Giant cowboy statue made of butter on display in Calgary

Contemporary Calgary is hosting Churn, Earn, Burn and then Return, featuring a 1,000-pound butter cowboy created by Canadian artist Ghazaleh Avarzamani.

A sculpture of a cowboy made entirely of butter is on display in Calgary.

The cowboy – who is on horseback – is the creation of Canadian artist Ghazaleh Avarzamani and is on display at Contemporary Calgary.

Contemporary Calgary says the exhibit, called Churn, Earn, Burn and then Return, is built around an “immersive Monopoly-inspired environment” and centred on a 1,000-pound (454 kilogram) butter cowboy, sculpted entirely on-site and existing only for the run of the show.

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“It’s a striking, perishable work with deep roots in Canadian history and a sharp eye on labour, accumulation, and who the game was really designed for,” the gallery said in a news release.

In addition to the buttery buckaroo, the gallery also has exhibits from Haig Aivazian – an animated cartoon mini-series called You may own the lanterns, but we have the light – and Adelita Husni Bey’s film Agency, filmed in Rome in 2014, which documents 35 students as they navigate a political simulation.

David Leinster, CEO of Contemporary Calgary, says all three artists create work that is as visually stunning as it is thought-provoking.

“These three exhibitions ask us to look more carefully at the world around us - at the games we play, the systems that govern public space and the quiet mechanisms through which power is organized and contested,” he said.

The exhibits opened on Thursday.