Several new art exhibits open this weekend.
The Southern Alberta Art Gallery opens three exhibits today, June 27, at 5 p.m.
The Missing Body: performance in the absence of Art focuses on performance art.
It is a group exhibition featuring works by New York City artist Vito Acconci who influenced conceptual, video and performance artists in the ’70s and ’80s; Edmonton magic aficionado Blair Brennan; New Zealand artist David Cross, whose inflatable structure “Bounce” will be installed in Galt Gardens, Aug. 16 and whose work “Pump” is installed throughout the exhibit's run and Lethbridge mixed media sculptural artist Mandy Espezel and Tokyo born, Portland based artist Mami Takahashi.
The interactive exhibit explores for approaches to performance there the artist isn't present – Artists that hire other people to enact the performance; Work that is activated, created or completed by the audience; Object-based artworks, which are stand-ins for the artists' own bodies; Artists whose bodies are hidden within the work.
The second exhibit opening at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery is Theatre of The Exploding Sun by Vancouver based artist Keith Langergraber who is showing three films which are inspired by fan fiction and is exploring fan fiction through sculpture, photographs and drawings.
He traveled to the Cayman Islands, mono Lake park, Pavilion lake, Miami Inlet and more as he explored locations used in televisions shows like Star Trek and the X Files.
The third exhibit is from Winnipeg multi-disciplinary artist Theo Sims. CarPark is part of Into the Streets Avenue for at in the Galt Gardens. He instals his sculptural projects in non gallery venues like Galt Gardens, where he build a parking stall complete with ticket booth. All three exhibits run June 27-Sept. 7. The opening reception is at 5 p.m.
Two new exhibits open at CASA on Saturday
Lethbridge artist Bev Mazurick explores the themes of creation and people's cultural interpretation of it in her new exhibit, “Visual Portal.”
Her exhibit as wellas Amber-Jane Grove's exhibit 900: Drawing with the Brain open at CASA, June 28. They both run until Aug. 30.
Mazurick did a lot of research into the creation stories of several different cultures and religions including Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Muslim, Taoism and several different First Nations and became inspired by the language they used to convey the stories.
“ I became interested in the language they used and wanted to convey the images and concepts into abstract art,” Mazurick said.
She emphasized she did not want to offend anybody or denigrate any belief system
In addition to creation stories, she also decided to use the same process to interpret Hans Christian Andersen stories “ The Emperor’s New Clothes” and “ The Little Match Girl.”
The exhibit also includes a larger, three dimensional piece inspired by “the lyrical beauty of Hubble space telescope photos and the systems, analysis, logic and mathematics used to explain the incomprehensible cosmos.”
“I was inspired by the language used describe math and physics,” she said.
The other exhibit at CASA is Edmonton based University of Lethbridge graduate Amber-Jane Grove.
“ 900 Drawing with the Brain” is a mixed media exhibit of works created by her non-dominant hand.
“ She made them with her left hand instead of her right,” said curator Darcy Logan.
“ And they were all created in the past 900 days,” he continued.
The exhibits run June 28-Aug. 30.
The opening reception for the CASA exhibits in June 28 at 7 p.m.
