ESKER FOUNDATION Winter 2020 Winter 2020 Esker Foundation

WELCOME

To mark the start of 2020, we thought an exhibition that celebrates COVER IMAGE Katie Ohe, Venetian Puddle, Katie Ohe’s extraordinary sculptural work was both timely and, in many 1977-78. Installation view at Griffin Art Projects, ways, long overdue. Bringing together work spanning six decades of Ohe’s North Vancouver. Courtesy of the artist remarkable career, the exhibition marks the largest and most comprehensive and Herringer Kiss Gallery. solo exhibition of her work to date. The exhibition also draws from Ohe’s Photo by: Byron Dauncey. RIGHT material archive, revealing a glimpse of a process devoted to research, Katie Ohe, Hill, 1985. inquiry, and visual or formal problem solving. Courtesy of the artist and Herringer Kiss Gallery.

While most of the arts community in Alberta understands the importance of Katie Ohe’s sculptures, public and private commissions, teaching legacy, and generations of mentorship; this exhibition aims to introduce her singular practice to a larger audience outside of this province, and to champion her significance as one of Canada’s most important artists.

In the Project Space, we round out our partnership with Calgary’s artist- run centres with Anna Gustafson’s Object Lessons, presented by The New Gallery. Gustafson’s practice highlights the waste of work. Turning to the endless supply of discarded small appliances as her material starting point; Gustafson enshrouds toasters, irons, kettles, stereo equipment, and remote controls in white linen to narrate multiple readings of power, vulnerability, ritual, and destruction.

Since the fall of 2015, we have been quietly working on a project called Permanent Collection. As a non-collecting institution, Esker is defined by the conversations, ideas, and research that emerge around our exhibitions and programming—our model for a permanent collection. For each exhibition season, we have commissioned an open-ended response, which to date has resulted in poems, essays, scores, and letters. This collection of 12 responses will be released digitally in the new year, with subsequent material added every few months.

Esker Foundation continues to present some of the most innovative and forward-thinking engagement programs in the country, and this season is no different. Of note is our new EYE (Esker Youth Engagement) series which offers much needed access for youth to contemporary artists, ideas, and skills, ensuring the next generation of leaders are powerful advocates for the importance and relevance of culture in their communities.

For details on all of our programs and events, visit our website, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter (all @eskerfoundation) or drop by the gallery—you are always welcome here.

Naomi Potter Director/Curator Winter 2020 Esker Foundation 5/32 Katie Ohe Katie Ohe

25 JANUARY–3 MAY This eponymous exhibition—her largest and most Active in the Calgary arts community since comprehensive solo exhibition to date—traces the the mid-1950s, when she began her formal arts For over 60 years, Katie Ohe has been a catalyzing force in development of work through six decades of Ohe’s education at the Provincial Institute of Technology remarkable sculptural practice, from early small-scale and Art, (now the Alberta University of the Arts,) Calgary’s art community as an artist, mentor, teacher, supporter, sculptures concerned with articulations of the figure; Ohe subsequently pursued training in Montreal, and builder. As one of Alberta’s most important artistic figures, to her break from anatomical structures into abstrac- New York City, and Verona. In the early 1960s, a time tion; intricately engineered large-scale kinetic forms; when a tradition of European landscape painting still she has made a significant contribution to the development of floor-based works concerned with the interrelation- had a stronghold on the artistic production in the ship of form, space, and movement; to a brand new province, and very few artists were making sculpture contemporary art in the province and her innovative approaches series of modular sculptures. Shown alongside this at all, Ohe became one of the first artists in Alberta to material, form, movement, and participation have been a body of work is a selection of objects from Ohe’s to make abstract sculpture. She began to utilize material archive—maquettes, sketches, studies, and a variety of new materials, skills, and techniques, meaningful influence for generations. small works—that illuminate her ongoing research including the use of prefabricated objects and and processes of material experimentation, formal industrial processes. Through her work and her problem solving, and her continuum of thought. teaching practice, (she taught at the Alberta College of Art and Design from the early 1960s until her retirement in 2016,) Ohe became a major influence on the sculptural practice in the region.

Katie Ohe, Weeping Bees, 2008. Katie Ohe in her studio, August 2019. Courtesy of the artist and Herringer Kiss Gallery. Courtesy of AvidEye Productions.

