ESKER FOUNDATION Summer 2018 WELCOME

To kick off our sixth year I am thrilled that Esker Foundation is presenting the work of Vanessa Brown and Anna Torma. Brilliantly curated by Shauna Thompson, the work of these two artists uniquely complements each other, and although material selections have little in common, what binds them together is a deep connection and commitment to making. Vancouver- based Brown’s work is a delicate dance of fusing steel, pigment, colour, light, and sound. The Witching Hour is at once sculptural and immersive, suggesting that each single element or object contributes to a larger conversation of symbolic interconnection and magic, as curator Shauna Thompson states: “The stage is set; a bewitched scenography poised in the moment before an action.” Book of Abandoned Details presents the exquisitely detailed large-scale hand embroidered wall hangings and collages of Anna Torma. Now based in Baie Verte, New Brunswick, Torma produces work deeply influenced by both historical and contemporary Hungarian textile traditions. Her work is both a nod to traditional methods and to the subversive feminist avant-garde movements of the 1960s and 70s, that saw the stories and symbolism used in hand sewing as a way to critique dominant idealogies and status quo thinking.

In the Project Space we are featuring four Calgary-based artists. We start with Jolie Bird’s project 1597; Harmonious Frequencies, a performance-based installation creating the Fibonacci Sequence, which references the golden ratio found throughout nature. Bird will be performing this work in the space at specific times and dates until July 29. In August through to the end of October we look forward to a collaborative project by Alana Bartol & Mia Rushton and Eric Moschopedis.

Program highlights this summer include talks and workshops with Vanessa Brown, Anna Torma, and Jolie Bird, a tour of the Glenbow Museum's Hungarian textile collection, and a jewelry workshop with Joan Irvin. Dr. Erin Silver, Assistant Professor in the Department of Art History, Visual Art & Theory at the University of British Columbia, will be speaking about the connections Brown and Torma’s practice have with early-20th century avant-garde workshops, and back by popular demand, a trip to the Canadian Museum of Making.

As always, check out our website, the Esker App, Facebook (Esker Foundation), Instagram (@EskerFoundation), or Twitter (@EskerFoundation) for more details, behind the scenes commentary, pictures, and the latest news.

Naomi Potter Director/Curator

Front Cover: Vanessa Brown, Sun Milk, 2017. Courtesy the artist and Project Pangée, Montréal.

Back cover: Anna Torma, Abandoned Details II, 2018, (detail). Courtesy of the artist.

Anna Torma, Abandoned Details II, 2018. Courtesy of the artist. 26 MAY – 2 SEPTEMBER VANESSA BROWN The Witching Hour ANNA TORMA Book of Abandoned Details

Image courtesy of Vanessa Brown. VANESSA BROWN: THE WITCHING HOUR 26 MAY – 2 SEPTEMBER

Vanessa Brown works in the space between strength and charm bracelets, is historically powerful and often feminized. fragility through an alchemical fusing of steel, pigment, glass, Typically worn to denote or commemorate personal narratives, and textile. Her work is hybrid and multidimensional: sculpture milestones, and rites of passage, charms are often given flirting with painting, symbolic narrative collage, a physical and received as heirlooms, and unlike other valued forms of gestalt of states of consciousness. The Witching Hour brings property—such as land and currencies, which have historically together new installations and recent works, ranging in scale been passed down a patrilinear line—charm bracelets and from larger-than-life to intimate. It is a proposal in material, jewellery tend to be passed intergenerationally through the colour, light, and sound; an invitation into an emotively hands of women. charmed circle where magic, fantasy, and humour offer coded Moving away from these works, we are drawn toward a chorus of strategies to consider material histories, our connection to the amphibious croaks. Slipping into the dimness of a meditatively natural and supernatural worlds, and gendered systems of droning bog, we encounter the hypnotic movement of clusters labour, communication, and value. of objects. Undulating as if caught in a slow eddy, these Through a number of interrelated installations, Brown welcomes elements are suspended in front of us within a romantic, semi- us into the liminal space between dreaming and consciousness, apocalyptic swamp. The aura here is ambiguous, though the between the visionary and the here-and-now. Working primarily invitation to rest and stay awhile is clear. In the gentle flow, we with steel, her imaginative formal constellations critique find organic detritus, planetary reflections, and the debris of art and counter the material’s traditional associations with the history which has been liberated from the museum and sunken monumental, masculine, and its use in aggressive industry and with us into the murk. The rotation of the mobiles gestures to military efforts. For Brown, the allure of steel rests in its subtler a cyclical sense of time, and perhaps, the cycles of life and qualities, such as its malleability, adaptability, and delicateness, death. We are brought in close, enveloped by colour and sound: attributes that allude to the rich territory of feminized narratives shrouded inside of an internal space, maternal and womblike, and material associations. but unclearly prenatal or posthumous.

