A FREE pop-up art exhibit is coming to this downtown Calgary office tower
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A new art exhibit is coming to downtown Calgary this winter and the best part? It’s totally free!
Glenbow, Calgary’s beloved art and history museum, temporarily shut down operations at the end of August 2021 to undergo major renovations and isn’t expected to reopen until 2024. In the interim, the museum will be introducing a satellite exhibit space in one of the city’s underused office spaces.
Set to open in March 2022, the exhibition will pop up in The Edison building at 150 9th Avenue SW. The new location is just a block away from the museum’s main venue.
“The City of Calgary is excited to invest in this project through our Downtown Strategy funding as it meets many of our goals in one project,” says Thom Mahler, Director of The City of Calgary’s Downtown Strategy, in a press release from Glenbow.
“It repurposes office space to provide an amenity that will create cultural vibrancy by attracting Calgarians and tourists downtown, and it showcases how we can use partnerships with the private sector to deliver results.”
According to the press release, Glenbow is converting an empty office suite on the public +15 level of The Edison into a Class A Museum space, which includes installing specialized HVAC systems and climate controls to protect the artworks and artifacts that will be on view in the space.
“Our plan is to create a new space where people can drop in and spend ten minutes or stay for an hour,” says Glenbow President and CEO Nicholas Bell. “We invite everyone to just come and experience great art and culture and have a really good time.”
The goal is that this repurposed space could continue to be a cultural or creative facility for art in Calgary even after Glenbow moves back to its own building.
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The first exhibition in Glenbow’s new location is Uninvited: Canadian Women Artists in the Modern Moment.
The landmark exhibition will be home to more than 200 works of art by a generation of extraordinary female painters, photographers, sculptors, architects, and filmmakers from a century ago ā pioneers who opened new frontiers for women artists in Canada.
It also features works made by Indigenous female contemporaries working in traditional media for a cross-country snapshot of female creativity in the dynamic modern moment of the early 20th century.
The new location will host the museum’s feature exhibition program until Glenbow’s
building renovation is complete in 2024. While you wait for the space to open in March, you can check out all of Glenbow’s online artist talks and virtual tours
Pop-up Glenbow exhibition at The Edison
When: Beginning March 2022; more details to come
Where: The Edison (150 9th Avenue SW, Calgary)
Cost: Free
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