7/32 Katie Ohe

Embracing elements of reductive geometry, shift toward a warmer, textured surface and a more repetition, and visual harmony, Ohe has developed diffuse and softer reflection of light. These works a body of work that is at once connected to are both more elemental and more figurative, and Minimalism through its purity and unity of form, movement is principled on the contemplatively but is also affective, idiosyncratic, sensual, and rhythmic swing of ringed pendulums. concerned with personal experience, memory, and the perception of the natural world. Ohe’s floor-based series of works such as Typhoon (1984), Monsoon (2006, 2011), and Chuckles (2015) She is perhaps best known for her masterful kinetic utilize powder coating and colour to induce intuitive sculptures. Beginning in the early 1970s, after much touch. The collective movement of these groupings thought and experimentation with ways to rise emphasizes the importance of the space around above familiar heavy and static sculptural forms the sculptures, their relationship to each other, and to achieve a sense of weightlessness, dynamism, to the viewer. When the sculptures are collectively fluidity, and optical confusion, Ohe perceived in motion, their unique movements and spatial that changes in sculptural configuration through relationships generate a situation wherein the mind movement coupled with a viewer’s physical and and eye cannot immediately comprehend the logic physiological interaction would be essential in of form and space. realizing these goals. To that end, much of her work since that point is distinguished by its Although they appear simple and minimal, each of radically tactile nature. The quality of surface Ohe’s works is extremely labour intensive and tech- became inextricably important to the success of her nically precise. Their creation often involves years sculptures; works such as Horizontal Loops (1973), of experimentation, trial and error, engineering, and Zipper (1975), Upper Flow (1975-76), and Venetian fabrication to create the correct effect and affect Puddle (1977-78) were chromed and polished to a through movement. Her sculptures have agency; perfect, seductive smoothness, which would, as Ohe they are active, vital, and compel you to touch often remarks, “induce or provoke touch before you them. Ohe’s work reminds us that seeing is not the think that you really shouldn’t.” Movement intro- only form of perceiving our environment; that the duces an integral element to the space within and relationship among the visual, physical, poetic, and surrounding the sculptures, which in turn influences psychological compose a way of knowing the world the perception of their form. Combinations of undu- rooted in comprehensive and intellectual challenge lating, spiralling, fluidly shimmering and reflective and disruption. shapes generate a sense of visual instability and optical uncertainty—and also a sense of humour BIOGRAPHY and playfulness—which makes the viewer and Katie Ohe is a renowned Canadian sculptor and one of their experience an essential part of the work. the first artists to make abstract sculpture in Alberta. Born in 1937 in Peers, Alberta, Katie Ohe studied at the Alberta The 1980s introduced other external influences College of Art (now AUArts), the Montreal School of Art to her oeuvre and generated new ways of thinking and Design, the Sculpture Centre in New York, and and making. The ambitiously scaled installation, Fonderia Fabris in Verona, Italy. Skyblock (1981-82), a configuration of suspended Ohe’s work has been exhibited across Canada and horizontal bars branching into a spiral herringbone internationally, in addition to numerous commissioned pattern, was originally designed as a proposal for a works installed throughout Alberta. Her work is also represented in collections including the Canada Council public commission in the Gulf Canada Building. The Art Bank, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the Shell work was conceived as a way to bring the viewer Collection, The University of Calgary, and the Glenbow within an immersive environment of reflective mat- Museum. In 1991 Katie received the ACAD Alumni Award of erial and into a physical relationship with the idea of Excellence Award (formerly the Board of Governors’ Award an infinitely changing linear pattern. Although Ohe of Excellence) and in 2001 was the recipient of an honorary didn’t receive the public commission, she proceeded doctorate from the University of Calgary in recognition of her influence on art in Alberta. In 2019, she became a member of to fabricate the work on a smaller scale. In 1983, the Alberta Order of Excellence and received the Lieutenant Ohe travelled to Japan and there drew insight Governor of Alberta Distinguished Artist Award. from traditional rock gardens and their elemental Katie Ohe is represented by Herringer Kiss Gallery, Calgary. sense of contemplation. Kinetic works from the IMAGES, CLOCKWISE: Katie Ohe, Zipper, 1975. Collection of Nickle Galleries, University of Calgary. Photo by: Serita Rana. mid-1980s to early 1990s, such as Drummer Boys Katie Ohe, Squat Lady (Guardian Series), 1988-89. (1988) and works from the Guardian series deployed Courtesy of the artist and Herringer Kiss Gallery. new, more earthy materials such as cast and tinted Katie Ohe, Muse, 2001. Courtesy of the artist and aluminum and aggregate stone, which introduced a Herringer Kiss Gallery. Winter 2020 Esker Foundation 9/32 Anna Gustafson

UPCOMING IN PROJECT THE PROJECT SPACE Anna Gustafson SPACE Kasia Sosnowski 27 April–19 July Object Lessons

3 FEBRUARY–19 APRIL Presented in partnership with The New Gallery

As we deplete the earth’s resources to manufacture and power consumer products, we destroy ecosystems. When such objects are deemed obsolete, these pieces of our contemporary material culture are consigned to landfills and further continue the sequence of ecological devastation.

In response to the destructive cycle of late capitalist Biography consumer culture, Anna Gustafson began enshrouding Anna Gustafson was conceived in Guatemala to an Italian/ discarded appliances in old, white linen; a manner Guatemalan mother and Swedish father. She was born in historically used by many cultures to prepare the dead Sweden and raised in Vancouver. Gustafson’s view throughout her lifetime has benefited from being nurtured in a multi-cul- for burial. Intrigued by this ritual, the material problem tural family within an immigrant perspective. An important solving, the physical, repetitive labour involved, and premise of her work is that we best remember information and of course, the enveloped object’s transformation, events through our senses and associated emotions. With a Gustafson came to understand this process as a way strong sensory component, her work encourages each viewer to individuate each item, and to honour the destruction to develop their own emotional responses and fully absorb the necessary to make and power them. information presented. Her artistic practice combines a spare aesthetic with a sincere use of materials, and rigorous meth- odology to create narratives that resonate with the synergy Beginning with nearly any small abandoned appliance between idea, material, and technique. She chooses to work she could find—in particular kitchenware, including with a limited palette and a restricted vocabulary of natural kettles, toasters, pots, and irons—Gustafson’s materials and found objects. She is an honours graduate of focus soon shifted to encompass objects that might Vancouver School of Art (now Emily Carr University of Art + resonate more strongly and universally upon contem- Design). Gustafson has shown in public galleries since 1974. porary, common ground: consumer electronics such About The New Gallery as remote controls, entertainment electronics, The New Gallery (TNG) is an artist-run centre located in and film and slide projectors. By enshrouding these Mohkinstsis, also known as Calgary, on the ancestral and ubiquitous items, Gustafson’s work extends a broad traditional territories of the people of the Treaty 7 region in address to those that hold the decision-making power Southern Alberta. This charitable centre for contemporary art was established in 1975 as the Clouds & Water Gallery and behind the destruction of our natural world. Visual Production Society. Currently, TNG operates the Main Space — an exhibition venue in a storefront of the historic For this installation of Object Lessons, Gustafson Canton Block in Calgary Chinatown — and the Resource includes the ubiquitous leaf blower. Once disruptors Centre — a combined library/archive located across from the in our neighbourhoods, they now float mutely Main Space in Ng Tower. These venues support the research, through their new context of decommissioned creation, and exhibition of socially relevant and politically informed creative practices from artists at all junctures of their remote controls. careers, while enabling a public engagement with artist-run culture and contemporary art. TNG’s programming comprises CALL TO COMMUNITY a broad range of art and educational activities, including exhibitions, publications, residencies, offsite projects, and As part of this exhibition Gustafson has made a community collaborations that serve to invigorate audiences’ call out to the community for contributions to the experience of contemporary art and culture. ongoing Object Lessons project by donating items that will be enshrouded. Gustafson is currently collecting remote controls, film and slide projectors, film cans, slide carousels, and flashlights, along with white cotton and linen fabric for shrouding.

