Thursday, April 19, 2012

PERSISTENT TERRAIN: RECENT WORKS BY LANNY DEVUONO AND MELISSA FURNESS OPENED APRIL 13TH AT IRONTON


Plus Gallery artist Melissa Furness has paired up with fellow UCD staffer and artist Lanny DuVuono for an exhibition at Ironton Studios in the RiNo district.

Ironton Studios is pleased to announce "Persistent Terrain", a two-person exhibition featuring works by Lanny DeVuono and Melissa Furness. The exhibition will run April 13 - May 19th, 2012 with an opening reception on Friday, April 13th from 7:00 - 10:00pm. The artists will also host a gallery talk on Saturday, April 28th, beginning at 1:00pm.

In different, but complimentary ways, both Melissa Furness and Lanny DeVuono examine historical landscape imagery through a filter of multiple, contemporary realities. The results are a series of visual metaphors on human persistence and interaction within the vast spaces of history and daily life.

Lanny DeVuono has long used the landscape imagery as a near illustration for our own human nature. She says, "Whether we see nature as beautiful and pristine, devastated from war, ecological upheaval or simply from our own use, it is mapping our histories and hopes."  With a nod to the odd, illusionary potential of drawing itself, DeVuono skews perspectives, near and far. Using landscape imagery as a foil, she juxtaposes scenes of natural beauty with references to history and the environment.

Melissa Furness' work explores our attraction to what man leaves behind on the landscape. It is the unknown, the fragmentary, the imperfect, and the incomplete remains of our foiled efforts that she recompletes in fantastical ways. The ruin is an open metaphor in Furness' work--real, but fragmented, suggestive of what it "might have been" and symbolic of a new kind of overpowering external/internal vastness. The alternative sublime of reconstructed histories becomes an archeological layering of new and old images and processes within the work.

Together, these two artists are re-visualizing today's landscape through multiple, symbolic elements that continually cross over one another. Air and water, land and rock, building and destruction--all are endlessly layered in a perpetual imagined present.  Each artist's process also attests to this "battle" of elements as the dry graphite line is juxtaposed with the wet painted shape, the dullness of a surface contrasts with the gloss of another, the view narrows and widens, moves and remains still.

SAVE THE DATE: URBAN ENCOUNTERS - "SIGHT LINE" MAY 11TH ON 14TH AND CHAMPA LED SCREEN. SENSATIONAL INTERNATIONAL MOTION ART PROJECT CURATED BY PLUS GALLERY!


Last year Plus Gallery owner Ivar Zeile and assistant Ryan Pattie collaborated on a very special and unique project for Create Denver, the city's annual focus on the creative and art community here in Denver.  "Frame of Mind" was a major hit and one of last year's highlights, recently noted in the Best of Westword as  the "Best Public Art Happening, Large Scale."


We've digested the energy and excitement that resulted from that project and have been working on a follow-up that is staggering in it's scope and breadth, which culminates this year in Create Denver's upcoming "Urban Encounters" scheduled for the evening of Friday, May 11th.  If there is one night all year not to miss, this is it!  That night's program will feature our follow up curatorial effort, SightLine, a program that brings the best in video, animation and motion-based art from local, US and international artists direct to the public, presented on the massive, state-of-the-art LED screen prominently located at 14th and Champa.  This year's program won't be limited in duration, we'll be screening short-form works with durations between 1 and 10 minutes long, and the slate of artists we have contributing to the project is absolutely world class and on the cutting edge of today's contemporary scene.



SightLine is just one of the focal programs occurring May 11th for Create Denver's "Urban Encounters." The full program taking place that evening only, on and off the LED screen is as follows:

6-8pm @ 1600 Glenarm, Suite 110
SideShop: Beta
24/7 shoppable windows stocked with 100% locally designed goods. SideShop provides local creative businesses a new platform to launch product and ideas without a large initial investment or risk. Product launches by The Clyfford Still Museum, AWKWARD, Winston Lane, Revolution Apparel, GoodApples and Create Denver.

ThePassage
Legwork Studio will transform the inside retail space of the SideShops into an interactive environment through a combination of projection, animation and a Microsoft Kinect.  Viewers can interact with the projection to change the space's visual architecture.

