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Young Moderns

Sarah Braman, Todd Chilton & John McEnroe

December 14, 2007 - February 9, 2008
Opening Reception: Friday, December 14, 2007
Supporter's Reception: 5:30-7:00 p.m. (for GoCA supporters and UCCS students)
Public Reception: 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.

Blue-Green Painting, 2006
modified latex
4' x 11' x 4"
Courtesy of Plus+gallery

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 1950s, 60s, and 70s 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.

Events

Pre-Show Appetizer
Thursday, November 29, 7:00 p.m.
Learn more about the artists and themes in the 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 that you picked up weeks earlier at the Pre-Show Appetizer. Regular permit parking restrictions are lifted for Lot 1 during the presentation. Listen to an audio recording of the Appetizer here.

Opening Reception
Friday, December 14, 2007
Supporter’s Reception: 5:30-7:00 p.m. (for GoCA Supporters and UCCS Students)
Public Reception: 7:00-9:00 p.m.
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. Regular permit parking restrictions will be lifted for Lots 3 & 4 only during the opening reception.

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Manifest

Colonial Tendencies of the West

September 14 - November 17, 2007
Opening Reception: Friday, September 14, 2007
Supporter's Reception: 5:30 - 7:00 p.m.
Public Reception: 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.

Luis Gispert and Jeffrey Reed
Blasterettes, 2004
c-print
27" x 39"
Courtesy of the artists
Copyright Luis Gispert & Jeffrey Reed

The Gallery of Contemporary Art, UCCS presents Manifest: Colonial Tendencies of the West, an exhibition that explores the concept of colonialism from political, social, geographic, and commercial standpoints. The exhibition will be on view from September 14 through November 17, 2007.

Colonialism is a term used to describe the occupation of an area by a group of people who then impose rule or influence over the previous inhabitants. People may occupy ideas, commerce, and social settings in the same way that they may occupy land. Copyright law that allows people to lay claim to ideas, high school cliques that govern social boundaries, and commercial exports that dominate corners of the market are all forms of colonialism.

A clear example of the West’s colonial tendencies is found in the Manifest Destiny – a slogan and doctrine promoted in the 1800’s that stated America’s divine right to push West and absorb lands by force if necessary. This mentality, although not currently promoted, is still a driving force in the West’s relationship to the world. The West exports its people, politics, culture and products to occupy and influence the land, minds and markets of the world.

Colonization often results in hybrid cultures when competing customs clash. Anime is the result of the export of American animation to the Japan which in turn took what it liked, added its own style and subjects and exported it to the West where it is wildly popular. Cheerleader culture is absorbed and modified by American minority youth to make something quite different from its white bread origins.

Manifest: Colonial Tendencies of the West features approximately thirty works by artists from around the globe. Each artist in Manifest takes the benign and aggressive aspects of Western colonization and makes manifest the resulting mixtures of culture, politics, and commerce. Manifest presents work by Philip Kwame Apagya, Amy Chan, Luis Gispert and Jeffrey Reed, Patti Hallock, Danny Ledonne, Louise Noguchi, and Kehinde Wiley. The exhibition features documentary photographs of Wild West recreation villages, a film that hypes American sterotypes, paintings of franchise restaurants dropped into pastoral landscapes, a video game that deals with the Columbine Massacre, paintings and sculpture of hip-hop culture, photographs that document suburban basements, and portraits of Ghanaian citizens taken in front of backdrops depicting their dream lives filled with Western exports.

“This exhibition will be a major step forward for the contemporary art scene in Colorado Springs,” said Christopher Lynn, Director of the Gallery of Contemporary Art, UCCS. “We will be exhibiting internationally-known artists who have never shown in Colorado. Manifest tackles difficult topics in a way that we feel the public will understand and respond.”

Manifest: Colonial Tendencies of the West was curated by Christopher Lynn, Director of the Gallery of Contemporary Art, UCCS. This is Lynn’s first curated exhibition for UCCS. Previously, Lynn was the Assistant Curator of Museums and Galleries at DePauw University.

Catalogs

Catalogs are available for the exhibition:

• $8 for GoCA Supporters and UCCS students
• $10 for the general public.

Events

Pre-Show Appetizer
Thursday, August 30, 7:00 p.m.
Learn more about the artists and themes in the exhibition, Manifest: Colonial Tendencies of the West. Impress your family and amaze your friends with the insightful knowledge you will display at the opening reception that you picked up weeks earlier at the Pre-Show Appetizer. Regular permit parking restrictions are lifted for lots 3 and 4 during the presentation.

