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Kitsch: Craft So Bad That It’s Good


  • Alberta Craft Gallery - Calgary 1721 - 29 Avenue Southwest Calgary, AB, T2T 1P5 Canada (map)

Has the pandemic left you with the need for some comic relief? We invited Fine Craft artists working in all traditional and contemporary craft media to join in the fun and to create their interpretations of kitsch craft.

Kitsch: Craft So Bad That It’s Good is a group exhibition of works from Alberta Craft Council members. Creators responded from across the province to kitsch it up with humorous works that and will make you laugh and cringe all at once - crossing lines and breaking rules.

Craft artists working in all traditional and contemporary craft media were invited to create their interpretations of kitsch craft; Craft that shares a knowing wink with the viewer, craft that wears kitsch on its velour sleeve as a rhinestone badge of honor, craft that’s appeal is found in its bad taste and ironic value.

Stuck indoors during the covid winter, artists turned to their resourceful natures to design and create objects responding to our strange covid times and using materials that were readily at hand in their covid hideouts! Many of the participating artist created new one of kind objects unlike anything you have seen in the Alberta Craft Council before.

Kitsch: Craft So Bad That It’s Good subverts the rules around good taste, and crosses the line, making you laugh and cringe all at once! The resulting exhibition is exciting, curious, challenging, eccentric and hilarious!

Participating artists: Abby Light, Ananda Holdsworth, Breanna Barrington, Hellen Beamish, Annette Ten Cate, Carly Hines, Ciara Jayne, Corinne Cowell, Dale Learner, Donna Brunner, Ellie Shuster, Emily Nash, Erik Lee, Erika Dueck, Jennea Frischke, Jennifer Hartley-Illanes, JoAnna Lange, Kaleb Romano, Karla Mather-Cocks, Susan Kristoferson, Laura O'Connor, Lauren Chipeur, Margaret Hall, Matt Gould, Matthew O'Reilly, Meghan Wagg, Mireille Perron, Pour Celine Frit, Puck Janes, Rochelle Hammond, Ruth-Anne French, Sandra Lamouche, Sara Norquay, Sara Young, Sarabeth Carnat, Shona Rae, Siri McCormick, P. Susannah Windrum, William Miles.

View the online exhibition.

Watch Craft and Kitsch – So Good That It’s BAD**, a virtual talk about Kitsch organized by the Alberta Craft Council featuring Historian Dr. Jennifer Salahub.

Read the review of Kitsch: Craft So Bad That It’s Good published by Galleries West.

Listen to On Art: ‘Kitsch: Craft So Bad That It’s Good’, an interview with ACC Executive Director Jenna Stanton published by CKUA on September 10, 2021.

Earlier Event: March 12
Coming Up Next
Later Event: August 6
Craft and Science