Taking inspiration from a sound that straddles pleasure and pain, Moan features art work in a variety of media by UCCS Visual Art faculty and students as a part of the City Dionysia Festival. A maelstrom of violence, The Bacchae is a potent source for examining the heart of revelry, intoxication, and vengeance. Opening reception: March 4, 6 – 9 pm. Closing reception (with a live performance of excerpts from the Bacchae score): April 2, 6 – 9 pm.

COMPLIMENTARY PARKING IN LOT 3 PROVIDED BY UCCS PARKING SERVICES.

Featuring work by:

Carol Dass
Aaron Graves
Claire Rau
Kim Lovelace
Corey Drieth
Laura Bearl
Erik Schubert
Taylor Stamp
Mariya Zvonkovich
Amber Marchlowska
Matt Barton
Courtney Matthews
Olivia Lundberg
Elizabeth Raitz
Pauline Foss
Brett Wilson
Valerie Brodar
Dom Puleo
Erin Elder
Lisa Cross

The Gallery of Contemporary Art and THEATREWORKS are proud to host the world premier of the ENTIRE Autoteatro Series by Rotozaza, a UK-based performance group. Three works make up the series: ETIQUETTE, GURUGURU and WONDERMART.

BUY TICKETS or call 719.255.3232 to make reservations.

ETIQUETTE by Ant Hampton and Silvia Mercuriali
Etiquette is a half-hour experience for two people in a public space. There is no-one watching – other people in the cafe or bar are not aware of it. You wear headphones which tell you what to say to each other, or to use one of the objects positioned to the side. There is a kind of magic involved – for it to work you just need to listen and respond accordingly. Etiquette is theatre at its most raw; it is live, insightful, philosophical and incredibly unique. The participants are both the actors and the audience, and the show offers the fantasy of being able to speak without having to think what to say.

GURUGURU by Ant Hampton with Joji Koyama and Isambard Khroustaliov
You have been told what to do every moment of the day, for years on end. The voice in your headphones has understood who you are and gives instructions which mirror what you’d be doing anyway. A life free of dither and uncertainty! In your job, this voice is a career-saver… but the day has come when you need to come ‘off the headphones’. You need help.

Five audience-participants enter a brightly lit room and discover chairs positioned for them around a screen. As they each follow different instructions via headphones, they find themselves at the centre of an oddly familiar dystopia, and that they’re wearing headphones permanently, ‘for their own good’. Proceedings are led by an on-screen, animated character whose twin roles of marketing and spiritual Guru are confused by his reliance on untested and accident-prone technologies. The overproduced, digital sheen of this focus-group world begins to crack, as the group edge towards the dangerous situation of having to think for themselves. In true Rotozaza style, a beautifully orchestrated chaos develops, exposing today’s consumer-mad inability to distinguish between what we want, and what we need.

WONDERMART by Silvia Mercuriali with Tommaso Perego and Matt Rudkin
Wondermart takes a mischievous swipe at the dominance of supermarket culture and consumerism. This interactive audio tour takes you on a journey of rediscovery through the familiar surroundings of the supermarket. Wearing headphones and anonymous behind your trolley, you are guided around the aisles immersed in a private world, as the carefully constructed soundscape overlays a fictional world that blurs the real with the imaginary.

Here’s what the press has to say:
“Wondermart is an absorbing journey into the heart of modern consumerism.” The List (Wondermart)

“The concept is clever and the result an altered engagement with the commonplace.” Irish Times (Wondermart)

“gripping… If the line between audience and performer seems blurred, Rotozaza’s Etiquette erases it entirely.” New York Times/Herald Tribune (Etiquette)

“This is a magical, unthreatening experience… the act of relinquishing responsibility for thought, word and action is unique and the effect is unmissable.” British Theatre Guide (Etiquette)

“Hugely entertaining… This smart, mysterious exercise in programmed thinking and collective chaos is strange but exhilarating.” The Times (GuruGuru)

“You may find yourself frantically looking for yourself again in the moments after the performance has finished.” The Guardian (GuruGuru)

MORE INFORMATION ON ROTOZAZA CAN BE FOUND ON THEIR WEBSITE: www.rotozaza.uk

IFF 2009 features award winning films and documentaries from Turkey, Iran, the Arab Middle East, and North Africa which explore the theme of women’s lives and experiences. The films document contemporary realities of the Middle East from honor killings to drug addiction and sexual abuse, from sharing intimate stories and frustrations in a beauty parlor to waiting for the return of one’s migrant working spouse. Experiences further include the challenges of pursuing one’s film studies in a war-torn city and getting married in a zone of conflict. Post-screening discussions/Q&As follow five out of the seven featured films and documentaries.