Opening Reception
Friday, September 14
Supporter Reception: 5:30 – 7:00 p.m. (for GoCA Supporters and UCCS Students)
Public Reception: 7:00 – 9:00 p.m.
The opening reception will consist of breakdancing, digital and manual coloring book activities, food, fun, and the some of the best contemporary art seen in the region. A reception for Gallery Supporters will begin at 5:30 p.m. Manifest artist Louise Noguchi will speak from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. At 7:00 we will open our doors to the public to view the exhibition and participate in Gallery activities until 9:00 p.m. Permit parking restrictions will be lifted for lots 3 and 4 only during the opening reception.

Soul Mechanics: Breakdancing Informance
Friday, September 21, 6:00 p.m.
The Colorado Springs b-boy group will present an “informance” (lecture/performance) at the Gallery of Contemporary Art. Soul Mechanic’s tight breakdancing moves reveal the myriad of cultural influences that created the phenomenon in 1970’s urban environments. Join us as we learn more about breakdancing, its culture, and roots.

Anime Nation
Every Thursday between September 20 and November 15, 7:00 p.m.
Join us as we watch pivotal Anime series and movies at the Gallery of Contemporary Art, UCCS. Regular permit parking restrictions are lifted for lots 3 and 4 during the Anime screenings.

Bad Art Night: Shadowing Kara Walker
Saturday, October 13, 5:00 – 7:00 p.m.
Create bad art in the style of Kara Walker’s colonial themed silhouettes. As always, the rule at Bad Art Night is that no good art is allowed. Permit parking restrictions are not enforced at UCCS on Saturdays.

Film Night: Future Remembrance
Friday, November 9, 7:00 p.m.
Come view Future Remembrance (USA, 1998, color, 55 min.), a film by Tobias Wendl and Nancy du Plessis featuring Manifest artist Philip Kwame Apagya. This is a delightful, exuberant, documentary about the role of photography, photographers and the art of image making in Ghana. We meet the photographers, sculptors and painters who tell us in their own words about the economic, social, cultural, aesthetic, and spiritual motivations of their work. Innovation and improvisation abound, from the traveling photographer who has been making and selling his own cameras out of wood and scrap since the 1930’s to the studio photographers who specialize in providing elaborate backdrops that inspire their customers poses. The influence of American print media on local artists exists but the resulting work is so transformed in the process that the original source is almost unrecognizable. Future Remembrance is the winner of the Award For Excellence Society for Visual Anthropology Award, Vitas Folklore Film Festival, UCLA.

Settlers of Catan-A-Thon / Exhibition Closing
Saturday, November 17, 1:00 – 4:00 p.m.
Joins us at the Gallery as we play marathon sessions of the popular board game, Settlers of Catan. Settle the land of Catan and harvest its natural resources to build villages and cities while oppressing your opponents for fun and profit. Permit parking restrictions are not enforced at UCCS on Saturdays.

This exhibition is sponsored in part by:

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Watermedia XV

Organized by the Pikes Peak Watercolor Society

June 15 - August 3, 2007
Opening Reception: Friday, June 15, 5:00 - 7:30 p.m.

Loren Yukawa
Garden of the Gods Winter Morning (detail)
watercolor on paper, 21 x 29"

The Pikes Peak Watercolor Society’s Watermedia XV will be on view at the Gallery of Contemporary Art. Juried by Frank Webb, a respected artist, author, and instructor, this exhibition highlights the best of aqueous media from around the world. In addition to the exhibition, an instructional workshop series will be hosted at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and taught by Frank Webb.

The Pikes Peak Watercolor Society (P.P.W.S.) was founded to promote excellence in the watercolor media and to encourage artistic achievement in the community. Their first exhibit was held at the Pikes Peak Center in Colorado Springs in March of 1988, with a 2nd exhibit during Christmas of that same year. Today the P.P.W.S. continues to promote and encourage watercolor through its sponsorship of exhibitions, scholarships, workshops, and through its support of other local arts organizations and educational institutions.

Events

Opening Reception
Friday, June 15, 5:00 – 7:30 p.m.
Parking will be free in lots 1, 3, and 4 during the opening reception.

Frank Webb Watercolor Workshop
June 4,5,6, 2007, 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Frank Webb of Edgewood, Pennsylvania has been awarded a Dolphin Fellowship of the American Watercolor Society and is a past national vice president. Other memberships include: the National Watercolor Society, Allied Artists of America, Audubon Artists, Knickerbocker Artists, Rocky Mountain National Watermedia Association, and the Pittsburgh Watercolor Society.

His more than ninety major awards include: the Bronze Medal of Honor, the Walser Greathouse Medal, and the Mary Pleissner award of the American Watercolor Society; the Grumbacher Gold Medal of the National Watercolor Society; the gold medal of Audubon Artists; and the Sisek purchase award of the Butler Midyear. He has represented the American Watercolor Society in international exhibitions in Canada, New York, England, Scotland, Mexico, and has participated in invitationals in Australia and the Republic of China.

