Chris Cran RCA (born 1949 in Ocean Falls, British Columbia)[1] is a Canadian visual artist, based in Calgary, Alberta.
[6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] Critics such as Leo Steinberg and others argued that Greenberg dealt more with what artists and curators could not do, such as contextualize an art object and glorify kitsch.
[citation needed] In a 2003 review published in Canadian Art Magazine, Calgary Herald art critic Nancy Tousley compared Cran's creative process to meteorological events, storms, showers and "thunderous, lightning speed one offs" in which he produces experimental works based on an idea as catalyst using a handful of different styles.
[15] In his review of Cran's 2009 exhibition entitled Bright Spiral Standard at Toronto's Clint Roenisch Gallery, The Globe and Mail's art critic Gary Michael Dault described Cran's exhibition as a "dazzling sojourn in sophisticated visuality" and "fun" with its "shimmering, graphically delicate but exacting paintings.
Canadian actor, writer, comedian, and film director Bruce McCulloch, who was asked by the National Gallery of Canada to write an essay for the exhibition catalogue,Sincerely Yours, described Crane's Self portrait; Accepting a Cheque for the Commission of this Painting, ..."In it, Chris holds a large cheque with the fee he got paid for it, being handed to him by the man that commissioned him.
Cran's work was also selected for the 2013 Alberta Biennial of Contemporary Art, which featuring 36 Alberta-based artists in an exhibition curated by Nancy Tousley and entitled The News From Here.
In this exhibition, the physical, societal and cultural geography of Alberta is felt in the works of art, both in the foreground and background of imagery, subject matter, content and critical issues.
"[25] Chris Cran: Surveying the Damage, 1977–97 In 1999 his retrospective exhibition entitled Chris Cran: Surveying the Damage, 1977–97 with works produced over two decades – including his student years at ACAD – was shown at the Kelowna Art Gallery in British Columbia, in Saskatoon, and in Toronto at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (July 8, 1999 – October, 1999).
Major Survey – Sincerely Yours, Chris Cran, 2015–2016 A major multi-partner survey of Cran's artistic production spanning over thirty years,[26] was co-curated by Josée Drouin-Brisebois, Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the NGC and Catherine Crowston, Deputy Director and Chief Curator, of the Art Gallery of Alberta (AGA) in Edmonton, Alberta The exhibition entitled Sincerely Yours opened at the AGA on September 12, 2015, in the spring of 2016 at the NGC.
"[5] Stephen Hunt of the Calgary Herald described Cran's work as the "rhetoric of the image," in reference to the iconic essay by Roland Barthes.