Anna Gustafson, Remote & Obsolete, 2017-ongoing. Donations can be brought to The New Gallery from Courtesy of the artist. Photo by: Sophia Burke. February 3 to April 19. thenewgallery.org Winter 2020 Esker Foundation 11/32 PROGRAMS

FAMILY PROGRAMS

PROGRAMS Esker Foundation provides free public programming in response to our current exhibitions to encourage participation and increase accessibility to contemporary art.

REGISTER

online eskerfoundation.com/program/current/ or call 403 930 2490

We request that you please Tickets are non-transferrable. provide 72 hours notice for All programming requires that cancellations so we can offer an adult accompany children your ticket to the waitlist. under the age of 16.

Registration essential, opens: After attending a family program enjoy WEDNESDAY 15 January, 29 January, a 10% discount at Bite Grocer & Eatery, 26 February, 25 March Gravity Espresso & Wine Bar, Scarpetta 11AM Italian Eatery, and Sidewalk Citizen Bakery.

Mini Masters Bring the Baby Art Tour Master Class for Families AGES 3–5 & Tummy Time AGES 5–10 THURSDAYS FOR BABIES SUNDAYS 6 February, 5 March, FRIDAYS 23 February, 15 March, 2 April 7 February, 6 March, 3 April, 1 May 19 April 11–11:45AM 12–1PM 1–2:30PM Calling Calgary’s newest This program is designed for babies Join us for an afternoon of family Contemporaries! Mini Masters is and their guardians! We start with a fun at the gallery as we delve into a workshop series for children aged casual half-hour tour of our current new mediums with art projects 3 to 5 where we explore themes in exhibitions, followed by a half-hour of and activities that connect to our our current exhibitions through art ‘tummy time’ social fun for the little current exhibitions. This is a fun and making, movement and play. From ones. Tummy time will center around educational program where kids aged yoga to dance, painting to print- artist Yvonne Mullock’s extraordinary 5-10 have the opportunity to respond making, each month we discover interactive sensory blanket, created creatively to the work featured in new mediums and techniques in all especially for babies to explore and the gallery space. Younger siblings art forms. A parent or guardian is enjoy following the exhibition tour. are welcome to join. An adult is required to stay for the duration of Come for the tour at 12 or just for required to stay for the duration of the program. All materials will be tummy time at 12:30. the workshop, and is encouraged to provided. Dress for mess! participate in the class. All materials will be provided. Winter 2020 Esker Foundation 13/32 PROGRAMS

EYE: ESKER YOUTH ENGAGEMENT TALKS

Rebellious: Alberta Women Artist Talk with Anna Gustafson Crash Course: Discussions Artists in Conversation in Contemporary Art FRIDAY TUESDAY 7 February THURSDAYS 28 January 6:30–7:30PM 13 February, 19 March, 23 April 6–7:30PM Anna Gustafson uses discarded 7–8:30PM Esker Foundation and the Art Gallery appliances and single-use plastics in Are you intrigued by performance of Alberta are pleased to present an her work, shining a light on habitat loss art, sound art, or public art? Interested evening of conversation with some of and environmental destruction. Join in architecture and design? Brilliant Alberta’s most influential artists. AGA Gustafson for an artist talk where she creative thinkers, local artists, curators Curator Lindsey Sharman will mod- will share insights into her on-going and academics host this monthly

