Calgary Success Stories City Centre Now An Outdoor Art Gallery
For a long time, Calgary’s City Center was seen as a place devoid of charm and character. A sea of bland tall buildings was a common description. However, that is changing! Today it is an amazing outdoor art gallery. See end of blog for 2.5 minute slide featuring 60+ public artworks.
Numerous Public Art Initiatives
For the past 25+ years, the downtown core has gradually become an outdoor art gallery with sculptures on many corners, thanks to the City’s bonus density program that allowed developers to build bigger buildings in return for public amenities like public art.
Perhaps the best known piece of public art from the bonus density program is “Wonderland,” which sits the entrance to The Bow. It is by Jaume Plensa one of the world’s best known public art makers. Some of you may know this piece as “The Big White Head.”
Some major pieces have been gifted to the city – including the popular “Famous Five Monument” on Olympic Plaza and “Family of Man,” the 21 foot tall sculptures on the old Calgary Board of Education block. Today, there are 50+ sculptures and murals in the downtown core, including arguably the City’s most loved public artwork - Doug Driediger’s “Giving Wings to the Dream” on 7th Ave at Centre Street.
BUMP
But it isn’t only Calgary’s downtown that is an outdoor art gallery. Over the past three years, BUMP (Beltline Urban Mural Project) has installed 40+ huge murals on the sides of buildings scattered around the neighbourhood. Created by Calgary, Canadian and International artists, the subject matter ranges from fantasy to decorative. You can hardly walk more than a few blocks without encountering a mural.
Not to be outdone, Downtown West has also initiated a mural program that today has several huge murals on the sides of buildings. One of the most inspiring murals is “Chalk Drawing” by Jason Botkin. The image is of a young girl of colour sitting while drawing on the side of the Attainable Homes building. (Attainable Homes is an organization that helps low income families buy a home. FYI: The child depicted in the mural actually lives in one of their homes.)
Farnaz Sadeghpour, Downtown West Community Association President thinks "the murals in Downtown West have not only brightened our neighbourhood, but sparked some great conversations. The murals are community builders for us. I'm biased, but I think they often improve the buildings and create unique ways for people to identify locations when finding their way around.”
East Village Art Park
As well, Calgary Municipal Land Corporation has made public art a key component of its transformation of East Village into a funky place to “live, work and play.” It is almost like an art park. In addition to several murals along the Jack & Jean Leslie RiverWalk that change every few years, major permanent public art works include:
THESAMEWAYBETTER/READER by Calgary artist Ron Moppett, is a huge 34-meter long mural made up of 950,00 mosaic tiles.
BLOOM by Canadian artist Michel de Broin consists of various types of streetlights that together form look a giant flower.
PROMENADE by British artist Julian Opie is a four-sided tower with 20 LED panels that display an animation of people walking.
TRIO by American artist Christian Moeller is a three-piece sculpture at the front and back entrance to the new Central Library that looks like a drinking bird.
Device to Root Out Evil by American artist Dennis Oppenheim is an upside down church currently on a five-year loan.
THESAMEWAYBETTER/READER by Calgary artist Ron Moppett, is a huge 34-meter long mural made up of 950,00 mosaic tiles.
TRIO by American artist Christian Moeller is a three-piece sculpture at the front and back entrance to the new Central Library that looks like a drinking bird. The third bird is at the entrance on the east side of the new Central Library.
Art Everywhere
Not to be outdone, Kensington Village has numerous murals on the sides of its buildings as well as the alley on the east side of 10th St. NW is a colourful street art/graffiti gallery. Sunnyside has a growing laneway art program on garage doors. And don’t forget Chinatown’s public art that includes the Sien Lok Park sculptures.
Wander over to Stampede Park to discover several significant public artworks (murals and sculptures), the most notable being the massive “By the Banks of the Bow” sculpture featuring 15 horses and two cowboys and reputed to be one of the largest bronze sculptures in North America.
While the last 10 years has seen a flurry of new public art in the City Centre, the development of the outdoor art gallery in our City Centre began back in the 80s and 90s with the Uptown 17th Mural program along 17th Ave SW, the 4th Street Sculpture program in Mission and Calgary Downtown Association’s “Benches as Art” project and the sandstone sculptures in the planters along Barclay Mall (3rd St SW.)
Two new sculptures were recently installed at the entrance to the brand new Park Central (northwest corner of 4th St and 12th Ave SW) residential tower.
Both are Calgary artists – Alex Caldwell and Blake Senini. And downtown has a massive new mural celebrating Baron George Stephen the first President of Canadian Pacific Railway in the alley on the back of Stephen Avenue’s Hudson Block at Centre Street.
Calgary’s Outdoor Art Gallery Slideshow (50+ artworks)
Last Word
You could easily spend a day wandering the streets and alleys of Calgary’s City Centre and not see all of the 100+ artworks on display. But you would have a lot of fun trying!
Note: An edited version of this blog was published by LiveWire Calgary an online community news forum.
If you like this blog, you will like these blog links:
Calgary: The World’s Most Walkable City Centre?
Calgary’s City Centre: One of North America’s Best!
Downtown Calgary: From Concrete Jungle to Glass Gallery!