CURATORS

Most of the below information applies directly to WRECK CITY’s first project, WRECK CITY: an epilogue for 809. For a better idea of the ongoing curators behind WRECK CITY as a Collective, please see here.

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The core curatorial team behind WRECK CITY: an epilogue for 809 is comprised of artists with an ongoing interest in DIY-subcultures and alternative-use venues. The ensemble includes:

• Matthew Mark Bourree (Artist-Curator of 805 5th Ave NW)
• Caitlind r.c. Brown (Artist-Curator of 823 5th Ave NW)
• Jennifer Crighton (Artist-Curator of 803 5th Ave NW)
• Brandon A. Dalmer (Artist-Curator of 801 5th Ave NW)
  
• Andrew Frosst (Artist-Curator of 819 5th Ave NW)
  
• John Frosst (Artist-Curator of 807 5th Ave NW)
  
• Shawn Mankowske (Artist-Curator of 621 5th Ave NW)
  
• Ryan Scott (Artist-Curator of 809 5th Ave NW)
  

Together, this ensemble has founded galleries, instigated long-term collectives, run festivals, toured art around the world, and measurably influenced the structure of independent art in Calgary. Members of the ensemble have been involved with similar pre-demolition projects, including The Leona Drive Project in Toronto and The House Project in Calgary.

As Artist-Curators, these folks differ from formal Curators in the sense that they are free not only to organize and direct spaces within the project, but also to participate as artists.

Left to right: Matthew Mark Bourree, Ryan Scott, Jennifer Crighton, Caitlind Brown, Andrew Frosst, Shawn Mankowske. Missing: John Frosst and Brandon Dalmer. Photo by Claire Miglionico

WE GATHER BY NIGHT AND ARE CONSUMED BY FIRE, a performative sculpture ceremony by Matthew Mark + Sarah Smalik

MATTHEW Mark Bourree  is a recent Graduate from the Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary, Alberta. While attending ACAD, Matthew participated in the exchange program with Cooper Union for the Advancement of Art and Science in New York. Since graduating, Matthew has launched MMJT contemporary furniture with Jeremy Pavka, co-founded studio collective “The Bakery” and local art periodical “Fresh Bread” with Nate McLeod, and opened Haight Gallery, where he has curated over twenty shows and brokered art sales for emerging artists in Calgary. Matthew and his collaborative partner Sarah Malik were recently awarded a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts for a kinetic public sculpture. In 2013, he finished a residency at the Banff Center on partial scholarship and was awarded a Calgary 2012 grant to continue his ongoing endeavors with Haight Gallery.

CLOUD, an interactive sculpture by Caitlind r.c. Brown & Wayne Garrett

CAITLIND r.c. Brown  is an artist, filmmaker, and collaborator based in Calgary, Alberta. A graduate from Alberta College of Art + Design (2010), in 2011 Brown curated The House Project, a group installation featuring eight artists with an interest in re-appropriated, transformative and re-imagined spaces. Based out of a small home in Kensington, Calgary, at the end of the project, the house was knocked down and all the art inside demolished with it. Despite a microscopic budget, The House Project transformed the house into a magical space, gleaned national press, and was viewed by 1000+ ordinary people in 3-days.

A frequent collaborator with Calgary-based artist/musician Wayne Garrett, Brown & Garrett have shown work in Toronto and Vancouver with the Arbour Lake Sghool collective, and toured films across Canada. They recently returned from their first international art experience, exhibiting their collaborative work CLOUD as the centerpiece installation for Art Experiment 2013 at Garage Center for Contemporary Culture in Moscow. The duo has projects pending in London, Hong Kong, and Chicago, but Caitlind’s true interest lies in a fascination with local grassroots Arts & Culture in relation to the Global Community.

Sweater Porn, an installation by Jennifer Crighton

JENNIFER Crighton is an artist, curator, musician, and sometimes cultural administrator. She has a special interest in community, especially as this relates to our sense of home, our domestic and cultural spaces, and the people we gather around ourselves for support and inspiration. For her, working in any creative field is a collective endeavor, where the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts. Her collaborators have often been people, but they have also been old houses, online social networks, musical instruments, drawing implements, SLR Cameras, bowling pins, balls of yarn and vintage clothing, all this because she knows that without these things her work could not exist. As a rule she will favor an artwork that conveys a feeling but stubbornly evades an explanation over the too-easy convenience of a snug conceptual fit. She has no issue with hopping between different disciplines, as she is keen to exploit the unique strengths of each.