The exhibition leads us through a series of fantastic scenarios: a midnight trip to the jeweller’s piercing parlour; the comforting BIOGRAPHY embrace of the bog; and within the light-filled, nurturing garden shed. The symbology of each scene—through material Vanessa Brown works in sculpture, painting, and photography. Her and form—is a dense and surreal system of storytelling. primary medium is steel and she attempts to parse its associations The entrance into Brown’s speculative reality—through the with industry, weaponry and brutality, and its subtler qualities such jeweller’s piercing parlour—greets us with a shop floor arranged as pliability, versatility, and slightness. The imagery in her work with all of the accessories one might need for an otherworldly draws from various sources including landscapes, historical crafts, journey: robes for sleepwalking and daydreaming wait on their recurring symbols from her own dreams, as well as the work and hangers for absent bodies; oversized earrings oscillate between biographies of other female artists. She is based in Vancouver on unceded Coast Salish Territories. Brown graduated with a BFA from the figurative and the abstract. Our state of consciousness is University, Vancouver in 2013 and was the recipient of uncertain; an exhausted clock slumbers over our heads. While the Chancellor’s Award. She has exhibited in Canada, Germany, the she is asleep, the rules of time and space have slipped. Against USA, and Mexico, notably with solo and two-person exhibitions at the wall rests a menu of options incised into steel, written Wil Aballe Art Projects, Vancouver; Erin Stump Projects, Toronto; in an unfamiliar symbolic language. The act of engraving is and group exhibitions at the Nanaimo Art Gallery; Künstlerhaus reminiscent both of tattooing into skin and also of engraving Bethanien, Berlin; and King Street Station, Seattle. jewellery; the gesture of committing important information to metal as a method of communicating with and for the future. Vanessa Brown would like to acknowledge the support of the Canada Though their scale is large, the forms that these objects assume Council for the Arts and BC Arts Council. draw their reference point back to the human body. Practices She would also like to acknowledge and thank her studio assistants Joseph of communicating coded messages through objects displayed Band (metal), and Iman Hassan (textiles/robes), along with Michelle Mackenzie for her sound composition Post Meridiem for Veils of a Bog. on the body is one that recurs in Brown’s practice. Though the hierarchy of metalworking has historically relegated jewellery to a questionably subordinate realm of artisanal craft because of its bodily use, its metaphorical language, in particular that of

EXPLORE MORE WITH THE ESKER APP Vanessa Brown, Stained Glass Earrings and Stand, 2018. Courtesy of the artist. ANNA TORMA: BOOK OF ABANDONED DETAILS 26 MAY – 2 SEPTEMBER

As a descendant of generations of skilled needleworkers and features embroidered inscriptions or proverbs)—all examples of embroiderers, Anna Torma produces work that is both rooted in women’s handwork brought together in a remarkable reflection a deep Hungarian textile tradition and is also part of a vibrant on domestic space, labour, and value. Collected, treasured, and contemporary practice connected to radical feminist avant- respected by Torma over many years, these common, domestic garde movements of the 1960s and 70s, which reclaimed craft textiles are united in an act of reclamation and tribute to the and fibre-based work as urgent and political fine art practices. value of women’s domestic work. Through the synthesis of techniques such as embroidery, Torma’s wider practice has long included the gathering and drawing, collaging, dyeing, free-hand quilting, appliqué, and sharing of stories through many voices, histories, and materials. photo transfer, Torma’s work offers us an extraordinary world in She will often incorporate the creative work of others, such as which the domestic and the fantastic collide in lush imagery drawings or texts based on the work of her husband and two sons, drawn from familial history, books and literature, real and each artists themselves. The series Transverbal was inspired by imagined places, mythology and folklore, flora and fauna, and her children’s early drawings, which were produced at a time personal and cultural memory. in which communication between mother and child was based Book of Abandoned Details presents major work produced over on visual signs, gestures, and empathetic guesswork. Red the past five years, much of which speaks to the complex nature Fragments (2017) features the work of Torma’s late mother-in- of diasporic identity and experience; the desire to remember law, a skillful needleworker who had suffered a stroke. Seeking to and preserve the details of a past, while also adapting to connect with her and to nurture mental and emotional healing, and articulating a new present. Torma describes herself as a Torma encouraged her to create new redwork embroidery pieces storyteller and a “spiritual keeper of memories.”1 The expressive using traditional Hungarian cross-stitch patterns. Brought needlework of her textiles communicates stories—fragmented together with Torma’s own fragmented and reworked pieces, the and non-linear—that alternate between the figurative and the progressively empty cross-stitch squares offer a beautiful and abstract. Torma’s needle inscribes the surface of these materials melancholy rumination on aging, loss, and resilience. with a language that speaks simultaneously to past and present, Working slowly and labour-intensively, through time and with and the resulting works act as documents, ledgers, or catalogues immaculate attention and skill, Torma invites us into her wild, of memories—of both grand and important as well as small and many-layered imaginary. Her practice gives weight and value to intimate things meant to be preserved and remembered. The humble objects and materials—the overlooked and undervalued. form of the work often references the nature of memory: sharp She invites us to enjoy the sensuality of texture and surface and and clear at one moment; fragmented and tangled at the next. offers us a glimpse into the spaces that she, herself, inhabits— The new series of works from which this exhibition takes its her inner and outer worlds. name offers a register of words, shapes, and forms—some that we might recognize, others that we might not; some that are marvelous, others that are mundane. For Torma, the small and BIOGRAPHY seemingly unexceptional are equally as important as the large Anna Torma has exhibited her work internationally and is and easily recognizable. In this series of work, as in life, Torma represented in many public collections, including: the Museum of urges us to value and treasure the minute and the everyday, Arts and Design, New York; La Peau de l'Ours, Montréal; Foreign because it is through the accumulation of these minor details Affairs Art Collection, Ottawa; MSVU Art Gallery, Halifax; New that one can often access greater and more important facets of Brunswick Art Bank, Fredericton; and Mint Museum, Charlotte. life as well. In 2005, Torma received a UNESCO Aschberg Foundation Bursary The diptych Carpet of Many Hands (2012-18), is a powerful to attend a residency at Cooperations in Wiltz, Luxembourg; in manifestation of Torma’s emphasis on the potential of the 2007, she was a recipient of the Canada Council's Paris Studios small or quotidian to add up to more than the sum of its parts. Grant; and in 2008 she received the Strathbutler Award from Comprised of two long, vertical panels, it is a monumental the Sheila Hugh Mackay Foundation. Her major solo exhibition, collage of found and collected fabrics and original embroideries. Bagatelles, was mounted first at the , Saint John (2012), travelled to Bellevue Arts Museum, Seattle Hundreds of textile pieces sit next to and on top of one another— (2013), and the Karsh-Masson Gallery, Ottawa (2014). printed fabrics, crochet and lace samples, embellished swatches, and needlepoint sourced from domestic linens such Torma is a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and as curtains, sheets, tablecloths, and protective Hungarian was a 2014 recipient of the Lieutenant-Governor's Award for High falvédö (a decorative and/or protective wall covering that often Achievement in Visual Arts.