I’M SO ANGRY I MADE A SIGN A I MADE ANGRY I’M SO and Meszaros with Sondra Tees Signs, Pins & Protest Serwa. Rose Jodie by: Photo Esker, at EYE workshop Trash, Jane erate a series of conversations with project Object Lessons currently on seminar series that explores a variety artists featured in the current AGA display in the Project Space, and her of topics related to current issues in Esker Youth Engagement is a new initiative designed to connect youth FREE! No registration required. exhibition Rebellious: Alberta Women creative practice as a whole. contemporary art. Come with a friend to contemporary art and artists through creative activities. This includes Artists in the 1980s, discussing their Registration recommended, or make a new one while expanding free public programs as well as partnerships with community organisations careers, practices and what it means opens 15 January. your knowledge of the contemporary and schools that offer alternative education frameworks. to be a woman artist, then and now. art scene! Artist Talk with Katie Ohe Sculpting with Light: shiny, transparent or reflective. It Participants are encouraged to bring Speakers: Thursday 13 February Sans façon (Tristan Surtees Found Materials, Light, can be anything from a broken mirror an item of clothing they want to work Vera Gartley, Toyo Kawamura, SATURDAY 4 April and Charles Blanc) and Guerilla Public Art to a shiny wrapper, but it should be on, but this is not required. Lylian Klimek, Katie Ohe, and something you’d normally throw out. Teresa Posyniak. 1–2PM Registration opens 15 January. with Caitlind r.c. Brown No experience necessary. Join Katie Ohe for an artist talk about Thursday 19 March and Wayne Garrett No experience necessary. All materials will be provided. Registration recommended, Dress for the weather. opens 15 January. her work and practice. A renowned Su Ying Strang AGES 13–17, but flexible Canadian sculptor and one of the first Registration opens 26 February. Power Tools Sculpture Studio The exhibition Rebellious: Alberta artists to make abstract sculpture in FRIDAY Upcycling: DIY Patches and with Katie Ohe and Magnus Women Artists in the 1980s is on at Thursday 23 April Alberta, Ohe is best known for her 28 February Visible Stitches with Fashion Tiesenhausen the AGA through 17 February 2020, Shannon Norberg kinetic steel works whose otherworldly 4–6PM Designers Kristi Woo and and features 24 artists: Registration opens 25 March. AGES 13–17, but flexible seamlessness and lightness belie the At this hands-on workshop youth are Claudia Franco-Slater Sandra Bromley, Catherine Burgess, FRIDAY intricacy of their internal machinery. Registration essential. Space is invited to construct miniature light Isla Burns, Joane Cardinal Schubert, AGES 13–17, but flexible 17 April limited to 20 participants per class. sculptures from everyday objects. In Vera Gartley, Alexandra Haeseker, Registration recommended, 4–6PM the second half of the workshop we’ll FRIDAY Joice M. Hall, Faye HeavyShield, opens 15 January. bring the light sculptures out into the 20 March Join artists Katie Ohe and Magnus Liz Ingram, Mary Joyce, night streets surrounding Esker for a 4–6PM Tiesenhausen for an experimental Toyo Kawamura, Jane Kidd, guerilla exhibition in the public realm. Come make DIY patches and learn studio workshop where you’ll build a Lylian Klimek, Pauline McGeorge, How does light change darkness? How basic visible mending stitches from sculpture of your own design using Rita McKeough, Katie Ohe, does art change public space? We look local fashion designer Kristi Woo, wood, metal and power tools. Lyndal Osborne, Jane Ash Poitras, forward to exploring together! founder and designer for Riyoko and No experience necessary. Teresa Posyniak, Mary Scott, Arlene Stamp, Leila Sujir, Materials will be provided, including Assemble Work/Shop, and designer All materials will be provided. Carroll Taylor-Lindoe, and battery-powered light sources, found and professional seamstress Claudia Wendy Toogood. materials, an overhead projector and Franco-Slater. Make your loved clothes more. However, we challenge you to last longer and make personalized More information on the exhibition bring an object you would normally fashion statements with the clothes can be found at www.youraga.ca/ throw away, and that is you wear! exhibitions/rebellious 15/32 PROGRAMS

WORKSHOPS

Transforming Objects with Sculpture Studio Workshop: Living Breathing Sculpture: Anna Gustafson Katie Ohe with DanceAbility® Workshop for SATURDAY Magnus Tiesenhausen All Bodies and Minds with 8 February SATURDAY Momo Movement 1–4PM 7 March SATURDAY In her practice engaged with 1–4PM 25 April technology, obsolescence and habitat Join artists Katie Ohe and Magnus 1–2:30PM destruction, artist Anna Gustafson Tiesenhausen in experimentation and Join Momo Movement, a dance uses linen and thread to enshroud creation. Using a range of materials, company for people with and without discarded manufactured objects. This participants will explore shape, texture disabilities, for an accessible work- enshrouding creates startling beautiful and movement through building shop for all bodies, minds and ages and mysterious sculptures. In this sculptures of their own design. inspired by Esker’s current exhibition. workshop Gustafson will demonstrate DanceAbility® is an inclusive meth- how common everyday objects such Registration essential, opens 29 January. odology designed to support each as flashlights and remote controls are person’s unique way of moving their transformed by this process. Folding Kinetic Forms body in space. Participants will move Participants must bring a flashlight with Eveline Kolijn solo and as a group, drawing inspi- or remote control to the workshop— ration from the shapes and textures all other materials will be supplied. SATURDAY of the sculptures in the exhibition to 21 March Registration essential, explore their bodies’ relationship to 1–4PM opens 15 January. the space around them, and each Finding inspiration in Katie Ohe’s other. The workshop will culminate in Our Bodies as Sculpture in many kinetic sculptures, participants a group exercise that builds a living, Motion with Pam Tzeng in this workshop will explore how breathing sculpture created by the a simple sheet of paper can be unique characteristics of each person SATURDAY transformed into a three-dimensional in the room. No experience required. 29 February shape with dynamic properties. By All people welcome. 1–4PM adding colours and designs on the Registration essential, Take a breath and explore Katie Ohe’s folded sculptures interesting optical opens 25 March. work in motion. This workshop, led effects can be created. by choreographer and movement Registration essential, educator Pam Tzeng, begins by inviting opens 26 February. participants to awaken their senses through the GYROKINESIS® Method Date Night at Esker: —a gentle and invigorating therapeutic Kinetic Connections with exercise that mobilizes the spine and supple strength and space in the body Suzanne Presinal through holistic, circular and spiraling FRIDAY motions. With a spirit of play and 24 April communion, Tzeng will then lead the 6:30–8PM group through a series of small dances Explore an evening of Kinetic and games, offering experiential insight Connections with local artist and into ways touch can provoke move- maker Suzanne Presinal. Dive into ment and movement can alter space. the world of design thinking and With bodies and curiosities primed, investigate the Maker Culture. the workshop will end with solo and “With blocks of wood, springs, collective interactive explorations of assorted hardware and more tools Ohe’s kinetic creations. than necessary, can we make No experience required. connections with movement to and from each other? What could that Wear comfortable clothing to ‘sound like,’ how might we engage move in. We will move in bare in new ways at this perfect evening feet and socks. at Esker?” No maker experience Registration essential, necessary, bring a date or a friend opens 29 January. and come get creative with us! Cash bar. For participants aged 18+ Registration essential,

Hoop Dance workshop with Sandra Lamouche, 2019. with Sandra Dance workshop Hoop opens 25 March. Winter 2020 Esker Foundation 17/32 The Kiyooka Ohe Arts Centre TOURS The Kiyooka Ohe Arts Centre

Katie Ohe and her artist husband, Harry Kiyooka believe in giving back to the community that enabled and supported their long careers as teach- ers and artists. They set up the Kiyooka Ohe Arts Centre (KOAC) in 2007, donating 20 acres of land in Springbank, their home, studios, an art library and their personal art collection, plus a generous endowment fund.

