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| Established | 2019 |
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| Location | Calgary, Alberta, Canada |
| Coordinates | 51°2′50.964″N114°5′22.47″W / 51.04749000°N 114.0895750°W |
| Type | Art museum |
| Website | https://www.contemporarycalgary.com |
Contemporary Calgary is a public contemporary art gallery located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Located in the former Centennial Planetarium in the city's downtown core, the gallery offers contemporary art programming by local, national, and international artists. It launched its inaugural season in 2020.
In 2013, three arts groups in Calgary – the Institute of Modern and Contemporary Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Art Gallery of Calgary – joined to form Contemporary Calgary, a non-profit organization dedicated to creating a permanent public contemporary art gallery in the city. [1] [2] [3] The group put forward a proposal to the City of Calgary to repurpose the vacant Centennial Planetarium for this goal. [1]
In June 2018, Contemporary Calgary reached an agreement with the city to lease the property for 25 years. [4] The City of Calgary contributed $25 million to upgrade the building; the Canadian government committed $30 million, contingent on matching funds from the provincial government. [5] The rest of the project was funded by private donations. [6]
In June 2019, Contemporary Calgary opened to the public for two days per week while renovations continued. [5] In December 2019, it announced that this stage of renovations had been completed and that it would launch its first exhibitions in 2020, with opening hours expanded to six days per week. [7]
On January 23, 2020, the organization held its official opening, with two exhibitions nodding to the building's history as a planetarium: Planetary, a group exhibition created by 35 local artists during workshops and residencies held on site, and British artist Luke Jerram's large-scale Museum of the Moon installation. [8] [9] More than 1,200 people attended on opening night. [8] In March 2020, the organization temporarily closed its physical location due to the COVID-19 pandemic and began offering programming online. [10] It reopened its doors in September 2020, with new exhibitions of works by Yoko Ono and Omar Ba. [11] [12]
The Centennial Planetarium was built in 1967, to mark the Canadian Centennial. [4] It was built in the Brutalist style and a section includes a geodesic dome roof. [8] The building housed a science centre (now Telus Spark) from the 1980s until 2011, at which time it became vacant. [4] [6] The building is located in the west end of Calgary's downtown core. [6]
In January 2019, Contemporary Calgary announced that it had selected Bruce Kuwabara of KPMB Architects (Toronto) to lead the renovation of the building, along with Gibbs Gage Architects (Calgary). [4] The first phase of the project, including the renovation of a 7,000-square foot gallery, opened to the public in January 2020. The second phase of the project includes the construction of a 10,000-square foot gallery, a 3,000-square foot gallery, a rooftop sculpture garden, and an event space. The project also includes plans for a new entrance pavilion and a restaurant. [13]
Yoko Ono Lennon is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art, which she performs in both English and Japanese, and filmmaking. She was married to English singer-songwriter John Lennon of the Beatles from 1969 until his murder in 1980.
The Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG) is an art museum located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Situated in downtown Vancouver, the museum occupies a 15,300-square-metre-building (165,000 sq ft) adjacent to Robson Square, making it the largest art museum in Western Canada by building size. Designed by Francis Rattenbury, the building the museum presently occupies was originally opened as a provincial courthouse, before it was re-purposed for museum use in the early 1980s. The building was designated as the Former Vancouver Law Courts National Historic Site of Canada in 1980.
The Art Gallery of Ontario is an art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The museum is located in the Grange Park neighbourhood of downtown Toronto, on Dundas Street West between McCaul and Beverley streets. The museum's building complex takes up 45,000 square metres (480,000 sq ft) of physical space, making it one of the largest art museums in North America. In addition to exhibition spaces, the museum also houses an artist-in-residence office and studio, dining facilities, event spaces, gift shop, library and archives, theatre and lecture hall, research centre, and a workshop.
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., the United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was designed by architect Gordon Bunshaft and is part of the Smithsonian Institution. It was conceived as the United States' museum of contemporary and modern art and currently focuses its collection-building and exhibition-planning mainly on the post–World War II period, with particular emphasis on art made during the last 50 years.
The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, located in George Street, Sydney, is an Australian museum solely dedicated to exhibiting, interpreting and collecting contemporary art, both from across Australia and around the world. It is housed in the art deco-style former Maritime Services Board Building on the western edge of Circular Quay.