1Anne Koval, Anna Torma: Needleworks, Halifax: MSVU Art Gallery, 2007. EXPLORE MORE Anna Torma, Abandoned Details I, 2018, (detail). Courtesy of the artist. WITH THE ESKER APP IN THE PROJECT SPACE

JOLIE BIRD: 1597; HARMONIOUS FREQUENCIES 7 MAY – 29 JULY

1597; Harmonious Frequencies is a performance-based installation to be implemented in the Project Space over the BIOGRAPHY course of twelve weeks. Working within a clean and minimal Jolie Bird is a textile artist who lives and works in Calgary, space, the artist will create an 8-foot diameter representation Alberta. She completed her MFA at NSCAD University, Halifax of the Fibonacci Sequence, which references the golden ratio in 2013 and has also studied at the Alberta College of Art and found throughout nature. The pattern is made up of 1,597 Design, Calgary and Capilano University, North Vancouver. Bird dots configured in two sets of spirals that radiate in opposite works predominantly with textiles and fibre but also includes directions. Each dot is created by wrapping a golden thread other mediums, found objects, and installation into her around itself and adhering it to the wall. The performance of practice. She is drawn to slow techniques like hand stitching, labour, and the arrangement of the artist’s tools are precise and weaving, and wrapping for the investment of time needed to considered; the monotonous nature of the action is physically complete the work. Repetitive and slow building in nature, the challenging and requires self-discipline to achieve a consistent process becomes mentally and physically demanding, while and high level of craftsmanship throughout the project. at the same time feeling intuitive and somewhat meditative. The methodical distribution of the Fibonacci pattern Working slowly with simple tools and only her hands, she forms exemplifies an exacting natural order that references growth an intimate and tactile connection with the artwork. Her work and the flow of energy. The physical reproduction of this has been exhibited locally, nationally, and in the United States. pattern also alludes to ideas of organized chaos; the pattern is pre-established leaving only the repetitive action of producing the work.

Throughout the course of the exhibition, as the dot spirals grow and change, the audience will have the opportunity to enter the space, talk with the artist, and view the work up close. At the end of the exhibition, once the pattern is complete, each dot will be removed from the wall leaving nothing behind but time-lapse documentation of the performance.

▶ UPCOMING IN THE PROJECT SPACE ALANA BARTOL & MIA RUSHTON AND ERIC MOSCHOPEDIS: A HINT OF PERENNIAL MAGIC LINGERS IN ITS FINGERTIPS 6 AUGUST – 28 OCTOBER

EXPLORE MORE Jolie Bird, Small Y, 2016. WITH THE ESKER APP Photo by Jolie Bird. TALKS