7-9pm @ 14th & Champa LED, outdoors
KacheOut
Mode Set will transform the LED screen into an interactive gaming platform. The 2-player video game, based on the classic Breakout (1976, Atari) and Arkanoid (1986, Taito), utilizes a Microsoft Kinect infrared controller for hands-free, motion interaction, featuring audio-reactive 3D graphics. Game on.
7-8pm @ 14th & Champa LED, outdoors
SightLine
Plus Gallery and the Denver Theatre District present a luminous display of contemporary short-form video works from international pioneers of motion-based art on the LED screen, with five works commissioned specifically for the evening by local artists.  The program sustains a visual flow that is scopic in thrust and captivating to the senses.


8-10pm @ 16th & Champa LED
InStereo
Magic Cyclops and Karla Rodriguez host flash karaoke on the 16th Street Mall's big screen. The LED will buzz with audio reactive visuals created by local VJ CacheFlow while the community fills the air with your favorite or not-so-favorite songs.


We'll  have more information to share in upcoming newsletters, but save the date now and start circulating our promo video around to everyone you know.......we'd like to see a crowd so large that it shuts down the entire downtown around the convention center for this evening!


Promo for the project, conceived, shot and edit by Ryan Pattie:

http://vimeo.com/39843628







DAVE YUST RETIRES FROM TEACHING AFTER 40 YEARS!!

When we consider the idea of landmark careers in the contemporary arts, one name leaps forward ahead of all others:  Dave Yust.  Not only is Dave considered one of the leading figures in contemporary art historically in the state of Colorado, his reach is much further through a 40+ year career that really has no rival.  This year is one of great significance for Dave, as he finally retires from his teaching position at CSU in Fort Collins, where he has taught painting for 40 years now.  I've always been amazed by the number of artists and individuals who have come to the gallery and commented on Dave's contribution to their life and art, he is literally revered by so many people.  And you won't find a more humble artist on the face of the earth, Dave really has the best spirit when it comes to artwork, education and the field that he is so passionate about.  Anyone who has interacted with Dave recently wouldn't necessarily consider him a candidate for retirement either, he still has the most youthful demeanor, energy and poise that transcends all boundaries.  But we are very happy that Dave is finally throwing in the teaching towel, as he will no doubt be focused solely on his own work and ultimate legacy in the arts from here on out.  Already he is scheduled for a major exhibition later this fall at the Loveland Museum of Art, followed by his next solo exhibition here at Plus Gallery next February.  Dave is also heavily involved in Christo's "Over the River" project much as he has been with most of Christo and Jean Claude's past public installations, and no doubt he'll be looking forward to spending more of his energy there as well.


Please send to us any thoughts, memories or words you would like to share with Dave and our readers on the occasion of his retirement, which will be held on April 22nd.  Photos, anecdotes, anything is welcome!

NEW ALLIE POHL FUSCIA "IDEAL WOMAN" CHROME AND 36" RED-NEON ARRIVES AT PLUS!

Neons seem to be all the rage at the recently opened MCA Denver exhibition, but Plus Gallery has the "Ideal" neon now in house from artist Allie Pohl....along with an absolutely eye-popping fuscia-chrome ideal-woman sculpture in follow up to last year's exhibition.  We have to hand it to Allie, her ability to experiment and extrapolate on the basic concept that has propelled her career and work forward on the national stage is not only admirable but quite astounding.  Stay tuned for more news on her upcoming "Art cart" project for New York City this June!


FINAL WEEK FOR "SUBURBIA" FEATURING MIKE WHITING IN COLORADO SPRINGS

Friday will be the last day to view the excellent group exhibition "Suburbia" down at the GOCA 121 gallery in downtown Colorado Springs.  The show features 2 of Denver's most revered contemporary artists Chris Coleman and Phil Bender, alongside Plus Gallery's own Mike Whiting and Coleman collaborator Michael Salter.  The good news following the exhibition is that Mike Whiting's works will come back up to Plus Gallery and be available for viewing on our second floor for the spring!

