softcore HARDEDGE

Phillip Argent
Tim Bavington
Billy Al Bengston
Karl Benjamin
Ingrid Calame
Alexander Caldwell
Eric Cameron
Dave & Jenn
John Eisler
Bradley Harms
Harry Kiyooka
Allison Miller
Lee Mullican
Mark Mullin
Wil Murray
Candace Nycz
Monique Prieto
Laurel Smith

softcore HARD EDGE features artwork by eighteen artists from Calgary and Los Angeles co-curated by art critic for the Los Angeles Times, David Pagel, and The Art Gallery of Calgary’s Senior Art Curator, Marianne Elder.

Debuting in Calgary at The Art Gallery of Calgary on September 10, 2010 and continuing to Los Angeles on August 29, 2011, softcore HARD EDGE will bring together 60 artworks that question similarities of contemporary art practice created in these two very different cities. The premise of softcore HARD EDGE originated from Elder’s observation of similarities of tone, palette, and brushstroke in contemporary painting between Los Angeles and Calgary when she moved back to Canada from Southern California.

In conversation with longtime colleague David Pagel, she began exploring possible connections of influence and history that led to such similarities. Curating the artworks independently but in conversation with one another, Elder choose nine artists from Calgary with Pagel choosing nine artists from Los Angeles. Exhibiting all 18 artists together, softcore HARD EDGE examines the possibilities of what visually connects these works and the underlying relationships of history and influence on these two art centers.

Exhibiting at: The Art Gallery of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta - September 10, 2010 to January 22, 2011 East and Peggy Phelps Galleries, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, California - August 29, 2011 to September 23, 2011