IFF 2009 is part of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs (UCCS) support of cultural programming along the Front Range expanding an already vibrant fall film festival line-up. MORE INFORMATION.

We are pleased to be working with:

- ArteEast, a New York-based, international, non-profit organization supporting artists from the Middle East and North Africa
- Moon and Stars Project, a non-profit organization promoting Turkish culture and arts
- Fictionville Studio, LLC, a Brooklyn-based independent film production company
- Arab Film Distribution and Typecast Films, Seattle-based
- ANS International, Abdullah Oguz’s Istanbul-based production company

The SCHEDULE

Opening Night, Friday, October 16th at UCCS Dwire 121

6 PM
Opening Reception
6:45 PM
Welcome Statement – Dr. Carole Woodall, IFF Executive Curator
7 PM
Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis (France 2007), 95 minutes
Discussion with Dr. Rashna Singh, Department of English / WEST at UCCS

Saturday, October 17th at UCCS Dwire 121

10:30 AM
Hiba Bassem’s Baghdad Days (Iraq/UK 2005), 35 minutes
Discussion with Dr. Aditi Mitra, Department of Sociology / WEST at UCCS
Screening held in conjunction with the 4th annual Woman-to-Woman Dialogue Series “Women’s Experiences: Surviving and Thriving” sponsored by the American Association of University Women and the Matrix Center.
Noon
Yasmine Kassari’s L’enfant Endormi [The Sleeping Child] (Morocco/Belgium 2004), 95 minutes
3 PM
Abdullah O?uz’s Mutluluk [Bliss] (Turkey/Greece 2007) 126 minutes
Discussion with Dr. Sölen Sanli, Department of Sociology at Metro State
6 PM
Hamid Rahmanian’s The Glass House (USA/Iran 2008), 92 minutes
Q&A with director, Hamid Rahmanian, and producer, Melissa Hibbard

Sunday, October 18th at the fine arts center

4:30 PM in the Music Room
Hany Abu-Assad’s Rana’s Wedding (Palestine 2002), 90 minutes
Discussion with Dr. Livia Alexander, Executive Director of ArteEast
6:30 PM in the Lobby
Closing Reception
7:30 PM in the Upper Gallery
Nadine Labaki’s Caramel (Lebanon/France 2007), 95 minutes

This is it. The art show where Y-chromosomal Adam meets mitochondrial Eve, giving birth to a whole new class of aesthetic imaginings.

It’s Flaunt “Evolution.” An exhibit that showcases the creations of three forward-thinking organizations–FutureSelf, the Gallery of Contemporary Art, and THEATREWORKS—in a quest to advance our species through original works whose ideological themes are life, growth, and sustainability. Live music, video art, performance art, dance, experimental music and fashion all have a place in this year’s event.

As a nod to Flaunt’s origins the concept of “fashion show” mutates with a presentation that will emerge as the evening progresses. Flaunt’s original visionary, Jackie Goode of Idoru, will be on hand to choose members of the audience who truly manifest the Evolution of Fashion to take their turn on the catwalk. Dress to impress.

Don’t be the missing link. Order your tickets online at FlauntSprings.com or reserve them by phone at 719.255.3232.

Displacement is the perfect marriage of a program and a project. The program, AWOL: Art Without Limits is about creating new forums for discussion on art through site specific installations, happenings and non-traditional exhibition spaces. The project, Displacement, is a conversation based on the art of displaced cinema. Both the program and project value the importance and effect of space, and both challenge traditional expectations of what an exhibition site can and should be. This project, a collaboration between GOCA and TIE, The International Experimental Cinema Exposition, will be presented on the top floor of the Kiowa & Nevada parking garage in downtown Colorado Springs. Lectures will be offered to further explore the discourse of expanded (or displaced) cinema, aural experimentation, spectatorship, the recontectualization of found-footage, and parkour (the art of movement).