LIFE STORIES THROUGH STITCHED PLACEHOLDER: IT’S YOUR TURN TO CLOTHS: ARTIST TALK AND TOUR TALK! WITH D.TALKS WITH ANNA TORMA SATURDAY 23 JUNE, 1–3PM SATURDAY 26 MAY, 1–2PM Join d.talks, in collaboration with Esker Foundation, at PLACEHOLDER. This is an unconventional book club where In this talk, Anna Torma will discuss three of her major bodies of we present the theme of the afternoon and you bring your own work, including: Red Fragments, an installation that focuses on book, poem, or object that you feel best articulates that theme. the story of an immigrant artist cutting her heritage embroidery This is an opportunity for Calgarians to critically discuss and collection into pieces, and reassembling them as a quilt, identify how the city and citizens affect and are impacted by alongside an elderly woman trying to reclaim the embroidery local and global themes borne out of the work of Esker’s current techniques of her youth; Carpet of many hands, a textile exhibiting artists. Let’s form a new narrative in Calgary together! assemblage of collected and found textiles that have been The theme of this PLACEHOLDER will be Thresholds. collaged and recontextualized into a contemporary artwork; and Abandoned Details, Torma’s latest series of hand embroideries, Registration essential. which reference a shift in her practice towards a more abstracted and open arrangement. Registration recommended, opens 14 May. SPEAKING TRUTH TO MATERIALS: REVISITING THE WORKSHOP, FROM BAUHAUS TO WOMANHOUSE WITH ARTIST TALK WITH JOLIE BIRD DR. ERIN SILVER FRIDAY 15 JUNE, 7–8PM FRIDAY 10 AUGUST, 7–8PM In this talk, Bird will discuss 1597; Harmonious Frequencies, an ongoing performance-based installation in the Esker Project This talk will extend in two directions, taking the contemporary Space. Bird is interested in performing slow building techniques practices of Vanessa Brown and Anna Torma as springboards with simple to no tools over a long duration of time. Her work not only for tracing genealogies of early-20th century avant- explores the physical and mental effects of carrying out a garde workshops, including Vkhutemas and the Bauhaus, to repetitive process, the perception of time, and artisanship. the feminist studio workshop initiatives of the 1970s, that fused preoccupations with craft, design, and art with social, Registration recommended, opens 14 May. political, and economic ideology, but also for testing out the possibilities afforded by transposing present-day theoretical and political vantage points onto historical ones for expanding OYSTER SHELLS: ARTIST TALK AND canonical thinking and bringing lesser known histories (notably, TOUR WITH VANESSA BROWN those of women and racialized artists) to the fore. Dr. Silver is an PROGRAMS Assistant Professor in the Department of Art History, Visual Art & FRIDAY 22 JUNE, 7–8PM Theory at the University of British Columbia. Vanessa Brown will present a talk and tour of her exhibition, The Registration recommended. Esker Foundation provides free public programming to encourage Witching Hour. In her talk, Brown will trace threads from her participation and to increase accessibility to contemporary art. Programs past work to her arrival at this present exhibition, while touching on the joys and pains of working with steel, the politics of scale, are developed in response to our current exhibitions. Securing your and the importance of fantasy in her work. spot by registering in advance is strongly recommended. Our programs Registration recommended. are very popular and often have wait lists; if you register and are unable to attend we ask that you cancel your registration in a timely manner. All programming requires that an adult accompany children under the age of 16.

Visit eskerfoundation.com/program/current to register. Unless otherwise noted registration for programs will open on Monday 28 May at 11AM. TOURS

BRING THE BABY ART TOUR CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER: FRIDAYS 1 JUNE, 6 JULY, 3 AUGUST, 12–12:30PM EXHIBITION TOUR WITH Bring your baby to Esker Foundation! Have baby-friendly fun ELIZABETH DIGGON while discussing and questioning the current exhibitions on FRIDAY 27 JULY, 7–8PM this relaxed, social tour. After your visit enjoy a 10% discount at Scarpetta Italian Eatery, Bite Grocer & Eatery, or Gravity Vanessa Brown and Anna Torma both layer fantastical imagery, Espresso & Wine Bar. personal histories, and hidden symbols into their work. Join Elizabeth Diggon, Esker’s assistant curator, on this informal tour Registration recommended, opens 14 May. that considers the conceptual and material threads that link together these two artistic practices. THE SCREEN, THE DREAM, THE Registration recommended. STITCH, AND THE WELD: EXHIBITION TOUR WITH SHAUNA THOMPSON THE MAGIC OF MATERIAL: SATURDAY 9 JUNE, 1–2PM EXHIBITION TOUR WITH Join curator Shauna Thompson on this walking tour of Vanessa NAOMI POTTER Brown’s The Witching Hour and Anna Torma’s Book of Abandoned FRIDAY 17 AUGUST, 6–7PM Details. Together, we’ll discuss the narratives of material value, craft and fabrication, remembrance, and feminist histories, as Join Naomi Potter for a tour of the fantastic and magical well as the richness of humour, pleasure, and fantasy that weave worlds of Vanessa Brown and Anna Torma. Rich in symbolic together these two materially lush exhibitions. imagery, both artists reclaim and activate craft traditions by challenging the historical stereotypes of certain materials or Registration recommended, opens 14 May. skills; embroidery, patchwork, and appliqué relegated to the domestic realm, and steel associated with industry, weaponry, and brutality. These seemingly opposite material selections act THREADS OF BEAUTY: as a point of connection, proposing a conversation that binds as HUNGARIAN TEXTILES IN THE much as it does question the hierarchy of material and making. GLENBOW COLLECTION Registration recommended. SATURDAY 16 JUNE, 11AM–12PM OR 1:30–2:30PM Daryl Betenia, Manager, Collections will offer a behind-the- BUS TOUR TO THE CANADIAN scenes look at Glenbow’s small but beautiful collection of MUSEUM OF MAKING Hungarian textiles. Learn about the various uses behind these textiles and the history of how they became part of the Glenbow SUNDAY 26 AUGUST, 1–5PM collection. The tour will also highlight some special household Join us on an intimate and rare tour of the Canadian Museum items that are part of the collection. Participants will meet at of Making, located near Cochrane. This museum features a the Glenbow Museum, transportation will not be provided. To collection of machinery and tools that were built and used from attend this tour, participants must be over the age of 16. 1750 to 1920 in Canada, Britain, and the United States, as well Registration essential, opens 14 May. as an extensive African metalwork collection. The tour will also feature a blacksmithing demonstration by artist, blacksmith, and curator L. Japheth Howard. Bus transportation to and from LIFELONG LEARNERS the museum will be provided. Unfortunately, this program is not wheelchair or walker accessible. Participants must be over the WEDNESDAY 27 JUNE, 2:30–3:15PM age of 16. Seniors are invited to join us for a tour and discussion of the Registration essential. current exhibitions in a relaxed, social environment. Explore new ideas and engage creatively with arts and culture. After your visit enjoy a 10% discount at Scarpetta Italian Eatery, Bite Grocer & Eatery, or Gravity Espresso & Wine Bar. Registration recommended. Register on our website or by phone at 403–930–2490. WORKSHOPS