Their vision is to foster contemplation and creativity in a natural forest and wetlands habitat, focusing on Retreat, Research and Residence, and promoting and experiencing contemporary art through exhibi- tions, research, lectures, symposia, workshops, and residencies.

Registration for all free tours opens from 15 January. The KOAC collects and preserves modern contemporary sculpture—from monumental- scale to site-specific earthworks including works Be Who You Are: Exhibition What’s on the edge became The sublime and moving space by Ray Arnett, Roy Leadbeater, Michael Sandle, Tour with Katherine Ylitalo a centre: Curator’s Tour with between them: Curator’s Tour Charles Robert Boyce, Evan Penny, Christian Shauna Thompson with Elizabeth Diggon SATURDAY Eckhart, Alex Caldwell, and Katie Ohe, just to 22 February SATURDAY SUNDAY name a few. With more than 100 pieces, KOAC’s 1–2PM 18 April 3 May sculpture park has the potential of creating the Katie Ohe’s words of encouragement 1–2PM 1–2PM largest of its kind in Western Canada. will set the tone for this tour through Join curator Shauna Thompson for Many of Katie Ohe’s works are fully the exhibition. Katherine Ylitalo shares a walking tour through the work of activated only by the push of a human At the Kiyooka Ohe Arts Centre, nature is the gallery. her experience of knowing Katie legendary Calgary artist, Katie Ohe. hand. Each of her kinetic sculptures Ohe for over thirty years as we enjoy This tour will focus on the develop- are internally engineered to facilitate the magic of setting Ohe’s kinetic ment and influence of this important a particular movement pattern, with As part of its legacy, a priority for KOAC is the sculptures in motion and investigate artist and mentor, and will explore chromed, polished, or powder-coated protection of 10 acres of Aspen, Birch, and first her exploration of abstract form Ohe’s ongoing experimentation surfaces that are designed to be growth forests as a green corridor and woods and movement. with material, form, movement, and irresistible to touch. This exhibition sanctuary. The landscape is being carefully devel- spatial, bodily, and environmental tour will focus on Ohe’s singular oped to maximize the presence of artworks against Tour and Studio Visits at the Making Lightning: Curator’s relationships throughout the evolution approach to movement and material nature while encouraging viewers to fan out and Kiyooka Ohe Arts Centre Tour with Naomi Potter of 60 years of sculpture. across six decades of artistic practice. mill the grounds. During the summer months, KOAC 244034 Horizon View Road, Calgary SUNDAY visitors can stroll designed walkways that meander Lifelong Learners SATURDAY 1 March through the botanic garden and the sculpture park. 1–2PM WEDNESDAY 2 May Katie says KOAC wants to encourage everyone to 1–3:30PM This exhibition tour will focus on 22 April see that there is no “wrong” way to look at art. “We Katie Ohe’s lifelong obsession with 2:30–3:15PM Join us for a tour of the Kiyooka Ohe Arts Centre, an want the general public to enjoy art,” she says. “It intimate experience that offers a look into the studios material, movement, and making. Seniors are invited to join us for a doesn’t require special education, only the fun and Focusing on the development of tour and discussion of the current and home of two talented visionaries and important the pleasure that lies in applying our imagination.” ideas through drawing, scale models, exhibitions in a relaxed, social environ- working artists: Katie Ohe and Harry Kiyooka. We’ll take a or rough drafts, this tour will trace ment. Explore new ideas and engage fabulous journey through the space and grounds, with rich the evolution of Ohe’s process from creatively with arts and culture. conversation and stories shared about both artists’ work playful doodles to complex, highly and creative practices. engineered works that defy logic and Dress for walking outdoors on uneven terrain, and spark wonder with each encounter. koartscentre.org intermittent weather conditions.

This tour will be American Sign Katie Ohe at the Kiyooka Ohe Arts Centre, 2019. Bus transportation provided. Language (ASL) interpreted. Photo by: Doug Levis. Registration essential, opens 25 March. Space is limited. Winter 2020 Esker Foundation 19/32 Permanent WATCH & LISTEN Co llection DIGITAL READER AND PUBLISHING PROJECT

Esker Foundation is pleased to announce the launch of Permanent Collection. For each season of exhibitions, Esker commissions a response from compelling voices within or beyond the visual arts. We ask contributors to consider each of the current exhibitions together as a means of generating new ideas and connections about and between the artworks from a new perspective. Our contributors have ranged from poets, to neuroscientists, to design advocates, and art historians, who have crafted prose, poetry, letters, and musical scores.

As a non-collecting institution, Esker is defined by the conversations, ideas, and research that emerge Parmela Attariwala around our exhibitions and programming—this is our model for a permanent collection. We see Billy-Ray Belcourt Permanent Collection, accessible in an online digital reader format, as an expanded exhibition space Amery Calvelli that explores the latent connections and points of resonance between and within exhibitions and Mark Clintberg between disciplines. Permanent Collection offers a forum for experimentation, and for innovative, Cobra Collins transdisciplinary approaches to discussing art and exhibitions. Adam Dickinson Watch & Listen to explore more art at Esker. LAUNCH AND READINGS WITH Josh Edwards SPECIAL GUEST CONTRIBUTORS Merray Gerges We’re expanding access to our audio tours & interviews, and artist We’ll be posting new content and FRIDAY, 27 MARCH, 6–8PM digital resources! You’ll now find talks. Listen to insights from our revisiting our favourite interviews All welcome. Heather Igloliorte everything, including content artists, curators, programmers, and videos throughout the coming previously found on the Esker app, preparators, and community months. Follow us on our social Join us to celebrate the launch of this digital reader Areum Kim on our new Watch & Listen page. members to discover more about media for notifications about and publishing project. Follow us on social media Visit eskerfoundation.art to check our exhibitions and programs. new updates. @EskerFoundation for project updates and further Andrea Protzner out our latest mini-documentaries, launch information. Diana Sherlock VISIT: Michael Turner eskerfoundation.art/watch&listen Stills courtesy of AvidEye Productions Winter 2020 Esker Foundation

UPCOMING EXHIBITION Liz Magor One Bedroom Apartment 30 MAY–5 SEPTEMBER OPENING: Friday 29 May, 6–10PM

As one of Canada’s most important artists, Liz Magor has been producing a broad spectrum of sculptural objects, installations, and photography since the mid-1970s. She is best known for sculptures made from both found and cast objects that quietly, yet intensely pull our focus to the things that surround us everyday. Often presenting delicate items in harsh places, Magor creates structures that support fragile and vulnerable things; a practice, one could say, of care. Her work reveals how ordinary objects contain latent qualities that are obscured by our intentions as we acquire, use, and discard these items. In her sculptural arrangements Magor allows things to form relationships with each other that reveal their emotional and historic burdens and strengths.