The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (AGGV) is an art museum located in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Situated in Rockland, Victoria, the museum occupies a 2,474.5 square metres (26,635 sq ft) building complex; made up of the Spencer Mansion, and the Exhibition Galleries. The former building component was built in 1889, while the latter component was erected in the mid-20th century.
The Art Gallery of Alberta (AGA) is an art museum in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The museum occupies a 8,000 square metres (86,000 sq ft) building at Churchill Square in downtown Edmonton. The museum building was originally designed by Donald G. Bittorf, and B. James Wensley, although portions of that structure were demolished or built over during a redevelopment of the building by Randall Stout.
Katie Ohe, is a Canadian sculptor living in Calgary, Alberta. Ohe is known as one of the first artists to make abstract sculpture in Alberta, and has been influential as a teacher at the Alberta College of Art and Design. She is best known for her abstract and kinetic sculptures.
The Downtown West End is a neighbourhood within the western portions of downtown Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It is bounded to the north by the Bow River, to the east by 9th Street W, to the south by the CPR Tracks and to the west by 14th Street W.
The Art Gallery of Hamilton (AGH) is an art museum located in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The museum occupies a 7,000 square metres (75,000 sq ft) building on King Street West in downtown Hamilton, designed by Trevor P. Garwood-Jones. The museum relocated to the building in 1977, with renovations by Bruce Kuwabara later undertaken in 2005.
Fotografisk Center is an exhibition space in Copenhagen, Denmark, dedicated to international and Danish photographic art. Since 1 January 2016 it has been based in the Copenhagen Meat Packing District at Staldgade 16, 1799 Copenhagen V.
KPMB is a Canadian architecture firm founded by Bruce Kuwabara, Thomas Payne, Marianne McKenna, and Shirley Blumberg, in 1987. It is headquartered in Toronto, where the majority of their work is found. Aside from designing buildings, the firm also works in interior design. KPMB Architects was officially renamed February 12, 2013.
Michael James Audain, is a Canadian home builder, philanthropist and art collector. He is the Chairman and major shareholder of the privately held Polygon Homes Ltd., one of the largest multi-family builders in British Columbia.
The National Music Centre is a non-profit museum and performance venue located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The centre's permanent building, branded Studio Bell, is located at 850 4th Street S.E. in Downtown East Village.
Wish Tree is an ongoing art installation series by Japanese artist Yoko Ono, started sometime after 1981, in which a tree native to a site is planted under her direction. Viewers are usually invited to tie a written wish to the tree except during the winter months when a tree can be more vulnerable. Locations of the piece have included New York City, St. Louis, Wish Tree for Washington, DC, San Francisco, Pasadena, and Palo Alto, California, Tokyo, Venice, Paris, Dublin, London, Exeter, England, Finland and Buenos Aires, Argentina, Calgary.
The Remai Modern, is a public art museum in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. The art museum is situated along the west bank of the South Saskatchewan River, at the River Landing development in Saskatoon's Central Business District. The museum's 11,582 square metres (124,670 sq ft) building was designed by Bruce Kuwabara of KPMB Architects in association with Architecture49.
The Centennial Planetarium was a planetarium located at 701 11 Street SW in Calgary, Alberta. Designed by Calgary architectural firm McMillan Long and Associates and opened in 1967 for the Canadian Centennial, it is one of Calgary's best examples of Brutalist architecture. As of 2019, the building housed Contemporary Calgary, a public art gallery.
Claire Tabouret is a French artist based in Los Angeles, California, United States. She has exhibited internationally and has artworks in multiple museum collections. Tabouret is a painter who works with figurative subject matter, using loose expressive brushstrokes in a broad palette, mimicking both artificial and natural hues.
Jacqueline Dupuis is a Canadian who was executive director of the Calgary International Film Festival and the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF).
Fly is a 1970 avant-garde short film directed by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Filmed a year prior to the release of Ono's 1971 album of the same name, the short depicts a housefly crawling around on the body of a nude woman, actress Virginia Lust. By the end of the film, multiple flies can be seen on Lust's body. The film's visuals are accompanied by "Fly", a composition by Lennon and Ono that would later appear on Ono's album of the same name.
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