Webb has authored three books on painting and design. He is listed in Who’s Who in American Art and Who’s Who in the East. He has been self-employed as an artist since 1958, and has conducted painting seminars in 50 States and numerous foreign locations.

Among his collectors are: the Butler Institute of American Art, the Taiwan Art Education Institute, the Tweed Art Museum of the University of Minnesota, and the Palmer Museum of the Pennsyvania State University. Gallery affiliations include: the Birchstone Gallery, Egg Harbor, WI; the Gallery of The Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Claremont Fine Arts Gallery of Claremont, CA.

To register for the Frank Webb Workshop please fill out and return the application you may download here. The cost is $275 for the three day workshop. A maximum of 30 people may register for the class. Contact Frank Davey at 719.634.8529 or e-mail frankdavey@comcast.netfor an application form and for Frank Webb’s suggested list of materials for the workshop.

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2007 Senior Exhibition

May 4 - May 25, 2007
Opening Reception: Friday, May 4, 5:00 - 7:30 p.m.

The 2007 Senior Exhibition highlights new artwork by graduating seniors of UCCS’s Visual and Performing Arts department. This is the first senior art exhibition held at UCCS and it is a tradition that will continue annually.

Participating Seniors

Carla Archuleta
Ryan Beebe
Michelle Berthiaume
Carrie Eggleton
Jeffrey Foster
Bill Fuller
Miriam Mitchell
Jessie Peterson
Maureen Ross
Victoria Rust
Peter Song
Michelle Weigold
Lisa Willis

VaPA

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.

Events

Opening Reception
Friday, May 4, 5:00 – 7:00 p.m.
Parking will be free in lots 1, 3, and 4 during the opening reception.

Images

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2007 Student Art Exhibit

April 6 - April 25, 2007
Opening Reception: Friday, April 6, 5:00 - 7:30 p.m.

The Student Art Exhibition is a juried show and collaborative venture between the UCCS Gallery Management class students and the campus Student Art Club. Club officers select a panel of art professionals to adjudicate the exhibition from student body submissions. This years jurors are Monica Escalante (photographer), Angela Forster (mixed media), and Jina Pierce (Curator, Sangre de Cristo Arts and Conference Center). Artists may elect to exhibit work not selected for the Gallery at the University Center’s Salon des Refusés. Around 50 artists typically submit at least 250 works for adjudication with Gallery shows averaging 100 works selected for exhibition.

Conditions and Eligibility for Entry

All UCCS students enrolled as of Fall 2006 are eligible to enter. All artwork must have been made since 2005. No work previously exhibited on campus may be submitted. Work must remain on display for the duration of the exhibits. All artwork not accepted in the exhibition must be picked up by April 2. Otherwise, the art will be considered a donation to theStudent Art Club and the owner gives up all ownership rights. All artwork not picked up by April 27th will be considered a donation to the Student Art Club and the owner gives up all ownership rights.

Submit for Jurying

• Original Work
• 1 – 2 slides or digital prints (per work) may be substituted for a large scale work
• Time-based work should be submitted as a DVD or Audio CD
• Proposal for installations

2D work must be ready for hanging! Paintings need not be framed but must be ready to hang. Works on paper should be properly framed. Indicate the specific printing technique for digital and photographic work: ink jet print on archival paper, silver gelatin print, color photocopy, etc.

Time-based work will be exhibited: computer, television monitor and DVD player, video projection, headphones and CD player, etc. Note whether the work is silent or has sound. Case and CD/DVD clearly labeled. The Gallery has limited equipment contact the Gallery Director for more specifics.

Proposals for small scale installations may be no longer than 1 page typed with a brief conceptual statement, specific media, and size. Include 2 – 3 drawings, digital prints, and/or floor plans of the work.

Fees: $6 to enter up to 3 works plus a $2 fee for each additional work.

Important Dates and Deadlines

• Entries Received: March 22 & 23 at the Gallery, 10 – 4
• Adjudication: March 27 — Results Posted outside the Gallery: March 29
• Pick up unaccepted works not going into the Salon de Refusés: by April 2, 10 – 4
• Pick up works from Gallery or Salon show: April 26 & 27, 10 – 4
• Public Opening, Friday, April 6, 5:00-7:00 PM
• Juror’s Commentary and Talk with Artists Opening Night 4 – 5 PM

Download the Complete Prospectus

Student Show Prospectus

Events

Opening Reception
Friday, April 6, 5:00 – 7:30 p.m.

