If you are going to present a new look at the old West, you might as well start with the humble tumbleweed. That is where photographer Brenda Biondo began.
Because of its omnipresence in 20th-century Hollywood Westerns, the plant is often thought of as an organic part of the American landscape. But — as Biondo explains in the audio recording that accompanies her artwork “Unnatural” at the Arvada Center — it was really one of the first invasive species brought to the region by European settlers in the 1870s, and it rapidly displaced native grasses and wildflowers, altering the local environment forever.
For “Unnatural,” Biondo took 20 photos of real tumbleweeds but then altered their colors with dyes during the photographic printing process, turning their scrappy brown hues into exaggerated pinks, blues and blacks. Instead of looking ordinary, they appear awkward and artificial — and anything but organic. Point made.
The work is a standout in the exhibition “Tilting West,” which continues at the center through Aug. 23, and a good way to understand the show’s intention of using art to reframe fixed ideas about a region that is constantly changing.
Like nearly everything at the center, the exhibit is a sprawling affair, featuring work by 12 invited artists, plus another 102 pieces selected by a jury that whittled down 355 submissions by Colorado painters, sculptors, weavers, woodworkers, printmakers and more.
And it comes amid a slew of new exhibitions that look back at local history and the current condition of Colorado affairs as the state commemorates its 150 anniversary. Several major museums and exhibition spaces here, including the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Denver Art Museum and Emmanuel Gallery, are digging deep into regional identity in the coming months. For art fans, itap going to be a summer of serious self-reflection.
“Tilting West” sets the bar high. With on-point work by many of the state’s most prominent artists that filters traditional ideas through the lens of the currently hot topics that drive art-making these days — personal identity, the shifting social order, and a heightened concern for the environment during a time of climate change. The show is presented in partnership with Tilt West, a local non-profit that fosters artful dialogues about the region through its series of ongoing roundtable discussions and publications.
While the show’s topics are weighty, its overall personality can be entertaining, and often humorous. That starts right at the entrance of the main gallery, where visitors encounter Alex Branch’s “Ground Cover.”
The piece consists of stalks of real wheat that have been planted on a mechanical conveyor belt that moves them back and forth so they appear to be blowing in the wind. The sculpture is half-natural and half-robotic, and, in the context of this exhibit, evokes the changing ways Westerners view and interact with the landscape in an era of factory farming.
New takes on the once-pristine Western landscape that has since been commandeered by ever-increasing civic development dominate the show. Daniel Carr’s “Postage to Black Canyon,” for example, recreates a scene of the iconic Colorado canyon using canceled, vintage postage stamps instead of paint. The surprisingly detailed piece is clever and crafty, and it underscores the high level of human intervention on the terrain.
There is a fair amount of now-common technology influencing and enabling these 21st-century versions of the Westap geography. Marc Billiard, who is showing the work “Mountain Meditation,” uses his cellphone to capture video of rolling hills and bluffs, which he then manipulates in his studio to give the scenery a hyper-colored, electrified edge.
Photographer Alexander Heilner used a drone to capture his aerial shot of the large and colorful — though water-use intensive — evaporation ponds at the “Intrepid Potash Mine, Near Moab, Utah,” as the work’s title tells viewers. Heilner’s work documents the causes and effects of the oncoming water shortage in the Colorado River Basin.
There are plenty of other works to single out in the expansive exhibition, including altered landscapes by Andrew Roberts-Gray and Marcos Acosta; JayCee Beyale’s “Westward Expansion,” a piece created on-site using traditional, indigenous sand-painting techniques; and Carissa Samaniego’s wall hangings that incorporate traditional woven rugs and neon lights.
There is also a bit of notable poetry in a series of works by William Rumley whose art is to make fishing lures, but also to accompany them with impressionistic texts that explain the circumstances around how or where he makes them. The show also recreates Rumley’s workshop, giving viewers an idea of how these objects, in the shape of moths, mice and goldfish, are actually tied.
Overall, “Tilting West” covers a lot of ground, both materially and thematically. In some ways it can be overwhelming — there are too many objects, going in too many directions, and gallery goers cannot possibly consume all of them on one visit. A little bit of editing would be helpful here.
But that variety also works in the show’s favor by underscoring the multiple viewpoints that now make up how we see the West. For a long time, this story was told through singular voices — the famous landscape painters we now label as icons; the early pop fiction writers who called out clearly who was a hero and who was a victim — often incorrectly; those movie directors who made a rough existence seem romantic and righteous.
“Tilting West” gives voice to scores of perspectives from a diverse assemblage of artists, each with their own sense of belonging here. They have the advantage of hindsight and the benefits of advanced science and cultural awareness that allow them to call out the invasive tumbleweeds and intrusive mines, but they all have genuine stories to tell.
Itap a more complete picture of the West than we are used to getting, and it brings new life to this land people love. “Tilting West” does not so much demolish history as it shows that history is still being written. And over time, there will be more versions to come.
“Tilting West” continues through Aug. 23 at the Arvada Center. Itap free. More info: 720-898-7200 or arvadacenter.org.
Ray Mark Rinaldi is a Denver-based freelance writer.
