This work is the first in a series that gathers buttons found by the artist at markets. The series studies an often overlooked but important technology. Small and yet often highly ornamental, buttons are essential for fastening and connecting. Each button links to both personal and international histories; for example, their materials – shell, horn, bone, plastic, and glass – intersect with legacies of resource extraction, industrialism, global trade, and colonialism. Notions continues Klintberg’s work with handmade and found textiles, such as the "Passion Over Reason" quilts created with seventeen artisans on Fogo Island, and his mimicry of museological codes of presentation.


August Klintberg (he/him, formerly Mark Clintberg) is an artist who works in the field of art history. He is an Associate Professor at the Alberta University of the Arts and completed his PhD at Concordia University. Collections holding his work include the National Gallery of Canada, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, the Bank of Montreal Corporate Art Collection, TD Corporate Art Collection and The Rooms, and he has created public artworks for Western Front, Edmonton Arts Council, the Walter Phillips Gallery, and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. A large-scale installation from the artist is featured in the touring group exhibition Thick as Thieves, organized by the Mackenzie Art Gallery and curated by Crystal Mowry, currently on view at the Whyte Museum (Banff). Klintberg has been an artist in residence on Fogo Island, at Banff Centre, and La cité international des arts. He was Longlisted for the Sobey Art Award for the region Prairies and the North in 2016, and Shortlisted for the Award in 2013.