Diorama from Too Drunk to Fuck, by Brandon Dalmer

BRANDON Dalmer  creates abstract sequential narratives utilizing optics, miniatures, special effects techniques, and drawings. Often intentionally vague, he uses multiple pieces involving the same narrative in order to allow the viewer to create his or her own ideas about what is happening rather then directly telling them. Dalmer holds a BFA from the Alberta College of Art and Design, and has exhibited in various spaces such as Xpace, Stride Gallery, Haight Gallery, Untitled Art Society and Latitude 53. He has also been involved in organizations such as the New Gallery, The Whitehouse, The Calgary Biennal and M:ST, as well as being one of the founders of the 809 Gallery in Calgary.

Left to right: Scott Rogers, Andrew Frosst, Justin Patterson, John Frosst, and Aaron Sereda at The Arbour Lake Sghool house.

ANDREW Frosst  studied fine art at Concordia Montreal, Malmö Art Academy, ZHdK Zurich, and as a guest at Städelschule Frankfurt. He has exhibited across North America and Europe and his personal and collaborative work has been reviewed in publications including the Globe and Mail. He works in a very interdisciplinary manor, employing sculpture, installation, furniture design, video and performance and is inspired by the likes of Breton and Carlo Mollino.

In an ongoing collaboration, Tamara Henderson and Frosst published 3 limited edition 102 page offset-print books of recorded dreams for Documenta 13. With John Frosst and Sean Petsche, he is organizing Gumsphere 300, a performance road rally parody of the Gumball 3000 race taking place in summer 2013.

In addition to his own practice, Frosst collaborates on yearly projects with the Arbour Lake Sghool collective that he co-founded in 2003. They have exhibited across Canada, in Paris and Amsterdam and in 2008 received the Mayor’s Award for Artistic Innovation.

JOHN Frosst  is a co-founder of Pith Gallery and Studios, co-director of Gumsphere300, and co-owner of Frosst Books. When he’s not painting gallery walls at Pith, plotting a musical rally tour of North America in Ford Festivas, or sourcing great arts & culture books at Frosst Books, John is making art with the Arbour Lake Sghool, an award-winning and internationally exhibiting arts collective. His most recent shows with the Sghool were in Amsterdam as part of the Kunstvlaai Festival of Independents and at Western Front in Vancouver following a lecture by the Arbour Lake Sghool at the Institutions by Artists Conference.

Painting by Shawn Mankowske.

SHAWN Mankowske  is an emerging visual artist living in Calgary. A graduate of Alberta College of Art and Design and Ontario College of Art and Design, he obtained a Bachelor of Fine Art with Honors in 2007. Since then he has been active in the Calgary Art Scene, co-founding The 809 Gallery and the later 809 Residency. Shawn has participated in many Calgary “Do It Yourself” collectives, including Pith Gallery and Studios, the House Gallery, Haight Gallery, and The Arbour Lake Sghool. His inspiration is drawn from contemporary Popular-Culture, as well as the intricate process behind a finished artwork, in whatever form it may take. His work takes form through paintings on panel or canvas, focusing on the complex, studied processes of making an aesthetic artwork. When working for Heavy Industries in 2012, Shawn had the privilege of lending his skills as the Head On-site Painter towards the completion of Jaume Plensa’s “Wonderland” on the plaza of The Bow building in downtown Calgary. He also worked on a project for Douglas Coupland called “Infinite Tires” in South Vancouver.

Perfect Uncle is: Ryan Scott, Shawn Mankowske and Palmer Olson

RYAN Scott  is an emerging sound, video and installation artist from Calgary. He studied at the Alberta College of Art + Design in Calgary, and the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax. Ryan has exhibited at Stride Gallery, Haight Gallery, 809 Gallery, Pith Gallery, EMMEDIA Production Society, Quickdraw Animation Society, The Uptown Stage and Theatre in Calgary, The Bell Auditorium in Halifax, The Images Festival in Toronto and PM Gallerie in Berlin.

Drawing inspiration from low-fi, Sci-fi, and DIY, Ryan McClure Scott creates work dedicated to his childhood and extended adolescent influences. Elements of drawing and printmaking combined with puppets, animation, and soft sculpture appear in his work to reference both craft and fine art explorations. He received a collaborative scholarship to produce his first film “Ultimaea: The Guardians of Ultimacy in the Prism of Technology” with EMMEDIA in 2006. In 2007 his film “The Last Samosa” was produced through Quickdraw and screened at the Images festival in Toronto. In 2009 “Endless Blue” was produced through 809 Gallery, this piece was later performed at the Engineered Air Theatre in Calgary for the 2011 Soundasaurus Festival. He followed up with another Soundasaurus piece called BASF Head the following year in 2012. His latest endeavor is “Perfect Uncle” a collective of artists focusing on the importance of small town influence that fuel the goals for the artist living and working in Alberta’s regional metropolis.