with traditional patterns and natural fabrics from Bird’s collection, MINI MASTERS participants will work on a stitch sampler alongside a centerpiece THURSDAYS 7 JUNE, 5 JULY, 2 AUGUST, or wall hanging. All materials will be included. Participants must be over the age of 16. 11–11:45AM Registration essential. Calling Calgary’s newest Contemporaries! Join us on the first Thursday of every month for a hands-on art class. We invite parents and guardians to bring their little ones, ages 3 to 5, FROM LYRICAL LINE TO WEARABLE to explore art making in this fun and social program. From collage to sculpture, every month we will explore new mediums WIRE JEWELLERY WITH JOAN IRVIN and techniques. All are welcome to participate, and make sure SATURDAY 28 JULY, 10AM–4PM you dress for mess! After your visit enjoy a 10% discount at Scarpetta Italian Eatery, Bite Grocer & Eatery, or Gravity Observe, design, experiment, create! Join local jewellery artist, Espresso & Wine Bar. Joan Irvin (ACAD), for a tour of Vanessa Brown's exhibition, The Witching Hour. Afterwards, head into the studio for some Registration essential, opens 14 May. creative alchemy of your own. Participants will work with copper and silver wire. All materials will be provided. No previous jewellery experience is required but participants must be over MASTER CLASS FOR FAMILIES the age of 16. SUNDAYS 17 JUNE, 15 JULY, 19 AUGUST, Registration essential. 1–2:30PM Join us for an afternoon of family fun at the gallery! Every month APPLIQUÉ BUNTING WITH we will delve into new mediums with art projects that relate to our current exhibitions. This is an educational, energetic, hands- CAITLIN THOMPSON on program for kids ages 5-10. An adult is required to stay for SATURDAY 11 AUGUST, 1–5PM the duration of the workshop. All materials will be provided. After your visit enjoy a 10% discount at Scarpetta Italian Eatery, Drawing on the surface design techniques of the summer Bite Grocer & Eatery, or Gravity Espresso & Wine Bar. exhibitions, this workshop will bring together stitches and Registration essential. symbols in the form of appliqué bunting. Although bunting is often seen as decoration, Thompson will discuss the history of appliqué and how the international textile trade has influenced STITCH YOUR STORIES! this resourceful technique. Each participant will create their own triangular "tammy" flag, embellished with appliqué and EMBROIDERY WORKSHOP WITH embroidery stitches learned in the workshop. All materials will be ANNA TORMA provided, but participants are encouraged to bring textiles and scraps of fabric to be incorporated into their flag. Participants SUNDAY 27 MAY, 1–5PM must be over the age of 12. Learn reverse appliqué and other stitching techniques in Registration essential. this half-day workshop with Anna Torma. We will spend the afternoon learning basic stitching methods and design skills and will incorporate our own personal histories and visions CRAFT-ALONG WORKSHOP WITH into an embroidery project. Silks and linens will be provided, VERONICA MURPHY, STASH but participants are encouraged to bring their own treasures to incorporate into their project. Participants must be over the age FRIDAY 17 AUGUST, 7–9PM of 12. What are some of the ways that we can take our craft skills to Registration essential, opens 14 May. the next level of artistic expression? Enjoy an exhibition tour of Anna Torma: Book of Abandoned Details and then join Veronica Murphy from STASH for a craft-along and casual discussion at INTRODUCTION TO SASHIKO WITH the gallery about pushing your crafting boundaries in your own JOLIE BIRD work. Bring your most inspiring fibre craft supplies for the craft- along – knitters, crocheters, stitchers, spinners, and weavers are SATURDAY 21 JULY, 10AM–4PM all welcome. Participants must be over the age of 16. During this day-long workshop, participants will explore ‘sash(i)ko,’ Registration essential. a rural hand stitching technique from Northern Japan. Working ESKER ELSEWHERE BOOK LAUNCH THE LANTERN LIBRARY

