No fancy art-historical thesis. No ax to grind. No meticulous chronology. No grasping at empty trends.
Instead, an exhibition running through Feb. 22 at the Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities offers an appealingly uncomplicated, accessible overview of contemporary Colorado photography.
“Shooting the West: Colorado Photographers” contains 70 images by 18 current and former residents, with a few added examples by noted figures from previous decades adding a little historical context.
Guest curator Rose Fredrick, who oversees the Coors Western Art Exhibit and Sale at the National Western Stock Show, Rodeo & Horse Show, has assembled a nicely balanced mix of styles, working methods and subject matter.
It’s an ideal introduction to the state’s photography scene. But even viewers who regularly follow what is happening regionally in the medium are likely to discover a photographer they don’t know or at least some pieces they haven’t seen before.
Setting the standard for everything else on view are four images from 1965 through 1982 by Robert Adams, a former Coloradan who reshaped landscape photography with his eye for the seemingly insignificant and his prescient understanding of the pernicious effects of development.
Hundreds of photographers have taken images similar to “Wheat Stubble, South of Thurman, Colorado” (1965), a 9-by-11-inch black-and-white view of a ragged field with the horizon far in the distance and a dark, rainy sky. But in Adams’ hands, what could be a forgettable scene is anything but. He subtly capitalizes on the triangular composition formed by the offsetting crop rows and horizon line, and invests the expanse with a feeling of forlornness and vulnerability.
In his series “Sweet Medicine,” published in a 1995 book of the same title, Drex Brooks, a 1981-88 member of the University of Denver art faculty, photographed the Sand Creek Massacre Site and other places across the country where American Indian conflicts took place.
Some of these images, such as a ghostly view of Sand Creek, possess the dignity and quiet power one expects. But Brooks brings a sharp-edged skepticism to other scenes, especially a 1987 one that simply carries the name and location of Sand Creek.
In this pointed commentary, Brooks fixes on a tour bus on a small, dirt parking area next to a field, with two men smoking alongside. Also visible is a pickup and woman in the background looking into the distance. The banal scene could be anywhere — until one finally notices the small, nearly incidental historical marker.
When Charles Forsman of Boulder is included in photography shows, almost always shown are landscapes framed by the window of his car. As strong as that series is, it was refreshing to see something new and startlingly different.
Employing his first digital camera, with the bright, saturated colors it can produce, he has turned his attention to sometimes disorienting close-ups of dead leaves and the unlikely places they fall, intermingling with a discarded plastic bottle or poster.
One of the groundbreaking achievements in modern photojournalism was W. Eugene Smith’s famed look at a day in the life of a rural doctor. The documentary project was published in 1948 in Life magazine under the simple title “The Country Doctor.”
Aspen photographer Andrea Wallace has returned to Kremmling, the site of Smith’s photo essay, to create an arresting group of black-and-white portraits of the town’s current residents, who are identified only by their first names.
She achieves a distinctive, slightly offbeat aesthetic by sticking to a horizontal format, even if it means, in the case of “Tristen and Rochell” (2003), cropping out the head and lower legs of a woman standing with a boy.
Also on view are works by Robert Benjamin, Stephen Collector, Scott Engel, Hal Gould, Roddy MacInnes, Kevin O’Connell, Eric Paddock, Jessie Paige, David Sharpe, Barbara Sparks, William Sutton, Richard Van Pelt, Charles Walters and Loretta Young- Gautier.
Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com
“Shooting the West: Colorado Photographers”
Art. Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities, 6901 Wadsworth Blvd. More than 70 diverse views of the American West are featured in this overview of Colorado photography. Through Feb. 22. 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays and 1 to 5 p.m. Sundays. Free. Call 720-898-7200 or go to .
