This September, Calgary will experience its second annual Culture Month - an initiative to celebrate the arts in Calgary and encourage everyone to take advantage of the city's extensive offering of arts events.

September is one of the best months of the year to experience the arts in Calgary. Hot on the heels of Calgary's busy summer festivals season, the month is packed with new plays, gallery openings, concerts and other events that call attention to Calgary's exciting year-round arts scene. While these are all exciting happenings, September isn't the only time you'll find them in Calgary. Calgary offers a diverse selection of arts events throughout the year, every year - and it's only getting better.

See what's on during Culture Month.

Contours in the Crosshairs is an installation combining video projection, broken glass sculpture and still images. The video presents the slow motion passage of a mountain highway from the driver’s perspective. Layered over the highway clip is another that shows the gradual erasure of the contour lines of the Athabasca Glacier. The 20 min. looping video is projected onto the frosted surface of a suspended car windshield.

Nancy Nisbet is an interdisciplinary artist working in installation, photography, and performance. Having presented her works and lectures across North America and internationally, Nisbet focuses on provisional identities, faltering memories, and improvised narratives within the broader socio political landscape. With a background in Genetics, before completing her MFA from  the California Institute of the Arts under the mentorship of Catherine Opie, Nisbet will be teaching at ACAD as of the Fall of 2010.

http://www.thenewgallery.org

Fernando Botero's artistic style is instantly recognizable and his imagery memorable. This internationally acclaimed Colombian artist depicts the comedy of human life — moving or wry, sometimes with deep emotion or with acerbic wit. Working in a broad range of media, Botero has created a world of his own, at once accessible and enigmatic, with a particular blend of violence, humour and beauty.

The Baroque World of Fernando Botero is the first retrospective exhibition of Botero's work since 1974 and is Calgary's first-ever exhibition of this celebrated artist's work. The exhibition has toured across the United States; in Canada, only three institutions are presenting this magnificent exhibition and Glenbow is the only Western Canadian venue. The Baroque World of Fernando Botero consists of eighty-seven paintings, drawings and watercolours, ten small sculptures and three monumental sculptures.

Artist: Derek Besant 

Besant has created a series of photo-based water portraits of local Calgarians. Besant uses his imagery as a metaphor for humans' relationship with the life-sustaining Bow River. The larger-than-life water portraits  will appear on Calgary Transit vehicles and outdoor billboards throughout the city. Besant worked with project partners, The Pattison Outdoor Group and Calgary Transit to realize this project across the city.

From June through September, six Public Art events in Calgary will give citizens and visitors the opportunity to celebrate and reflect upon the precious Bow River. Each event will feature a different artist and provide an artistic opportunity to experience the Bow River and think about its importance as a life-sustaining resource.

For information on all six events, visit www.calgary.ca/bow