Images

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“The Way We Live Now”

And Other Artist Books from the Polly and Mark Addison Collection, CU Art Museum

January 19 - March 16, 2007
Opening Reception / Friday, January 19 / 5:00 - 7:30 p.m.

Howard Hodgkin, British (b.1932)
“the hospital room was choked with flowers...”
From The Way We Live Now with text by Susan Sontag, 1991
etching in artist book, 12” x 24”
Gift of Polly and Mark Addison to the Polly and Mark Addison
Collection, Colorado Collection, CU Art Museum, University of Colorado at Boulder
Edition no: 106/200
Publisher: Karsten Schubert, London
© Howard Hodgkin
Photo: Jeff Wall

“The Way We Live Now” and Other Artist Books from the Polly and Mark Addison Collection, CU Art Museum is an exhibition that explores the curious medium of the “Artist Book.” This exhibition features books created by Damien Hirst, Howard Hodgkin and Susan Sontag, Chuck Close, Octavio Paz and Gunther Gerzso, Agnes Denes, Richard Tuttle, Andrea Zittell, Chris Ware, Peter Wegner, Hamish Fulton, Laylah Ali, as well as many other artists.

The exhibition highlights artist books created in the 1960’s through the 1990’s as well as recent works in the medium by contemporary and emerging artists. The books on view include classic pop and conceptual works such as Walasse Ting’s, 1¢ Life, published in 1964, which includes 82 lithographs accompanied by text and featuring many well-known artists such as Claes Oldenburg, Sam Francis, Roy Lichtenstein, Allan Kaprow and many others. The exhibition also features books by artists such as the Guerrilla Girls, Barbara Kruger, and Ida Applebroog, that address feminist and women’s issues. Works by Chris Ware, Lars Arrhenius, and Laylah Ali utilize the influence of pictorial storytelling and the format of the comic book, the graphic novel, and even the guide book, to create works that address with humor and satire, social phenomena and realities, while works by artists such as Richard Long and Hamish Fulton conceptually explore geography and the natural world.

The term “Artist Book” refers to numerous forms of artistic expression related to the historically evolving medium of the book, which has throughout the ages embodied the work of many participants, including artists, scribes, bookbinders, paper makers, publishers, distributors, readers, and collectors.

This wide-ranging exhibition was curated from the Polly and Mark Addison Collection, a significant modern and contemporary art collection within the CU Art Museum’s permanent collection, which reflects the exquisite eye of the Addison’s and their broad and inspiring passion for collecting and for books. The Addison’s 2006 gift of the 47 works in this exhibition significantly enhanced the breadth of the CU Art Museum’s collection by creating a new specialty within the collection, that of the “Artist Book.”

Since the 1990’s, Polly and Mark Addison have gifted over 300 works to the CU Art Museum’s permanent collection and recently promised an additional 121 works. Their support has significantly expanded the collection’s holdings of modern and contemporary art of the highest caliber.

“The Way We Live Now” and Other Artist Books from the Polly and Mark Addison Collection, CU Art Museum is curated by Lisa Tamiris Becker, Director, CU Art Museum. Funding for CU Art Museum outreach programs is generously provided by the NBT Charitable Trust, the CU Art Museum Benefactors’ Salon, the CU Art Museum membership program as well as by Polly and Mark Addison.

Events

Opening Reception
Friday, January 19, 2007 / 5:00 – 7:30 p.m.

Gallery Talk
Friday, February 23, 2007 / 6:00 p.m.
Mark Addison will walk through the Gallery and discuss his collection of artist books.

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Events

• SAY WHAT: poetry + art

  September 16, 2010, 6:00 pm

  This session of SAY WHAT pairs an artist talk from GOCA121 featured photographer William Wylie with a reading by Colorado poet Merril Gilfillan.

See All Scheduled Events »

Upcoming Exhibits

Hypothesis

Process in Science and Art

Hypothesis: Process in Science and Art is a multi-disciplinary exhibit and an experiment highlighting the connections between the scientific and artistic processes.

See All Scheduled Exhibitions »

Blog

• SAY WHAT: poetry + art

  09.01.10

  This session of SAY WHAT pairs an artist talk from GOCA121 featured photographer William Wylie with a reading by Colorado poet Merril Gilfillan.

  Read more »

• Hypothesis

  07.26.10

  Hypothesis: Process in Science and Art is a multi-disciplinary exhibit and an experiment highlighting the connections between the scientific and artistic processes.

  Read more »

• William Wylie

  07.13.10

  In the exhibition American Places William Wylie focuses on the concept of place; how we respond to the landscape, how we move from the general to the specific in our personal associations with it, and how our lives are interwoven into the histories of places.

  Read more »

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