Displacement: Cinema Out of Site is collaboration and presentation of film works by contemporary Argentine and North American avant-gardists to encourage an intercontinental dialogue between artists. These artists, writers and curators are presenting moving image and sound creations on the concrete structure of a public parking garage. To understand the presentation and its relationship to parkour we must understand displacement. Rachel Cole, a participating artist, wrote “Place isn’t lost, it is rather “displaced,” undone, emptied of meaning of itself, a location without linear measurement.” Displaced is not misplaced. The cinema and this program are not lost; instead they have been stripped of popular expectations for what they should be. Many would say art should be in a gallery and film in a theater. This project uses an existing space, urban architecture, to redefine the viewer’s experience of the work presented.

A series of three lectures featuring filmmakers, artists and curators accompany this one-night-only film presentation. Each lecture pairs two speakers each with keen insight into the philosophies and techniques explored through the films.

AUG. 7 CITY HALL Council Chambers (107 N. Nevada Ave.)
Christopher May and Jimmy Gable will discuss the notion of displacementand displaced cinema and the history and philosophy of parkour.

Displacement occurs when the Id wants to do something of which the Super ego does not permit. The Ego thus finds some other way of releasing the psychic energy of the Id. Phobias may also use displacement as a mechanism for releasing energy that is caused in other ways. See also: Fantasy, Projection, Expanded Cinema, Curatorial Daydreaming, Surrealism.

Parkour is a discipline, non-competitive in nature, with the focus on the ability to move over, below, around, through, or anything to get by an obstacle as quickly and as efficiently as possible, as if in pursuit, usually in an urban environment. It’s about having the control and the know-how to create movement through an environment efficiently.

AUG. 8 GAY & LESBIAN FUND FOR COLORADO (315 E. Costilla)
Pablo Marin and Gregg Savage will discuss found footage and people as instruments.

Found-footage, the practice of recontectualization of someone else’s audiovisual materials, has certainly come a long way since its almost uncertain beginnings in the twentieth century. In perfect symbiosis with the groundbreaking concept of ready-mades in the field of art, this tradition surpassed practically every film frontier, from documentary to fiction, to find its true place within the avant-garde, where its nature is constantly redefined by both conceptual and technological possibilities.

Making music from the sounds of traceurs in the field, Gregg will talk about the experience of creating the music and sound worlds for the event Displacement: Cinema Out of Site. He will explore why it is essential for techology and tradition to find a happy medium in creating art, why randomness and chaos are essential to creativity, and how the philosophy and inspiration of Parkour can be utilized in making music.

AUG. 9 GAY & LESBIAN FUND FOR COLORADO (315 E. Costilla)
Dan Mancini and Rachel Cole will discuss the Tetris Effect and on-site distraction.

As a recurring practice parkour takes root in the mind. An apposite analogy is the Tetris Effect, wherein after extended bouts of Tetris, people consistently report seeing the entire world, buildings and cars, as tetrominoic pieces to be fit together. Similarly, through the proclivity of parkour, walls and railings that traditionally herd people around become open ended, a canvas on which to apply new physical rules. This phenomenon exemplifies the neroplasticity of the human brain, by which parkour literally amends a tracer’s perception of physical spaces, and even abstract ideas.

Parkour and experimental film share the quality of continual disturbance: the land, the background, the scene, the figures enveloped in it are transiently in the frenzy of the un-locatable, fleeting present. Displacement asks us to locate ourselves and thus be physical, embodied, carnally un-whole as much as starkly self-conscious.

PARTICIPANTS
Christopher May is the founder and primary curator behind TIE, The International Experimental Cinema Exposition. In addition to his work with TIE, May has curated and presented a decade of film programs for museums, film societies and colleges including the Wexner Center for the Arts, the Austrian Film Museum, MALBA – Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, ICA-Boston, Cinemateca Uruguaya, and San Francisco Cinematheque. His (Super-8 & 16mm) film work currently explores the sensually visceral qualities of cinema and their topographical relationships with sub-cultural landscapes.