The Lantern Library is a curated, publicly available reference ON TOUR: EARTHLINGS PUBLICATION LAUNCH: SONGS library that accompanies our current exhibitions. Exhibiting artists LITTLE LANTERN LIBRARY NANAIMO ART GALLERY FOR PYTHAGORAS: PETER VON and curators are invited to suggest book titles that reflect their Esker is pleased to be collaborating with Calgary Reads on our current or past research interests or that offer insight into their 3 AUGUST – 6 OCTOBER 2018 TIESENHAUSEN Little Lantern Library. If you are visiting Esker with little ones, work. It offers opportunities for further reflection and discovery, a selection of children’s books chosen by Calgary Reads are ESKER FOUNDATION with the recognition that there are many different ways to available in the Lantern to help you explore and understand Organized and circulated by Esker Foundation, Earthlings is an approach an artwork or an exhibition. some of the ideas and themes in our current exhibitions from the exhibition of visionary ceramic sculpture and works on paper by FRIDAY 8 JUNE, 6:30-8:30PM comfort of our cozy reading nook. artists Roger Aksadjuak, Shuvinai Ashoona, Pierre Aupilardjuk, Shary Boyle, Jessie Kenalogak, John Kurok, and Leo Napayok. Esker Foundation and the (AGA) present the TITLES CURRENTLY IN Curated by Shary Boyle in collaboration with Shauna Thompson, Calgary launch of Songs for Pythagoras: Peter von Tiesenhausen. THE LANTERN LIBRARY INCLUDE: the exhibition was previously presented at Doris McCarthy Gallery, Published by the AGA, the publication accompanies Peter von The Wound is a World – Billy-Ray Belcourt Toronto from 1 November 2017 to 27 January 2018 and Galerie Tiesenhausen's recent exhibition Songs for Pythagoras, formerly Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse – Anne Carson de l'UQAM, Montréal from 11 March to 14 April 2018. on view at the AGA. Artist Peter von Tiesenhausen will be in attendance, to discuss the publication and recent work. PUSH Stitchery: 30 Artists Explore the Boundaries of Stitched Art – Jamie Chalmers THE ESKER APP

Songs for Pythagoras: Peter von Tiesenhausen Nothing More Comforting: Canada’s Heritage Food – Dorothy Stay connected to our latest exhibitions, programs, and events In addition to full colour images and text contributions by Natasha Duncan with the Esker Foundation App, featuring Vanessa Brown, Anna Chaykowski, Ellie Epp, Lucy R. Lippard, and David McGregor, the The Argonauts – Maggie Nelson Torma, and Jolie Bird discussing the materials and ideas behind cloth-bound publication features a debossed tipped-in image on Bluets – Maggie Nelson their work. The app provides a digital companion to your gallery the front cover, an inserted artwork and a limited-edition press flexi Ru – Kim Thuy experience – including image, text, audio, and video – triggered disk of a seven minute outtake of audio from the sound and video Kiki Smith: Prints, Books, and Things – Wendy Wilson by iBeacon technology as you move through our space. installation Reservoir, produced in collaboration with Jen Reimer and Magnus Tiesenhausen. The Bayeux Tapestry – David Wilson Download the app for free on your device at either the App Store or Google Play.

Installation view of Peter von Tiesenhausen, Experience of the Precisely Sublime, Esker Foundation, 18 January to 11 May 2014. Photo by: John Dean Photo by: Elyse Bouvier. UPCOMING EXHIBITION

22 SEPTEMBER – 21 DECEMBER OPENING RECEPTION: FRIDAY 21 SEPTEMBER, 6–10PM

AGNES MARTIN: THE MIND KNOWS WHAT THE EYE HAS NOT SEEN Guest curated by Bruce Russell in collaboration with Naomi Potter

In 1967, Agnes Martin unequivocally abandoned painting, gave up her New York studio, and, with a white pick-up truck and an Airstream trailer, set out on road trip. She travelled first to California, and then to her birthplace in , before finally settling in the Southwestern United States, where she had lived prior to her decade-long sojourn in New York. Martin would live in New Mexico for the rest of her life.

On a Clear Day, a portfolio of thirty screenprints created in 1973 at the invitation of print publisher Robert Feldman of Parasol Press, marked Martin’s return to artistic practice. It represents an idealized exploration of the potential vocabulary of the grid, Martin’s chosen subject for much of her painting career.

This exhibition offers unprecedented focus on Martin’s print works, in addition to selected paintings that exist in dialogue with the prints. A parallel collection of ephemera and source material introduces Martin’s life and work, focusing on her on-going relationship to Canada - her childhood in Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia, as well as her later travels in Canada.

This exhibition is co-produced by Esker Foundation and MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina.

