolist Muse: A Selection of Prints from the National Gallery of Canada. Below are images and blurbs about each show, this info was taken from the AGA website (http://www.youraga.ca/). If you click on the image or title of any one of the below shows, you will be taken to the shows specific page within the AGA website. There you will see more images and information.
In Canada, the myths that surround landscape are powerful. Reframing a Nation explores the role that landscape plays in the construction of Canadian identity. It looks at what these myths are and how they have shaped popular perceptions of our country.
This exhibitions features works from a major donation to the Gallery by the Ernest E. Poole Foundation in 1975, which today forms much of the core of the AGA’s collection of historical Canadian works
This unique exhibition follows Canadian artist Edward Burtynsky’s decade long photographic exploration of the subject of oil. From 1997 to the present, Burtynsky has travelled the world to chronicle the production, distribution and consumption of this critical fuel.
Urban Vernacular features new works by Grande Prairie-based artist Laura St. Pierre. Using our society’s most plentiful resource - trash - as a building material, St. Pierre transforms found urban spaces into temporary installation sites. St. Pierre captures these DIY dwellings and environments in large scale photographs, which reflect our taste for the fashionable and disposable, residing somewhere between the resplendence and absurdity of consumer culture.
This comprehensive exhibition on the career of the great French artist Henri Matisse (1869-1954) showcases over 170 works of art that span 50 years of Matisse's career. HENRI MATISSE: A Celebration of Light and Line loosely follows the chronology of Matisse's career, from the artist's earliest print in 1900 to the last, created in 1951. Examples of every printmaking technique used by Matisse - etchings, monotypes, lithographs, linocuts, aquatints, dry points, woodcuts and color prints - are included.
During the 1880s, artists across Europe began exploring an inner vision and personal vocabulary of form that was opposed to the preoccupation of the Realists and Impressionists with recording the exterior world. Words such as “mystery,” “suggestion,” and “dream” are often used to evoke the strange beauty of Symbolist art.
All About Star features 13 works from Winnipeg artist Sheila Spence’s series of large-scale photographic portraits of cowboys and cowgirls. Shot on locations including the Canadian Rockies International Rodeo in Strathmore and the Wood Mountain Stampede in southern Saskatchewan, Spence’s images investigate the complexities of community and identity as they reflect the mythology behind rodeo culture. These portraits present traditional ideas about this community while provoking questions about the subjects and their individual roles within it.
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