Pablo Marín was born in 1982 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Besides teaching and writing on avant-garde film (laregioncentral.blogspot.com) he’s a film/video curator and filmmaker. His films were premiered at several TIE festivals and tour programs and shown at International Film Festival Rotterdam, London Film Festival, Starting from Scratch (Netherlands), Pleasure Dome (Canada), Avanto Festival (Finland), no.w.here (England), amongst others. In 2009 he was invited as visiting artist to FAC’s Found-footage Workshop in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Gregg Savage is a composer of guitar and computer music who enjoys challenging perceptions of harmony and dissonance. He brings his background in avant-garde sound art, film composing, and underground dance music to fuse together compositions from non-traditional sound objects. He has a BM from Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA where he studied guitar and music synthesis. His music was recently featured in the 3 panel film project Film (Parkour) in the Masterpieces of New American Avant-Garde Cinema program at the Austrian Film Museum. He lives in Colorado.

Rachel Cole is a fiction writer who grew up in Denver and the Appalachians. She received a BA in English with a minor in Continental Philosophy from the University of Denver and is currently enrolled in the Literary Arts Program at Brown University. She is particularly fascinated by corporeal philosophy, 20th century to present studies in linguistics, the politics of territory, and trauma in contemporary art. Her interest in experimental film is the instability of images, the event of spectacle, and the intimacy of beauty which ignites the sensuality of binaries as much as the crisis of boundaries. A curated text project is forthcoming from zingmagazine #22.

Jesse Kennedy is a writer and filmmaker. He currently works exclusively in Super 8, a format in keeping with his interest in what poet Eileen Myles has termed “pathetic technologies:” seemingly simple, neglected, and/or antiquated technologies (from conversation to VHS), through which one may, nonetheless, still explore the limits of the possible. He has a BA in Writing and Literature from Naropa University, in Boulder, CO. His poetry has appeared in Bombay Gin. His films have been previously exhibited by TIE. He currently lives in El Rito, New Mexico.

The WHITE PARTY: Clothed Entertainment in a Bare Naked Environment.
June 27, 7-10 P.M. at the Gallery of Contemporary Art.

GOCA is bidding farewell to the white walls of the UCCS gallery for a time, and venturing forth into the real world of Colorado Springs with our new public art-rage program, AWOL—Art Without Limits.

In celebration of this historic moment, we cordially invite you to join us for a colorful evening of music, food and spirits when we’ll offer a fond goodbye to what was, and a hearty hello for what will be.  BUY TICKETS ONLINE.

Wear your finest white apparel so you can sufficiently blend in with our beautiful, blank, white walls.

TICKETS (buy early, buy often)
ONLINE: $35
AT THE DOOR: $40

This event is the kick-off party / fundraiser for AWOL. Everything you give will go directly toward AWOL events, exhibitions and programs. We can’t do this without you.

White Party Images

GOCA @ UCCS & I.D.E.A. @ COLORADO COLLEGE

Theme: Economic Creativity
Installation: Beginning, Thursday, June 18 at 5 PM
Reception: Friday, June 19, 5 PM at the FAC Modern (in the Plaza of the Rockies), 121 S. Tejon.

The Gallery of Contemporary Art at UCCS and IDEA @ Colorado College are excited to announce the second presentation 1440 Minutes, a joint public program supporting Colorado contemporary artists. 1440 Minutes is a twenty-four hour art installation and exhibition event, curated around the theme of “Economic Creativity.” Great innovations arise in times of crisis; these innovations drive future economic and cultural growth. Economic Creativity presents artists who examine how, during this time of great change, we can – and should – use or re-use elements of our personal, cultural, and material past to re-envision a healthy, sustainable future. Featured artists: atomic elroy & zelda bubbles, Phillip Faulkner, David Fodel and Melanie Grimes & Jocelyn Nevel.

Special thanks to the Fine Arts Center for generously allowing UCCS and CC to use the FAC Modern for this project. Installations will begin at 5 PM on Thursday, June 18 and must be completed by 5 PM on Friday, June 19, 2009 (the public is welcomed and encouraged to stop in on Friday and watch the installation).

The reception will be held on Friday, June 19, 2009, 5-8 p.m. COPPeR (The Cultural Office of the Pikes Peak Region), Bristol and Nosh are kindly sponsoring the evening’s festivities.

Three cash prizes of $500 will be awarded by a panel of jurors.

