Calgary Stampede Unveils Massive New Art Collection

New BMO Centre features work from 67 Southern Alberta artists

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The Calgary Stampede has made one of the largest private investments in the art of living Alberta artists in Canada. Just over $800,000 in commissioned and purchased artworks are being unveiled this week at the new BMO Centre, located at Stampede Park in Calgary.

The collection, which took roughly 20 months to assemble, features 67 artists from southern Alberta.

Many of the chosen names will be familiar to art lovers in Canada. Faye HeavyShield and Adrian Stimson are both Governor General’s Award winners in Visual and Media Arts, and the prolific Calgary artist Chris Cran is also on the list. From these three: HeavyShield’s counting coup, a four-foot-by-six-foot acrylic on plywood; Stimson’s Past Present and Future, a six-foot-by-15-foot oil on canvas and Cran’s Red Oval Woman, Silver Purple Man, Lime Green Boy, three small circular paintings in acrylic and enamel with flocking. 

The fact the Stampede decided to include more art in the expansion connects to the annual rodeo’s beginnings. At the first whoop-up (now Stampede) in 1912, western artists Charles M. Russell and Edward Borein exhibited. These two artists never would have dreamed of the media that is included more than 100 years later. In addition to painting and sculpture, there are textiles, beading and lens-based art: photography and lenticular.

Jill Cross, an independent consultant, and past volunteer chair of the Stampede’s Public Art and Western Showcase Committees, Melissa Cole, an independent curator, and Lisa Christensen, a curator and Calgary-based author, oversaw the acquisitions. Their emphasis was on artists metaphorically connected to southern Alberta rather than focusing on a particular genre (i.e. western cowboy). 

With this more open selection, Christensen says “ the jam has gotten richer” and the collection is infused with a diverse representation of contemporary artists whose practice is not normally associated with being “western.” That includes Mark Dicey, Dianne Bos, Alana Bartol and Bryce Krynski, Rhys Douglas Farrell, Katie Ohe, Chris Flodberg, Michael Cameron, Joanne MacDonald, Blake Senini and Barbara Milne.

Twenty per cent of the BMO selection is devoted to Treaty Seven First Nations artists; names include Star Crop Eared Wolf, Kalum Teke Dan, Tania Big Plume, Neepin Auger and Keegan Starlight. 

For senior artist Adrian Stimson, the Calgary Stampede represents a “complicated relationship.” In a phone interview, the Siksika artist pointed out that the since the Stampede’s start, “Indigenous people have participated, which demonstrates that we have always been here and will be into the future. We are resilient in spite of the colonial project.” 

The environment is another big theme and at six feet in height and 24 feet in length, Teresa Posyniak’s oil and cold wax mural, Grasslands Tapestry, is the showstopper. Located at the top of the escalator to the second floor, the mural is “a magnified view of the subtle beauty of prairie grasslands where, as a child, I enjoyed lying on the ground, feeling the wind and watching grasses sway below a startling blue sky,” Posyniak explained in an email. 

“This is an experiential painting which captures the sensations of the grasses’ movement, their colour nuances, variety and immensity, bearing witness to those who lived on this remarkable land for thousands of years and all those living here today.”

The public is invited to view the new one-million-square-foot BMO Centre and its art on Saturday, June 8, from 9 am to 1 pm. ■

Related: Spirit of Water by Gerry Judah Unveiled in Calgary

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BMO Centre, Stampede Park

20 Round Up Way SE, Calgary, Alberta T2G 2W1

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