The singular work One Bedroom Apartment was first One Bedroom Apartment presents a static moment; of the work has addressed different ideas of lifestyle, solo exhibitions at Henry Art Gallery, Seattle (2008); the presented in 1996 at Susan Hobbs Gallery in Toronto. a suspension of daily life. It is quite simply the boxed taste, material and social history. Presenting the Power Plant, Toronto (2003); and the Vancouver Art Gallery Several iterations have since been presented at and wrapped contents of a one-bedroom apartment, work in Calgary in 2020 reflects a moment in which (2002). Magor is the recipient of the Gershon Iskowitz Prize (2014), the Audain Prize for Lifetime Achievement (2009), galleries including The David Ireland House in San waiting to be moved, unpacked, or put into storage. the act of packing up and moving evokes a present and the Governor General’s Award (2001). She represented Francisco, the Kunstverein in Hamburg, Triangle These material belongings have served us, but and foreseeable future of insecurity and transience. Canada at the 41st Venice Biennale, and participated in France in Marseilles, and the Doris McCarthy Gallery at times they feel like dead weight, a drag on our the 4th Biennale of Sydney and dOCUMENTA (8). Magor in Scarborough. In each version, the entire contents mobility. Setting aside the narrative of the owners, BIOGRAPHY is represented by Susan Hobbs Gallery, Toronto; Catriona of a one-bedroom apartment are pulled together One Bedroom Apartment offers an opportunity for Liz Magor lives and works in Vancouver. In 2017, her work Jeffries, Vancouver; and Marcelle Alix, Paris. through a combination of renting and borrowing, the things themselves to express anxiety, aspiration, was the subject of a traveling survey exhibition at at the the only constant being a sculpture of a dog that faith, and resilience. They are not plans or ideas, but Kunstverein in Hamburg; Migros Museum, Zurich; and MAMAC, Nice. Other recent solo exhibitions of her work maintains its anxious position under a table. things, persistently and stubbornly real. While the include: Centre d’art contemporain d’Ivry—le Crédac, Paris temptation may be to organize and assess this pile (2016); Musée d’art Contemporain de Montréal (2016); the of belongings, there is no clear narrative given, and Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (2015); Peep-hole, Milan Liz Magor, One Bedroom Apartment, 1996 so no way to sort through it logically. Each iteration (2015); Presentation House Gallery, Vancouver (2014); and Courtesy of the artist and Susan Hobbs Gallery, Triangle France, Marseille (2015). In addition, she has had Toronto. Photo by: Isaac Applebaum. Winter 2020 Esker Foundation

UPCOMING EXHIBITION Samuel Roy-Bois Presences 30 MAY–5 SEPTEMBER OPENING: Friday 29 May, 6-10pm

Curated by Charo Neville

Samuel Roy-Bois’ artistic practice involves site- BIOGRAPHIES specific installations concerned with the conceptual Samuel Roy-Bois is widely recognized for his large-scale and material definition of space and the ways the installations and his interdisciplinary practice which includes built environment contributes to our understanding sculpture, installation, performance, photography, drawing, of the world. and writing. Roy-Bois explores the role of objects in our relationship with the world, the history of architecture, Through sculpture, photography, and installation, the critique of different modes of cultural production, and the pure pleasure of making. His work has been presented Roy-Bois examines the relational network of objects at Carleton University Art Gallery, Ottawa; Musée d’art and their historical resonance: How do we define contemporain de Montréal; Contemporary Art Gallery, ourselves through the creation of structures? Is it Vancouver; Musée National des Beaux Arts du Québec; possible to conceive of one’s existence outside any SFU Art Gallery, Burnaby; Oakville Art Galleries; Kamloops material linkage? We make things, but are things Art Gallery; Vancouver Art Gallery; and Point éphémère, making us? Paris. Originally from Québec City, Roy-Bois is based in the Okanagan, where he is Assistant Professor of Sculpture in the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies at the University For this new body of work, first exhibited at the of British Columbia’s Okanagan Campus and heads The Kamloops Art Gallery in 2019, Roy-Bois has created Research Studio for Spaces and Things, an interdisciplinary an ensemble of constructed and found objects that lab for creative exchange. consider our contemporary material knowledge. His Charo Neville is Curator at the Kamloops Art Gallery, where architectural structures act as vessels for everyday she has developed a program of contemporary, historical, objects, point to the ways in which human experi- and touring exhibitions along with publications since 2011. ence is inextricably linked to manufactured things She graduated with a Master of Arts degree in Critical and spaces, and how the greater meaning of our Curatorial Studies from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver in 2006. Neville has held positions as Curatorial existence is mediated through things. Referencing Assistant at the Vancouver Art Gallery; Associate Director what the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard at Catriona Jeffries Gallery and Interim Curator/Director at called “hyperreality,” a mode of existence based Artspeak, both in Vancouver. Neville also served on the on the mediated real where fiction and non-fiction Board of Directors at the Western Front, Vancouver from are indistinguishable, Roy-Bois’ sculptures and 2006 to 2010. In 2014 Neville initiated the first outdoor photographs of momentary sculptures (which exist video projection exhibition throughout downtown Kamloops, called Luminocity, which is now presented every two years. only long enough to document) reveal our tenuous She has also facilitated permanent public art projects relationship with the real. Through re-presenting throughout Kamloops. Neville has contributed to publications everyday objects in improvisational and new ways, such as Fillip, Yishu, West Coast Line and Blackflash and Roy-Bois’ blurs the boundaries between art and life participated on visual art juries, including the 2013 Sobey and shifts the ordinary into a poetic dimension. Art Award.

