Winnipeg gallery that played major role in RAW: Almond to close

The Winnipeg art gallery that played a major role in developing the RAW: Almond, the annual pop-up ice restaurant on the Red River, is closing.

RAW: gallery will host its final exhibition Friday night and close its doors forever by midnight.

The five-year-old gallery was founded by Joe Kalturnyk, who brought his idea for a restaurant on the river to chef Mandel Hitzer shortly after he started out.

"A couple years before we did RAW: Almond I sat down with Mandel and a mutual friend and pitched them an idea of doing an outdoor pop-up restaurant in the winter," he said. "During that meeting, we decided, 'OK, let's do it on the river,' and that's kind of how it started."

The restaurant first showed up on the river in 2013, gaining international attention. Since then, it's sold out every year, with bigger crowds, bolder menus and this year an architectural competition to come up with the best design for the space.

"From my perspective, it was totally about space, programming something everybody's used to -- a restaurant -- but in a different context and also challenging the idea of a winter city and you can't really do anything in winter," said Kalturnyk.

Now, the restaurant has taken off, but the McDermot Street gallery has suffered a major funding crunch and has to close.

"We programmed six major exhibitions a year and tons of community drop-in stuff like lectures and screenings, stuff like that. We focused a lot on installation work," Kalturnyk said.

Installation work because when he founded the gallery, he wanted to focus on the crossover between art and architecture.

But with funding decreases from the federal, provincial and municipal level, Kalturnyk said it's become too difficult to keep the doors open.

 "I think there's a lack of interest in funding the arts generally in Canada, and Winnipeg is kind of starting to pick up, but it's been quite behind other cities in acknowledging arts do play a fundamental role in our culture and economy," he said.

According to Manitobans for the Arts, the City of Winnipeg spends seven times less than the national average on arts funding.

Mayor Brian Bowman campaigned on a promise to increase that funding, and in the 2015 budget, he followed through -- upping the per capita funding for arts from $5 to $7 over the next two years.

But there's still a big gap for Winnipeg artist, Kalturnyk said.

"In the arts scene in Canada, Winnipeg is a heavy hitter. We've helped produce a lot of big names. We have a thriving scene locally that's been going for decades.  There's this kind of weird disconnect I think with the politics and the funding and the production of art," said Kalturnyk. "It's something that people have to put on the agenda -- have to pressure politicians to make it part of the agenda, part of the platform."

RAW: almond to continue, mobile exhibits to come

While RAW: gallery's permanent home will be no more, the pop-up restaurants will continue, and Kalturnyk will focus RAW's efforts on mobile exhibits.

"I didn't think we'd last a year. To have been able to last a year, to do the restaurant, to put Winnipeg on the map — it's weird. It's like I lived a different life from what I expected to happen," he said. "You learn a ton. Especially when you have no money — you learn a lot. You learn to be very efficient."

Friday night's send-off will include an exhibition by Steven Laden-Cochrane and a performance from Aston Coles and Irene Bindi.

"One of the nice things that fit into this is that Aston and Irene were our first exhibition five years ago and it was their first performance five years ago, so it's kind of a nice closing," said Kalturnyk.

The exhibition starts at 8 p.m. on Friday at 291 McDermot St. and will run until about midnight.