Join us Friday, February 27, from 5:30 – 8:30 p.m. for the opening reception of Teach Me Show Me, a biennial show highlighting the work of UCCS Visual and Performing Arts (VaPA) faculty.

The opening reception is free and open to the public. Parking restrictions will be lifted for Lots 1 & 3 only for the opening reception.

Join us Friday, May 1, 2009 from 5:30 – 8:30 p.m.for the opening reception of The Lights Are On: Artgasm – the annual Visual and Performing Arts exhibition highlighting work from 2009 graduating seniors. The exhibition is planned and executed from start to finish by the visual art students as part of their professional development course and is the culmination and sampling of work from 19 students working in sculpture, drawing, painting, digital media, video, and photography. This is the third senior art exhibition held at UCCS and it is a tradition that will continue annually.

The opening reception is free and open to the public. Parking restrictions will be lifted for Lots 1 & 3 only for the opening reception.

En Espanol

The opening reception for this exhibition, opening December 12, 2008, includes works by Cristian Alarcón Ismodes, Fernando Gutierrez and Diego Lama, three visual artists from Lima, Peru. Their works allow us to address contemporary art from Peru through multiple perspectives and ideas on identity, resistance and embodiment.

Implicit in these artistic approaches are reflections upon the relationship between artist and technique, image and domination, violence and body. Untitled aims to reflect upon the evolving nature of contemporary Peruvian art in its dialogue with global and local languages and perspectives.

Fernando Gutierrez “Huanchaco” develops the story of Superchaco, a tragic Peruvian superhero. Through paintings, videos and animations. Superchaco helps us reflect on the new urban and global cultures as they affect visions and aspirations in emerging societies. Influenced by comics and pop culture, Huanchaco steals, recycles and subverts new but established symbols of consumer culture, rendering them “Peruvian’ in all their contradiction and reconfigured symbolic content.

Diego Lama approaches conflict and violence from a very personal and physical perspective, using cinematic resources to reflect upon their relationship to painting and photography. Lama’s conscious approach in the use of visual media and his interest in addressing essential themes as love and death, provides for pieces of exquisite yet sordid textures, sublime and twisted characters whose internal conflicts rise and deform what is to be expected.

Works by Cristian Alarcón Ismodes come from a preoccupation with the Peruvian periphery – the provinces – and their experience with armed violence in recent history. Working with animation, Alarcón creates a Peruvian character, The Cuy-rata, rendering it a grotesque creature, who literally eats alive the naive yet loaded referent of Mickey Mouse, the famous rodent, as “naturally” as most Peruvians eat the traditional baked guinea pig or “cuy” dish; a mediated circle of food and ingestion of symbols and ideologies.

In the fall of 2007, the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs’ Visual and Performing Arts Department hired two new faculty: Matt Barton and Corey Drieth. Each were selected because of their exciting artistic practices, rapport with students, and exhibition records. The Gallery of Contemporary Art is please to announce an exhibition designed to welcome these two talents to the Colorado Springs community.

Join us at the Gallery for a public reception at 7:00 p.m. until 9:00 p.m. on Friday, June 20, 2008. If you are a member of the Gallery or a current UCCS student, you may come earlier in the evening to peruse the exhibition and attend a lecture by the artists at 6:00 p.m.

Parking for the opening reception will be free in lots 3 & 4 only.

Images

Exhibiting artist Corey Drieth entertains guests in his space.

Patrons enjoy Matt Barton’s fort.

Exhibiting artist Matt Barton (in white t-shirt) chats with some visitors.

The Gallery of Contemporary Art (GoCA) at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and the InterDisciplinary Experimental Arts program (IDEA) at Colorado College, are excited to announce a joint public program featuring Colorado contemporary artists. On Friday, April 11, IDEA and GoCA will host 1440 Minutes, a twenty-four-hour art installation and exhibition event, curated around the theme of “Social Spaces”. Simultaneous installations and performances by five Colorado artists will take place at GoCA, located at 1420 Austin Bluffs Parkway and Colorado College’s Coburn Gallery, located at 902 N. Cascade Avenue in the Worner Campus Center, as well as on a shuttle bus transporting visitors between the two sites. The public is invited to view the installation process at both locations on April 11 between the hours of 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. The frantic day of installation will culminate in a festive, free reception, hosted at both institutions, from 5 to 8 p.m. A shuttle bus, which will also host an art installation, will be available to transport attendees between locations.