Samuel Roy-Bois: Presences is organized and circulated by the Kamloops Art Gallery. Support for Samuel Roy-Bois, installation view of the the development and production of new works for exhibition Presences at Kamloops Art Gallery. the exhibition provided by Esker Foundation. Photo by SITE Photography. Winter 2020 Esker Foundation 25/32 Jon Sasaki

UPCOMING EXHIBITION

Jon Sasaki 30 MAY–5 SEPTEMBER OPENING: Friday 29 May, 6–10PM

Sasaki resolutely taps and maneuvers burnt BIOGRAPHY out lightbulbs in the hopes of reconnecting the Widely known as a “Romantic conceptualist,” Jon Sasaki’s broken filament and re-illuminating the bulb, if only many projects, videos, photographs, performances, objects, fleetingly. He shakes a pendant lamp with a frayed and installations often revolve around trying to reach dubious cord, which illuminates briefly—tantalizingly—if goals through perversely optimistic means. Currently based shaken just so, before inevitably disconnecting again. in Toronto, Jon Sasaki’s work has been exhibited in solo When faced with the task of scaling a wall, he stacks exhibitions at the Ottawa Art Gallery (2015); the Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge (2011); the Art Gallery of small stepladders on top of one another. Sasaki’s Ontario, Toronto (2011); as well as a 2015 performance relentlessness evokes the minor anxieties induced by project at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. the failure of everyday objects theoretically designed Sasaki has participated in recent group exhibitions at the for convenience. At the same time, the futility of Nihonbashi Institute of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2018); Sasaki’s actions transform these objects into National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul conduits for improvisation—their original function (2017); Platform Art Spaces, Melbourne (2014); and the shifts to a more fluid, open-ended space. Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto (2014). He has completed recent public art commissions for Sheridan College, Oakville, and the City of Barrie, Ontario, and – along Improvised Travel Adapters (2018-ongoing) with collaborator Jennifer Davis – was the recipient of a 2017 Jon Sasaki’s multidisciplinary practice delves documents an ongoing series of temporary Concepts award from the Ontario Association of Architects. sculptures comprised of repurposed objects, He was the recipient of the 2015 Canadian Glenfiddich Artists into the potentially generative outcomes of jury rigged to serve as adapters for international in Residence Prize (Dufftown, Scotland.) Sasaki holds a BFA electric sockets. Well-intentioned warnings placed from Mount Allison University, Sackville. He is represented by failure and futility. Sasaki’s solo exhibition at Clint Roenisch Gallery, Toronto. in hotel rooms urging travellers to avoid using Esker Foundation will centre around a selection multiple devices at once are scorned as Sasaki engineers travel adapters by jamming safety pins, of his videos from the past decade that depict paper clips, or nail files between a plug and a socket. the artist’s persistent, sometimes reckless refusal Through this flirtation with failure – and possible electric shock – Sasaki evokes the disorientation of to accept the obsolescence or inadequacy of arriving somewhere new and being confronted with everyday objects. the need to improvise and make do, heightened by our intense dependence on electronic devices.

Sasaki’s videos operate as wry visual jokes that revel in the absurdities and frustrations of our relationship to the things that surround us and our habits of consumption. In the same breath, they offer a deeper meditation on our complicity in the destructive,

Jon Sasaki, Improvised Travel Adapters series, cyclical process of consuming, discarding, and 2018–ongoing. Courtesy of the artist. re-consuming manufactured goods. Winter 2020 Esker Foundation 27/32 BOOKSHOP AT ESKER

CONNECT BOOKSHOP AT ESKER

Lantern Library TITLES IN THE LIBRARY Explore the Bookshop at Esker on Community Evening: Permanent Collection The Lantern Library is a curated, publicly available your next visit, or browse and purchase Launch with Special Guests reference library that accompanies our current BOOKS Esker titles and more via our new online FRIDAY exhibitions. Exhibiting artists and curators are Isamu Noguchi: A Sculptor’s World, R. Buckminster Fuller 27 March invited to suggest book titles that reflect their & Isamu Noguchi Bookshop at eskerfoundation.com/shop 6–8PM current or past research interests or that offer For this iteration of Community Evening Esker will be Made in Calgary: An Exploration of Art from the 1960s to insight into their work. It offers opportunities for celebrating the launch of our Permanent Collection— the 2000s, edited by Melanie Kjorlien and Lindsay Moir At the bookshop you will discover a further reflection and discovery, with the recognition selection of publications and limited an online series of contributions by writers, poets, that there are many different ways to approach an Constantin Brancusi, Carolyn Lanchner neuroscientists, design advocates, and art historians artwork or an exhibition. editions including recent artist totes who have crafted prose, poetry, letters, and musical An Alberta Art Chronicle, Mary-Beth Laviolette by Nep Sidhu and Jeffrey Gibson, along scores in response to our exhibitions. No registration required, just drop in. The Little Lantern Library A History of Art in Alberta 1905-1970, Nancy Townshend with elegantly designed pins and If you are visiting Esker with little ones, an patches by GuyGuyGuy. imaginative selection of children’s books chosen Katie Ohe, Nancy Townshend, Katherine Ylitalo by gallery staff and volunteers is available in the The Japanese Garden, Sophie Walker Look out for exciting new events, pop-ups, Lantern to help you explore some of the themes readings and new publications by Jeremy and ideas in our exhibitions from the comfort of Louise Nevelson: I Must Recompose the Environment, our cozy reading nook. Jennifer Wulffson Bedford Shaw and Katie Ohe, upcoming in 2020.