BIOGRAPHIES

Agnes Martin (b. 1912, Saskatchewan; d. 2004, New Mexico) is among the most celebrated abstract painters of the 20th century. Martin studied Fine Arts and Arts Education at Columbia University, New York, receiving her Bachelor’s degree in 1942, before returning to Columbia to complete a Master of Arts in 1952. Martin initially gained notoriety in New York in the 1960s for her meditative geometric paintings characterized by her ongoing study of line and the grid. In 1967, Martin abandoned artistic practice and left New York, eventually settling in Cuba, New Mexico. In 1973, Martin returned to art making with On a Clear Day, a suite of thirty gridded silkscreens, after which she began painting again in 1974. Martin’s distinguished career included exhibitions at institutions across the United States, Canada, and Europe. Martin was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Biennale in 1997. In 1998, she was awarded the College Art Association Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement, as well as the National Medal of the Arts. She was given the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts Award in 2004. Martin painted until a few months before her death in 2004.

Bruce Hugh Russell studied at the Vancouver School of Art (now Emily Carr University) and at Concordia University, Montréal. An independent curator and art historian, he has written extensively on both contemporary art and art history, publishing in journals including Canadian Art, Studies in Visual Communications, and Parachute. In addition, he has written for institutions including the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal; the Belkin Gallery, Vancouver; the Ottawa Art Gallery; the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; and the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts. Recently, he co-curated the exhibition Artists, Architects and Artisans: Canadian Art 1890 – 1918 (2013), at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Russell is currently working on a major biography of Montréal cultural philanthropist F. Cleveland Morgan. He recently retired as a sessional instructor for the Department of Art History at the University of Saskatchewan, .

Agnes Martin, 1988, Galisteo, NM. ©Donald Woodman (ARS New York). UPCOMING EXHIBITION

22 SEPTEMBER – 21 DECEMBER OPENING RECEPTION: FRIDAY 21 SEPTEMBER, 6–10PM

TAMMI CAMPBELL: DEAR AGNES

Dear Agnes is a series of visual letters that serve as Tammi Campbell’s wordless communion with Saskatchewan-born modernist artist Agnes Martin. Beginning in 2010, Campbell would start each day in her Saskatoon studio by drawing a different variation of a grid in graphite on Japanese rag paper. Campbell would then write the salutation “Dear Agnes” in the top left corner, fold the drawing twice like a letter, and then store it in sequence. Campbell completed her last letter to Martin on 31 December 2017. This near-daily practice has led to over 1,000 drawings, the final three months of which will be on view at Esker.

The duration of this sustained ritual mirrors Agnes Martin’s mid-career hiatus from artistic practice, a period that ended with On a Clear Day, a portfolio of thirty silkscreen prints on Japanese rag which visually manifest the varied permutations of the grid. Dear Agnes is reflective of Campbell’s homage to Agnes Martin, her ongoing dialogue with the aesthetic legacies of modernism, and her meditation on silence, ritual, and repetition within artistic praxis.

BIOGRAPHY

Tammi Campbell holds a BFA from the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon. Over the past ten years, her work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout Canada, namely at the , Saskatoon (2015); the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, Toronto (2014); the Dunlop Art Gallery, Regina (2013); Mercer Union, Toronto (2013); and the Galerie de l’UQAM, Montréal (2013). In 2016, a major solo exhibition of her work was presented at the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina, followed by a solo exhibition at the College Building Galleries at the University of Saskatchewan (2017) and a web commission project for the Remai Modern, Saskatoon (2017). Campbell has also participated in Shine a Light: Canadian Biennial 2014 at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, as well as the 30th International Symposium of Contemporary Art of Baie-St-Paul. In recent years, Campbell’s work has been the subject of several feature articles in Canadian Art, Border Crossings, and C Magazine, and her work is part of several institutional collections, including BMO Financial Group, Toronto; Dunlop Art Gallery, Regina; MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina; Mouvement Desjardins, Québec; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; RBC Financial Group, Toronto; Remai Modern, Saskatoon; TD Bank Group, Toronto. She lives and works in Saskatoon.

Tammi Campbell, Dear Agnes, July 31, 2016. Graphite on Japanese Paper, 11 x 8.5 inches with letterfold. Private Collection. UPCOMING EXHIBITION

22 SEPTEMBER – 21 DECEMBER OPENING RECEPTION: FRIDAY 21 SEPTEMBER, 6–10PM

SARAH STEVENSON: NOTHING HIDDEN

For the past 30 years, Sarah Stevenson has been making sculptural work that considers and defines space in the most simple and elegant of ways. Like drawings in air, wire and string are arranged into bilateral and almost symmetrical forms and are suspended from the ceiling like a weightless bloom of jellyfish or floating microscopic particles. Starting always with drawing, forms are mapped out on paper in a constellation of lines. The drawing then becomes the pattern or blueprint for the sculpture, the places where verticals and horizontals intersect act as guides to determine the tie points where strings are attached to a series of wire rings. Between each connection, an open weave of wire and thread forms a grid. As the grid builds the form emerges, defined by variations in length of string, tension, and how slack or taut the weave. This simple method of making, and the adaptability of the grid, creates an ideal formula with infinite possibilities. The finished forms, far from simple, are akin to mathematic ciphers, or scientific illustrations showing us that the natural world is equally complex and beautiful in microscopic or cosmic proportions.