Exhibition curators Christopher Lynn, Director of the Gallery of Contemporary Art at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, and Jessica Hunter Larsen, Curator of the InterDisciplinary Experimental Arts program at Colorado College, selected the 1440 Minutes artists from a pool of 20 applicants who answered an open call for proposals. Artists were invited to submit installation or performance-based projects that interpreted the theme of “Social Spaces”. The artists must install their artworks in the galleries in under 24 hours; they will begin at 5 p.m. on Thursday, April 10th and must be done by 5 p.m. on Friday, April 11, 2008. The public may view the installation process at both galleries on Friday, April 11 between the hours of 10 a.m. and 5 p.m.; a reception will take place at both locations from 5 to 8 p.m. Curators Hunter Larsen and Lynn have conceived of the project as a way to open an ongoing dialogue among art, artists, and gallery audiences, as well as a way to link two vibrant contemporary art spaces in Colorado Springs.

Selected artists include:

• atomic elroy and the artofficial Choir
• The Bridge Club (featuring Julie Wills, Emily Bivens, Christine Owen & Annie Strader)
• Valerie Brodar and Angela Forster
• Goatsilk (featuring Caroline Peters & Ben Bloch)
• Jocelyn Nevel & Melanie Grimes
• Robert Snowden and Streeter Wright

Regular parking restrictions will be lifted for Lot 3 only from 4:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Join us at the opening reception for the 2008 Senior Exhibition highlighting new artwork by graduating seniors of UCCS’s Visual and Performing Arts department. This is the second senior art exhibition held at UCCS and it is a tradition that will continue annually.

Exhibition Artists

• Rebecca Bauer
• Migdalia Caban
• Adam Eldridge
• Karen Freed
• Heidi Haire
• Scott Kakigi
• Joshua Kemp
• Sooin Kwon
• Charlotte Miller
• Jennifer O’Connell
• Carissa Szarkowski
• Alexis Treulieb
• Nancy Wells-Georgia
• Tyler Wendt

The Visual and Performing Arts department (VaPA) offers a cross-disciplinary degree that encourages innovative collaboration between disciplines. This focus integrates art history, film studies, museum and gallery practice, music, theatre, and visual arts. Students will complete this degree with a primary concentration in one area and develop a comprehensive knowledge in each of the major disciplines. Through studio arts, performance, theory, scholarship, and creative uses of media and technology, students will engage in an investigative approach to the arts, where the local and global converge, where cross-fertilization inspires critical thinking, dialogue, improvisation, and where diversity of thought is intrinsic to artistic process and practice.

When students complete this degree, they will have the skills and knowledge to enter graduate school or a variety of careers in the arts.

The opening reception is free and open to the public. Parking restrictions will be lifted for Lots 3 & 4 only.

Join us as Gallery of Contemporary Art Director, Christopher Lynn, expounds on the artist and themes in the upcoming exhibition, Dario Šolman: The Heart of Perspective, the Making of the Film. Impress your family and amaze your friends with the insightful knowledge you will display at the opening reception – knowledge you picked up weeks earlier at the Pre-Show Appetizer.

Lynn’s lecture will touch on deconstructivist architecture, Robotech, and film theory. The lecture will be followed by a Q&A session.

Dario Šolman: The Heart of Perspective, the Making of the Film will be on view February 22 – April 5, 2008.

Admission

• $1: GoCA Supporters, UCCS Students
• $4: Adult public

Update (03.13.08): You can finally listen to the Pre-Show Appetizer from Dario Šolman: The Heart of Perspective, the Making of the Film. Gallery Director Christopher Lynn expounds on the themes of the exhibition and the work of Dario Šolman. Topics covered include 2001: A Space Odyssey, Pac-Man, Robotech, demigods, archives, and Tony Bennett.

Links

• Pre-Show Appetizer: Dario Šolman / MP3 (19.3MB) / 41:07

Lynn’s lecture will touch on deconstructivist architecture, Robotech, and film theory. The lecture will be followed by a Q&A session.

