Just a few years ago, Colorado Springs was hardly more than a sleepy artistic backwater with little happening beyond the offerings of its fine arts center.
But things are quickly changing with the arrival of a new group of big-thinking curators who are plugging into the national, even international, art dialogue and energizing the community in the process.
Among them is Christopher Lynn, the new director of the Gallery of Contemporary Art at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. He has launched the space’s 2007-08 season with an impressively ambitious exhibition – “Manifest: Colonial Tendencies of the West.”
Following what has become a prescribed formula for such contemporary presentations, he has conceived a sociopolitical theme with potentially controversial overtones and chosen a group of eight local, national and international artists who fit into it.
This is the kind of hip, au courant show that is rarely seen in the Springs and has only started to become common in Denver in the past few years with the emergence of the Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver and other institutions.
The basic thrust of “Manifest” is that a contemporary brand of American colonialism continues to be played out in the world, not so much through military means but via such pervasive influences as pop and consumer culture.
“As Western influence blankets the world, it plants its tiny flags of ownership in economies, minds, lands, governments and cultures,” Lynn writes in an accompanying essay. “The planting of flags reaps more flags. The sowing of a power struggle yields additional power struggles.”
It is certainly possible to wonder about the cohesiveness of Lynn’s thesis, which seems overarching and contradictory at times, and to question how each of these artists exactly fit under that conceptual umbrella. But viewers can draw their own conclusions.
What seems beyond debate is that the curator has brought together some thought-provoking artists, none better known than Luis Gispert and Jeffrey Reed, who met in 2001 as master of fine arts degree candidates at Yale University.
Their central offering is “Stereomongrel,” a much-touted 10-minute film that premiered in 2005 at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City and has been shown at a series of venues since, including the Kantor/Feuer Gallery in Los Angeles.
Drawing on hip-hop videos and a diversity of other sources, this hypnotic film blends reality and fantasy, using a range of special effects and sophisticated production values to create an exotic panorama of visual images in a clash of high and low culture.
Easily the most incendiary work in the show is “Super Columbine Massacre RPG” (2005), a primitive video game focusing on the exploits of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the two students responsible for the Columbine High School shootings in 1999.
The game, which was made available on the Internet in 2005 on the sixth anniversary of the of the bloodshed, was created by Danny Ledonne, an Alamosa native. Until he was interviewed in a 2006 article in The Washington Post, he had remained anonymous.
Although he said then that he made the game partly as an “indictment of our society at large,” it is understandable why family members of Columbine victims have been outraged by it.
Is the game art? Should it be shown in a gallery setting? Does it have any redeeming value? Art spaces, especially academic ones, should be willing to tackle such hot-button issues, and it is a daring decision by Lynn to include Ledonne’s piece.
Other notable works are Amy Chan’s beautifully rendered gouaches depicting fanciful landscapes startlingly dotted with familiar chain restaurants, and Louise Noguchi’s dramatic shots of simulated shootouts in Wild West theme parks.
Vanguard contemporary art in Colorado Springs? Believe it.
“Manifest: Colonial Tendencies of the West” Art exhibition. Gallery of Contemporary Art, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, 1420 Austin Bluffs Parkway. Through Nov. 17. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, 1-4 p.m. Saturdays. Free. 719-262-3567
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Chase DeForest, who was recently awarded an emerging-artists grant from the American Craft Council, will have her first Denver exhibition at the Ironton Gallery, 3636 Chestnut Place. On view today through Dec. 15 will be her one-of-a-kind furniture made of of such elements as baseball bats, golf clubs and board games. An opening reception is set for 6-9 p.m. today. 303-297-8626 or
“Art in Science/Science in Art,” 30 works combining science and art by University of Colorado at Boulder faculty and students will remain on view at CU’s Fiske Planetarium through Dec. 31. 303-492-5002 or
Jae Ko and Terry Maker, two longtime members of the artist roster at the Robischon Gallery, 1740 Wazee St., are featured in new concurrent solo exhibitions through Dec. 29. 303-298-7788 or
Kyle MacMillan
