Churn, baby, churn: 2.5-metre butter sculpture of a cowboy being built at Contemporary Calgary

Behind walls of plastic in a climate-controlled box at Contemporary Calgary, two artists are building a stately sculpture of a cowboy on a rearing horse.

Churn, baby, churn: 2.5-metre butter sculpture of a cowboy being built at Contemporary Calgary. Behind walls of plastic in a climate-controlled box at Contemporary Calgary, two artists are building a stately sculpture of a cowboy on a rearing horse. As cold air blows inside the makeshift structure, the artists use trowel-like tools to shape the unusual 2.5-metre high sculpture — made with 227 kilograms of butter. The finished work will be central to Iranian-born artist Ghazaleh Avarzamani’s new exhibit — Churn, Earn, Burn and Then Return — which will open June 4. Avarzamani, who was in Calgary this week overseeing the installation of the exhibition at Contemporary Calgary, has worked with this unusual material before, but admits it’s not always an easy sell to galleries and museums. “I really wanted to work with butter,” says Avarzamani,...