Dario Šolman: The Heart of Perspective, the Making of the Film will be on view February 22 – April 5, 2008.

Admission

• $1: GoCA Supporters, UCCS Students
• $4: Adult public

Update (03.13.08): You can finally listen to the Pre-Show Appetizer from Dario Šolman: The Heart of Perspective, the Making of the Film. Gallery Director Christopher Lynn expounds on the themes of the exhibition and the work of Dario Šolman. Topics covered include 2001: A Space Odyssey, Pac-Man, Robotech, demigods, archives, and Tony Bennett.

Links

• Pre-Show Appetizer: Dario Šolman / MP3 (19.3MB) / 41:07

The Gallery of Contemporary Art will be hosting a reception for the opening of Dario Šolman: The Heart of Persepctive, The Making of the Film on Friday, February 22, 2008. The artist Dario Šolman will be in conversation with Gallery Director Christopher Lynn during the Supporter Reception 5:30-7:00 p.m. with the discussion beginning at 6:00 p.m. At 7:00 p.m. the Gallery will open its doors to the public to enjoy food, drink and fantastic art.

Dario Šolman’s The Heart of Perspective, The Making of the Film is an ongoing project begun in 2001 that consists of studies and tests for a film that may never be made. He has stated, “When we use the word ‘film,’ we think of a possible film, a hypothetic interplay of image, sound and text. To avoid further confusion, we should think of it as film without a film. In other words, a film space that is not contained in a film shell.” Instead, Šolman uses the terms Cinemation or Secondary-Cinema to refer to his practice of filmmaking without making a film. The Gallery of Contemporary Art will be exhibiting Šolman’s drawings, storyboards, and animation tests that orbit around this non-existent film.

Šolman is a Croatian living and working in New York. His work has been exhibited at The Drawing Center, New York; 20th Slavonia Bienalle, Galerija umjetnina, Osijek, Croatia; Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rijeka, Croatia; House of Croatian Artists (HDLU), Zagreb, Croatia; Gallery MC / The Doors Art Foundation, New York; Merano Arte edificio Cassa di Risparmio, Merano, Italy; Liquidacion Total, Madrid, Spain; Swiss Institute-Contemporary Art, New York; P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York; Centre Place, Melbourne, Australia; Space Lab, Cleveland; and Alexandria Biennale, Alexandria, Egypt. He has also participated in the prestigious Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Residency, Workspace: The Woolworth Building Studios, New York; the P.S.1 Studio Program, New York; and the residency at the Cimelice Castle, Czech Republic.

Dario Šolman’s The Heart of Perspective, The Making of the Film is an ongoing project begun in 2001 that consists of studies and tests for a film that may never be made. He has stated, “When we use the word ‘film,’ we think of a possible film, a hypothetic interplay of image, sound and text. To avoid further confusion, we should think of it as film without a film. In other words, a film space that is not contained in a film shell.” Instead, Šolman uses the terms Cinemation or Secondary-Cinema to refer to his practice of filmmaking without making a film. The Gallery of Contemporary Art will be exhibiting Šolman’s drawings, storyboards, and animation tests that orbit around this non-existent film.

Šolman is a Croatian living and working in New York. His work has been exhibited at The Drawing Center, New York; 20th Slavonia Bienalle, Galerija umjetnina, Osijek, Croatia; Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rijeka, Croatia; House of Croatian Artists (HDLU), Zagreb, Croatia; Gallery MC / The Doors Art Foundation, New York; Merano Arte edificio Cassa di Risparmio, Merano, Italy; Liquidacion Total, Madrid, Spain; Swiss Institute-Contemporary Art, New York; P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York; Centre Place, Melbourne, Australia; Space Lab, Cleveland; and Alexandria Biennale, Alexandria, Egypt. He has also participated in the prestigious Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Residency, Workspace: The Woolworth Building Studios, New York; the P.S.1 Studio Program, New York; and the residency at the Cimelice Castle, Czech Republic.

An Amsterdam-based collective of improvisation artists (dancers, musicians, a visual artist, a lighting designer, and video artists) along with music faculty from UCCS will present The 6th Room at the Gallery of Contemporary Art. The performance will consist of dance, light, and music with some performers positioned simultaneously in separate geographical locations on the planet – Berlin, New York, Tokyo and Amsterdam. Their actions will be streamed through the Internet for projection on the Gallery walls.