Winter 2020 Esker Foundation 29/32 Calendar of Events

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

JANUARY FEBRUARY Sunday 23 February MARCH Friday 20 March APRIL Wednesday 22 April MAY 1–2:30PM 4–6PM 2:30–3:15PM Wednesday 15 January Thursday 6 February Master Class for Families Sunday 1 March Youth Workshop: Upcycling: Thursday 2 April Lifelong Learners Tour Friday 1 May 11AM 11–11:45AM 1–2PM DIY Patches and Visible 11–11:45AM 12–1PM Early programs Mini Masters Wednesay 26 February Making Lightning: Curator’s Stitches with Fashion Mini Masters Thursday 23 April Bring the Baby Art Tour & registration opens 11AM Tour with Naomi Potter Designers Kristi Woo and 7–8:30PM Tummy Time Claudia Franco-Slater Friday 7 February Programs registration opens Friday 3 April Crash Course Discussions Friday 24 January 12–1PM Thursday 5 March 12–1PM in Contemporary Art with Saturday 2 May Saturday 21 March 6–10PM Friday 28 Feburary 11–11:45AM Shannon Norberg 1–3:30PM Bring the Baby Art Tour 1–4PM Bring the Baby Art Tour Opening reception for & Tummy Time 4–6PM Mini Masters & Tummy Time Tour and Studio Visits at the Folding Kinetic Forms Friday 24 April Katie Ohe Youth Workshop: Sculpting Kiyooka Ohe Arts Centre Workshop with Eveline Kolijn 6:30–8PM Friday 7 February with Light: Found Materials, Friday 6 March Saturday 4 April Tuesday 28 January 6:30–7:30PM Light, and Guerilla Public Art 12–1PM 1–2PM Date Night at Esker: Kinetic Sunday 3 May Wednesday 25 March 6-7:30PM with Caitlind r.c. Brown and Connections with Suzanne 1–2PM Artist Talk with Bring the Baby Art Tour & 11AM Artist Talk with Katie Ohe Rebellious: Alberta Women Anna Gustafson Wayne Garrett Tummy Time Presinal The sublime and moving Artists in Conversation Programs registration opens Friday 17 April space between them: Saturday 8 February Saturday 29 February Saturday 7 March 4–6PM Saturday 25 April Curator’s Tour with Wednesday 29 January 1–4PM 1–4PM 1–4PM Friday 27 March 1–2:30PM Elizabeth Diggon Youth Workshop: Power 11AM 6–8PM Transforming Objects Work- Our Bodies as Sculpture Sculpture Studio Workshop Tools Sculpture Studio with Living Breathing Sculpture: Programs registration opens shop with Anna Gustafson in Motion workshop with Katie Ohe with Community Evening at Katie Ohe & Magnus Tiesen- DanceAbility® Workshop for Pam Tzeng Magnus Tiesenhausen Esker: Permanent Collection hausen All Bodies and Minds with Thursday 13 February Launch with Special Guests Momo Movement 7–8:30PM Sunday 15 March Saturday 18 April 1–2:30PM 1–2PM Crash Course Discussions in Contemporary Art with Sans Master Class for Families What’s on the edge became façon (Tristan Surtees and a centre: Curator’s Tour with Charles Blanc) Thursday 19 March Shauna Thompson 7–8:30PM Saturday 22 February Sunday 19 April Crash Course Discussions in 1–2PM 1–2:30PM Contemporary Art with Su Be Who You Are: Exhibition Ying Strang Master Class for Families Tour with Katherine Ylitalo Winter 2020 Esker Foundation 31/32 INFORMATION

INFORMATION FOR YOUR VISIT INFORMATION FOR YOUR VISIT

9TH AVENUE SE

9 ST SE

R

RIVE

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O 9TH AVENUE SE

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FREE ADMISSION CONTACT US AT Programs are free and open to all. Telephone 403 930 2490 Email [email protected] HOURS Twitter @EskerFoundation Tuesday to Sunday 11-6 @EskerCalgary LAND ACKNOWLEDGMENT ACCESSIBILITY Friday 11-8 Instagram @eskerfoundation Esker Foundation is located on the traditional Esker Foundation is accessible via elevator access Facebook Esker Foundation Monday Closed territories of the Niitsitapi (Blackfoot) and the up to the fourth floor, which is available on all levels Vimeo vimeo.com/esker people of the Treaty 7 region in Southern Alberta, of the building and parkade. A swing door with an PARKING & WIFI which includes the Siksika, the Piikani, the Kainai, automatic door control into the gallery is situated Complimentary Explore the Tsuut’ina, and the Iyarhe Nakoda First Nations. adjacent to the gallery’s revolving door. A wheel- the Bookshop at Esker The City of Calgary is also home to Métis Nation of chair-accessible public washroom is available on the PROGRAM REGISTRATION Alberta, Region III. Esker Foundation extends sincere fourth floor. There are accessible parking spaces on Programs are free and open to all. Please visit WATCH & LISTEN appreciation for the opportunity to live and learn on both levels of the parkade and in the surface parking eskerfoundation.art/program/current to register. this territory in respect and gratitude. lot at the rear of the building. eskerfoundation.art

While Esker Foundation is physically accessible, we all benefit from deeper, relational considerations of accessibility. If you have any questions or requests regarding access to the gallery or programs, please don’t hesitate to contact us at 403-930-2490 or by email at [email protected]

TOURS Complimentary tours are available on request. Please pre-book at least two weeks in advance. Fourth Floor Call 403 930 2490 or email 1011, 9 Avenue SE [email protected] Inglewood, Calgary, Alberta ISBN: 978-0-9880263-3-9 © Esker Foundation, 2020 Canada T2G 0H7 eskerfoundation.art

@eskerfoundation