Inside the butter cowboy: Contemporary Calgary's melting masterpiece
A 2.5-metre sculpture made from 227 kilograms of butter is taking shape behind climate-controlled walls. It's ephemeral art designed to decay.
Behind walls of plastic in a climate-controlled box at Contemporary Calgary, two artists are using trowel-like tools to sculpt a 2.5-metre-high cowboy on a rearing horse — all from 227 kilograms of butter.
The work is the centrepiece of Iranian-born artist Ghazaleh Avarzamani's new exhibition, Churn, Earn, Burn and Then Return, opening June 4 and running through November 8.
Avarzamani, now based in London, England, has long wanted to work with butter as a serious artistic material. But galleries and museums are notoriously reluctant to welcome it. "I really wanted to work with butter," she says. "It's not a material that many museums welcome. They are scared of having it for so many reasons. In Toronto, I tried hard to get it into one of my exhibitions, but it was a no go."
Museums worry about humidity control, mould, and unwanted pests. Contemporary Calgary's chief curator Mona Filip dismisses those concerns. The gallery commissioned the exhibition specifically and designed it to fit the unique space of the round Ring Gallery.
The precarious nature of the sculpture is intentional. The cowboy and horse are expected to survive in some form until November 8 — but they will change. The sculpture is built around a solid armature with fans constantly blowing cold air onto it. The butter, sourced from Foothills Creamery, is salted to prolong its lifespan.
"The exhibition lasts for five months," Avarzamani explains. "It will definitely deform and get softer and get some cracks. The idea of ephemeral power that is changing is part of the exhibition."
Power — how it is gained and lost — runs through the entire show. The sculpture's shape is based on a token from the board game Monopoly. In fact, the whole exhibition pivots around the game. The gallery floor will be laid out in grids like a board game board, complete with other installations that explore themes of wealth, chance, and control.
For Avarzamani, the butter cowboy is more than a novelty. It's a meditation on impermanence and the fragility of authority. In a gallery context where most art is preserved under glass, this work invites decay. Visitors will watch it soften and crack over months. Some will return multiple times to see how much it has changed.
That contradiction — monumental sculpture designed to melt — is the whole point. Power doesn't last. Glory cracks. Even a two-and-a-half-metre cowboy, proud on his horse, eventually comes undone.
The exhibition opens June 4 at Contemporary Calgary's ring gallery, 139 11th Avenue S.E.