Ag2 at Leighton Art Centre

On Saturday January 30th I made the drive back down to Calgary.  This time it was a solo trip... Margarit just arrived home from California the afternoon before and the girls all wanted to spend some time with her.  I was returning to the Leighton Art Centre south of Calgary for the opening of my Ag2 show.  This show is a duo project, again with my friend Rob Michiel.  Our Procession West exhibition has become so large, now with over 40 prints, that most venues don't have the space to show them all.  We used some of the prints from that project, and added a selection of new work.  We call this second exhibition Ag2, so that it is not in direct competition with our other show.  I won't quote the entire artist statement here, but the following excerpt outlines the meaning of the title...

Ag²

Our title is symbolic in two ways... 

Ag for silver; by definition,  a chemical element with the symbol Ag.  From the Latin Argentum.  Atomic number 47, a white lustrous transition metal it possesses the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity and reflectivity of any metal.  Silver has long been valued as a precious metal.  Of course it is the industrial application of its compounds in photographic film and paper that is of value to us as artists.

Two for squared; as this exhibition is the collaborative effort of two artists and friends, Robert Michiel and Robert Pohl.  Preferring to differentiate ourselves from the direction that technology has taken modern photography, both artists choose to work by traditional methods.  The hands on process of working with film and in the darkroom provides us with a greater degree of personal satisfaction.  

I left Edmonton around 9:00AM and arrived at the Leighton Art Center just before noon.  It was a mild day, but with heavily overcast skies.  This gallery is the former home of landscape painter A.C. Leighton, and after his passing became a historical site, art centre and gallery.  It is in a spectacular location, perched high atop a hilltop, overlooking the front ranges of the Rockies, to the west.

Upon entering the building, the foyer was set up as seen below.  The Ag2 exhibition was in the main gallery.  We had more than enough prints to fill this space and a few overflowed into other areas.  A selection of "Badlands" images by Saskatchewan artist Ken Dalgarno were showing in the smaller gallery space upstairs.  A local photographer and board member also had a few images displayed in the foyer.  These are the ones with the dark overmats.

One of Rob's prints and one of mine were included on the left side of the foyer.  From here guests walked down the hallway to the left.  One one side of the hallway there were two prints of mine, and on the other side, three of Rob's...

At the end of the hallway, if you turned left again, there were two or three of Ken Dalgarno's color digital prints on display in a second hallway, and there were stairs leading up to the second gallery where several more of Ken's prints were on display.  Turning right would lead to the main gallery where the remainder of the Ag2 show was on display.  It was a nice space with a good amount of natural light from the windows and a skylight, and also some supplementary artificial track lights.  A couple of the corners were a little dark, but overall it was pretty good.  Fortunately Rob and I chose to frame our prints with some rather expensive anti-reflective, high light transmitting glass.  It did a pretty good job of eliminating reflections from the windows at virtually all viewing angles.

According to the gallery staff there were a total of 56 guests that attended during the two hour opening that afternoon.  There were lots of positive comments about the photographs in general, but in particular about our black and white film based work.  I was quite pleased with everything and reported to Rob the events of the afternoon.  He was not able to make it, as he now resides in the interior of British Columbia, which makes for a pretty long drive.  As this exhibit is part of the province wide Exposure Festival, on through the month of February, hopefully there will be a continuous stream of visitors over the coming weeks.
Once the opening wrapped up I hit the road for home, arriving back in Edmonton about 8:30PM.  I will pick up our prints from this exhibition in early March, when the show ends, and then deliver them on to their next venue, down in southern Alberta.