On site participants from Amsterdam will include Mary Oliver (Violin / Viola), Michael Schumacher (dance), Ellen Knops (lighting design). From Colorado Springs, Glen Whitehead (trumpet), and Randy Bowen (drums & percussion) will accompany the performance.

The following performers will participate via streaming video: Makiko Ito (Amsterdam) dance, Monica Page (Amsterdam) dance, Eileen Standley (Amsterdam) dance, Martin Sonderkamp (Berlin) dance, and Alex Waterman (NYC) cello/image.

This event has been organized by Glen Whitehead (Assistant Professor of Music, Director of Music Program at UCCS) and the UCCS Music Program. Funding has been provided by the President’s Fund for the Humanities Grant from the University of Colorado.

This event is FREE and open to the public. Regular campus parking restrictions will be suspended for Lot 3 during the performance.

Join us as Gallery of Contemporary Art Director, Christopher Lynn, expounds on the artists and themes in the upcoming exhibition, Young Moderns: Sarah Braman, Todd Chilton & John McEnroe. Impress your family and amaze your friends with the insightful knowledge you will display at the opening reception – knowledge you picked up weeks earlier at the Pre-Show Appetizer.

Lynn will speak about the exhibit artists’ practices and how their work continues the trajectory of late Modernist painting. The lecture will be followed by a Q&A session.

Young Moderns: Sarah Braman, Todd Chilton & John McEnroe will be on view December 17, 2007 – February 9, 2008.

Permit parking restrictions will be lifted for Lot 1 only for this event.

Tickets

• $1: GoCA Supporters, UCCS Students
• $4: Adult public

Links

Now that the lecture is over, you can enjoy listening to it at your leisure via the links below:

1. Audio with slide/show almost as if you were there / iTunes AAC file (21.4MB) / 41:09
2. Audio with no images / MP3 (19MB) / 41:09

Join us at the opening reception for Young Moderns. During the Supporter’s Reception (5:30-7:00) you can catch an early glimpse of the exhibition and hear the artists speak at 6:00 p.m. The doors will open at 7:00 p.m. for the public to enjoy excellent artwork, food, drink, and conversation.

Sarah Braman (NYC), Todd Chilton (Chicago), and John McEnroe (Denver) are select contemporary artists whose work continues the distinct trajectory of late Modernist painting. During the 1950’s, 60’s, and 70’s painting was being boiled down to its essence – its consistency, color, and a flat support on which to place the paint. Artists were abandoning representational subject matter in favor dripping paint, color fields, and geometric abstraction. Paint was no longer expected to look like something. Paint was free to be and look like paint.

Each of the artists in Young Moderns utilizes the theory and techniques of late Modernist painting in their work whether their work can be easily categorized as painting or not. Sarah Braman’s sculptural work utilizes the flat surfaces of cardboard, Plexiglas, and plywood as grounds for her scumbled paint marks. She places these multiple supports for her paint together at various angles to create angular sculptures whose surfaces are treated as paintings.

Todd Chilton’s pared down subject matter and use of geometric forms is akin to the work of Frank Stella or Kenneth Noland. Chilton’s abstractions do not try to hide the fact that a human hand made his paintings. His lines are crooked and the paint drips, bestowing his paintings with a wry sense of humor that winks at history while creating new forms with the tools history gave him. Chilton has said, “I do think it could be useful to look at my work in the context of that moment in the history of abstraction if only to see that it functions with an awareness of its history. I think that I make historically aware paintings that are of their own time.”

As his predecessors were concerned with stripping painting of all unnecessary elements, John McEnroe strips his works of all materials but paint. McEnroe pours and drips paint across a large slab, allows it to dry, and then peels the paint from the slab. These “paintings” look like curtains or skinned beasts that hover somewhere between a painting and a sculpture as the sheets of paint ripple against the wall and drape over hooks and bolts.

These three “painters” use the theories and practices of late Modernism as a springboard to create smart works that seem unconcerned with their status as painting, sculpture, or conceptual exercises.

Regular permit parking restrictions will be lifted for Lots 3 & 4 only during the opening reception.

Beverages provided by: