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Meet me in the woods
Mark Clintberg

Commissioned for the collection of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts
to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Banff Centre.

Mark Clintberg, Meet me in the woods (2010)

Mark Clintberg, Meet me in the woods (2010)
Public artwork commissioned by the Walter Phillips Gallery and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts

Walter Phillips Gallery and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts are pleased to announce the unveiling of Meet me in the woods, a new public sculpture by Alberta artist Mark Clintberg. The Alberta Foundation for the Arts and The Banff Centre commissioned Clintberg’s project on the occasion of The Banff Centre’s 75th anniversary.

Consisting of two signs posted on separate sites on The Banff Centre’s campus, Meet me in the woods appears under the guise of traditional signage for the Walter Phillips Gallery. One sign is situated in a very visible, high-traffic space on the campus, while the other is located in a wooded clearing, which represents a threshold between the town and the Centre and acts as an intersection of these two spaces.

Central to the work is the shift from day to night, from light to dark. At night, from specific viewing positions, a second handwritten message appears on the reverse of what is otherwise typical Banff Centre signage. The night-time texts are suggestive, and invitational, offering the prospect of social encounters and alternative meeting points: the sign on campus reading “Meet me in the woods,” while that in the clearing reads “Meet me in the town.”

Mark Clintberg is an artist, writer, and curator who is currently a Ph.D. student in the Interuniversity Doctoral Program in Art History at Concordia University. His practice explores how the private needs of citizen’s can be demonstrated within public spaces, and how this public space might then in turn invade the private sphere in a more meaningful way. His work is included in both public and private collections in Canada and the United States, including the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.

The Alberta Foundation for the Arts is an agency of the Government of Alberta. The Foundation exists to fund, encourage, and support the development of arts as a valuable contributor to quality of life in Alberta, and to maintain and expand the AFA art collection as a strategic resource for all Albertans.