Illuminating Language: book launch & lecture
About this Event
Illuminating Language brings to life twenty-five years of artwork by Calgary-based, international artist Dick Averns. Richly illustrated photographs, text-based art, alluring sculptures and public installations, coalesce to articulate what it takes to thrive in, survive, or navigate humanity.
Spanning deployment as an official war artist in the Middle East, to guerrilla performances at rallies with Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and most recently Danielle Smith… Averns’ art consistently reveals the power of visual language to illuminate, question, and recalibrate the commodification of space.
This new publication is an uncommon second edition and was initially produced as a catalogue for a 25-year solo show at the Vernon Public Art Gallery, replete with guest essay by Wayne Baerwadlt. Support from multiple agencies has enabled an expanded and revised edition including project overviews broaching sculpture, political performance, mental health, lens-based media, social practice, and public art.
Featured bodies of work include War Art Now, neon sculptures from 1999-2025, the performative Ambivalence Blvd, and an award-winning community mental wellness initiative Recognition… Validation… Reassurance… As both a rear-view survey exhibition and forward-looking art book, Illuminating Language is more than a distillation of how to creatively approach our complex world. On offer is a glimpse into the understated critical value of the longue durée.
Agenda
🕑: 05:30 PM - 08:30 PM
Doors and bar open (no host, card only)
🕑: 06:00 PM - 06:05 PM
Welcome
Host: Mona Filip, Chief Curator at Contemporary Calgary
🕑: 06:05 PM - 06:50 PM
Illuminating Language Lecture and Screnning
Host: Dick Averns
Info: Between leaving school aged 16 and being diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome aged 41, Dick Averns navigated numerous jobs and truncated careers, punctuated by an instinctive decision in his late 20s to enroll at art school.
Since completing graduate school in his late 30s, Averns’ expansive studio practice has been interwoven with University art teaching, critical writing and curating. His research specialties include conflict, neurodivergence, and interdisciplinary arts.
Averns is Canada’s first non-fiction writer to be deployed as an official war artist, received a City of Calgary legacy award for healing through the arts, and is recipient of a teaching excellence award for his pedagogy at the University of Calgary.
Many of Averns’ artworks appear in public collections including the Department of National Defence, Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery, City of Calgary, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and multiple private holdings. He represented by the Herringer Kiss Gallery.
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
CAD 0.00
