This review examines the exhibition Striving for ideal resolution, which was timed to coincide with the Calgary Winter Olympics and focuses on how artists and athletes are made into heroes.

As part of the Olympic Arts Festival, Striving for the Ideal Resolution, curated by Donna McAlear, seeks to demystify the assumption that artists, like athletes, are heroic or exist outside the norms of daily life. This show attempts to replace the ‘artist-as-hero-or-genius’ ideal by pointing at “today’s process- oriented and socially engaged art.” Works by Ken Lum, Mary Scott, Martha Townsend, Douglas Back, Lisa Steele and Kim Tomczak are featured.