BIOGRAPHY

Sarah Stevenson was born in Worthing, England. She grew up in Canada and currently lives and works in Montréal. She received a BFA from the University of Victoria in 1984. She has worked in sculpture for over thirty years, often creating hollow abstract forms using transparent materials. Stevenson's work has been exhibited at various institutions in Canada, the United States, and South America, including exhibitions at Galerie René Blouin, Montréal (2017); Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Québec City (2010); Leo Kamen Gallery, Toronto (2007); Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal (2002); and the Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge (1999). Her work is included in public and private collections, including the Canada Council Art Bank, the Crédit Lyonnais Canada, and the Collection Lambert en Avignon. Stevenson is represented in Montréal by Galerie René Blouin.

Sarah Stevenson, Vessels, 2018. Courtesy of the artist. CALENDAR OF EVENTS INFO

MAY Saturday 26 May 1–2PM Life Stories through Stitched Cloths: Artist Talk and Tour with Anna Torma Sunday 27 May 1–5PM Stitch your Stories! Embroidery Workshop with Anna Torma BRIDGE 8 ST SE JUNE INGLEWOOD

Friday 1 Jun 12–12:30PM Bring the Baby Art Tour 9 ST SE Thursday 7 Jun 11–11:45AM Mini Masters Friday 8 Jun 6:30–8:30pm Publication launch of Songs for Pythagoras: Peter von Tiesenhausen. Presented in partnership with the Art Gallery of Alberta. Saturday 9 Jun 1–2PM The screen, the dream, the stitch, and the weld: P 9TH AVENUE SE Exhibition Tour with Shauna Thompson

Friday 15 Jun 7–8PM Artist Talk with Jolie Bird ELBOW RIVER Saturday 16 Jun 11AM–12PM Threads of Beauty: Hungarian Textiles or 1:30–2:30PM in the Glenbow Collection 12 STREET SE Sunday 17 Jun 1–2:30PM Master Class for Families Friday 22 Jun 7–8PM Oyster Shells: Artist Talk and Tour with Vanessa Brown Saturday 23 Jun 1–3PM PLACEHOLDER: It’s your turn to talk! with d.talks

Wednesday 27 Jun 2:30–3:15PM Lifelong Learners 8 ST SE JULY VISIT PROGRAM REGISTRATION Thursday 5 Jul 11–11:45AM Mini Masters FREE ADMISSION PROGRAMS Register at Friday 6 Jul 12–12:30PM Bring the Baby Art Tour eskerfoundation.com/program/current Sunday 15 Jul 1–2:30PM Master Class for Families HOURS Tuesday to Sunday 11 – 6 Saturday 21 Jul 10AM–4PM Introduction to Sashiko with Jolie Bird Friday 11 – 8 TOURS Complimentary tours are available Monday Closed on request. Friday 27 Jul 7–8PM Curiouser and curiouser: Exhibition Tour with Elizabeth Diggon Please pre–book at least two weeks in Saturday 28 Jul 10AM–4PM From Lyrical Line to Wearable Wire Jewellery with Joan Irvin PARKING Complimentary advance. Call 403 930 2490 or email [email protected] AUGUST ACCESSIBILITY Barrier–free Thursday 2 Aug 11–11:45AM Mini Masters Friday 3 Aug 12–12:30PM Bring the Baby Art Tour Friday 10 Aug 7–8PM Speaking Truth to Materials: Revisiting the Workshop, from Bauhaus LAND ACKNOWLEDGMENT CONTACT to Womanhouse with Dr. Erin Silver Esker Foundation is located on the traditional territories of the TELEPHONE 403 930 2490 Saturday 11 Aug 1–5PM Appliqué Bunting with Caitlin Thompson Niitsitapi (Blackfoot) and the people of the Treaty 7 region in EMAIL [email protected] Friday 17 Aug 6–7PM The Magic of Material: Exhibition Tour with Naomi Potter Southern Alberta, which includes the Siksika, the Piikuni, the WEBSITE www.eskerfoundation.com Friday 17 Aug 7–9PM Craft–Along Workshop with Veronica Murphy, STASH Kainai, the Tsuut’ina, and the Stoney Nakoda First Nations. The TWITTER @EskerFoundation City of Calgary is also home to Métis Nation of Alberta, Region @EskerCalgary Sunday 19 Aug 1–2:30PM Master Class for Families III. Esker Foundation extends sincere appreciation for the INSTAGRAM @EskerFoundation Sunday 26 Aug 1–5PM Bus Tour to the Canadian Museum of Making opportunity to live and learn on this territory in mutual respect FACEBOOK Esker Foundation and gratitude.

FOURTH FLOOR, 1011 – 9 AVENUE SE INGLEWOOD, CALGARY, ALBERTA, CANADA T2G 0H7 ESKERFOUNDATION.COM