1. Magenta, Canada’s art publishing house, will launch their newest book next week. The stunning book, Phantom Shanghai by Canadian photographer Greg Girard, documents China’s transition in otherworldly colours and with an elegant eye. Featuring a foreword by William Gibson and introduction by Leo Rubinfien.

Greg Girard, 600 Things, 2005. Image: monteclarkgallery.com

You can order it online HERE

Greg Girard, Fuzhou Lu Mailboxes, 2005. Image: monteclarkgallery.com

Greg Girard is represented by the Monte Clark Gallery, Toronto and Vancouver.

2. The Artcity 2007 Festival of Art, Design and Architecture takes place in the heart of Calgary from September 7-16. Artcity brings art and architecture into the spaces where the public lives and works. This year’s theme is “Rupture”.

The Festival aims to open possibilities in Calgary for conversations, debates and realizations about how and what artists, architects and designers do and how they see and shape the world around us.

“Not so much bent on audience development in the traditional sense, but rather concerned with the artistic zeitgeist, Artcity is indebted to contemporary artists who consistently provide citizens with new means of engagement,” says programming director Wednesday Lupypciw.

VoCA recommends some must-see installations:

-BOOM

WHO: The Arbour Lake Sghool: Andrew Frosst, John Frosst, Justin Patterson, Scott Rogers, and Aaron Sereda

WHERE: Roaming distribution on the Stephen Avenue Pedestrian Mall. Also available at Truck Gallery, Stride Gallery, 809, McNally Robinson Booksellers, Skew Gallery, the Alberta College of Art & Design, Triangle Gallery, the University of Calgary, ArtCentral, and the Glenbow Museum Discovery Room.

WHEN: Duration of festival

The Arbour Lakers will bequeath the city with thousands of free artist multiples in the form of balloons emblazoned with a custom ‘BOOM’ logo.

Collect your very own variety of deflated and helium-filled ‘BOOM’s on the streets and in conjunction with other Artcity-affiliated events.

Read more on VoCA’s favorite Calgary art collective right HERE

-FREE BOWL CALGARY INVITATIONAL

WHO: Michael Coolidge

WHERE: City Hall Lobby, 800 MacLeod Trail SE

WHEN: 9am-9pm daily

Michael Coolidge (Free Bowl Founder and conceptual artist) has organized a week-long prize tournament that will span the downtown core of Calgary.

Similar to Bocce and Lawn Bowling, the objective of Free Bowl is to bowl closest to a marker ball. Free Bowl players, however, must negotiate and determine their own courts, selecting from a vast array of existing urban spaces. One match leads to another, as the game and its players traverse the various landscapes of the built environment.

-SWINTAK

WHO: The Urban Quicksand Association

WHERE: Stephen Avenue Pedestrian Mall, the Alberta College of Art & Design, and Eau Claire Shopping Centre

WHEN: Throughout the festival

Making appearances at trade shows, festivals, colleges, and shopping malls, the UQA will distribute goodies such as the “Do-It-Yourself Quicksand Kits for Condo Dwellers”, clear up the popular confusion between actual quicksand and so-called ’slow dirt’, and argue on interesting topics like “Why Solids and Liquids are Over-Rated: The Curse of Binary Thinking in Urban Planning”.

-THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A THINK IS MAINTAINED (?): PART II

WHO: Doug Scholes

WHERE: Olympic Plaza, 228 8th Avenue SE

WHEN: 24/7

Scholes will build towers that, by their very nature, will self-destruct. Onsite each day throughout the festival, the artist will manipulate thousands of hollow beeswax bricks in a futile attempt to maintain the towers as seemingly stable structures. Highly susceptible to sun, rain, wind, and outright vandalism, the constructions put into relief the ‘everything-proof’ standard that Calgarians have come to expect from concurrent architectural projects.

-YARNOVER CALGARY (YO CALGARY!)

WHO: Suzen Green

WHERE: Family of Man and Family of Horses

WHEN: Sep 7-16, 24 hours

During Artcity, a series of public monuments in the downtown core will be clad in custom designed scarves, socks, hats, and mittens. The temporary interventions are designed to encourage Calgarians to reconsider the innocuousness of the sculptures and what they stand for.

Suzen Green’s pieces will be located at the Family of Horses sculpture (City Hall, 800 MacLeod Trail SE), the Family of Man sculpture (West of the Calgary Board of Education building, 515 MacLeod Trail SE).

-KIND OF SORT OF YOURS BUT ACTUALLY MOSTLY MINE

WHO: Paul Atkins (Out Of My System), Noel Bégin (Cinemaphidic Obliviolution - beta 0.3, 2007), Aleesa Cohene (Why me? #1, 2007), Lee Henderson (Revelations, 2005), Deirdre Logue (excerpts from Why Always Instead of Just Sometimes, 2003-2005), Stacey Watson (The Icecave, 2007)

WHERE: Glenbow Museum

WHEN: Sep 14, 6:30pm (directly before the ArtTalk panel discussion)

Combining appropriated and original footage, silence and booming soundtracks, the works on view include everything from messy relationship endings to the goings-on in a backyard aphid invasion.

-GUIDED TOURS

WHERE: Art Gallery of Calgary (117 8th Avenue SW, Calgary

WHEN: Sep 8 & 15, 1pm

FREE guided tours of the 2007 Artcity festival. Please meet the tour guide outisde the main entrance of the Art Gallery of Calgary.

Find more info on Artcity Calgary 2007 right HERE.