JENNY MORGAN FEATURED IN FOUR X FOUR - COLLECTORS SERIES AT THE VICTORIA MYHREN GALLERY

DU's Victoria H. Myhren Gallery opened the exhibition "Four x Four: Collectors Series" last week, featuring works from four prominent local contemporary art collectors.  Amidst the distinguished works in the exhibition are three paintings by Plus Gallery artist Jenny Morgan, including her commissioned paintings of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and hollywood star Gwenyth Paltrow, the first time either painting has been exhibited.  Stop in to see the exhibition at DU now through May 6th, 2012.

PLUS GALLERY WELCOMES ARTIST WILLIAM BETTS BACK TO DENVER THIS WEEK!


Plus Gallery continues an unprecedented year of contemporary art exhibitions next week as we are set to open "Remote Sensing," the 3rd solo exhibition by William Betts. The works in the new exhibition continue Betts' ongoing pursuit of the psychological ambiguity inherent in this increasingly invasive and poignant realm, works that have made him one of the most highly regarded and collected new artist on the North American continent.


The exhibition also comes just months after the artist was awarded the Annual Painting Prize from New American Paintings by a distinguished jury consisting of Bill Arning, Director, The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, James Rondeau, Curator and Chair of Contemporary Art, Art Institute of Chicago, and Peter Boswell, Senior Curator, Miami Art Museum. William Betts' career continues to excel as one of the most prestigious by an emerging artist from the US in the last decade, with numerous awards for his work, inclusion in many thoughtfully curated group exhibitions including the upcoming "Tracing the Grid" presented at the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart in Germany. His work speaks for itself, his practice is the most singular and successful merger of painting and technology in the world today.


Betts is featured with a terrific profile in the new issue of Modern In Denver, which is now online and can be found at



A work from Betts' surveillance painting series is featured on the invite for his first European museum show in Stuttgart opening next month, William's most important group exhibition to date and one that puts him in the mix with some of the most renowned contemporary artists of our times.
William will be speaking about his art and career next wednesday evening on the untitledartshow.com, tune in April 18th or listen in to the podcast afterwards.  And please join us for the VIP hour with William from 5-6pm the night of his opening, which is open to the general public from 6-8pm.


SAVE THE DATE FOR "SIGHTLINE" AND CREATE DENVER WEEK - MAY 11TH

The official invitations for "SightLine" on May 11th have been sent out to the printer, with jpeg below.  This is really going to be one of the most extraordinary visual happenings to occur in Denver this decade.  The DTD will be hosting a VIP gathering that night on the 9th floor of Spire, which overlooks the LED screen, which will require an RSVP.  If you or someone you know would like to be included as a VIP for that evening, please contact us here and we'll make sure you are on the list.


MELISSA FURNESS UNVEILS TERRIFIC NEW PAINTINGS LAST WEEKEND AT IRONTON

Persistent Terrain is the two-person exhibition that pairs Plus Gallery artist Melissa Furness with fellow UCD associate Lanny DuVuono.  Furness presents three major new works in the exhibition, including her two most fascinating and densely layered paintings to date.  The exhibition will be on view through May 19th, and both artists will talk abou their work at Ironton on Saturday, April 28th starting at 1pm.


SHANNON NOVAK FEATURED IN DALLAS EXHIBITION OPENING APRIL 21st

New Zealand artist Shannon Novak will be featured in the exhibition "Polar Sonar" at the Ro2 Art Downtown Collection in Dallas, TX from April 21st through May 31st. The exhibition addresses polar, distinct ways of working. Shannon Novak's (New Zealand) hardedge minimalist approach contrasts Mary Benedicto's (USA) organic, raw form approach, yet there are touch points that connect the two. Polar/Sonar will explore these distinct yet connected practices through sound, colour, and form.

The exhibition is located at

Ro2 Art
Downtown Collection
1408 Elm Street at Akard
Dallas, Texas 75201
www.Ro2Art.com | 214.803.9575


Novak will be featured in the spectacular three-person summer exhibition "Merge" along with Erik Shumake and Matt O'Neill here at Plus Gallery this July, one that will be full of surprises.....more details to come in a future newsletter!

WORKS BY XI ZHANG AND DONALD FODNESS FEATURED THIS WEEKEND IN "DAM UNCORKED"


The Denver Art Museum's annual Salon du Musée has generously raised funds for the Museum for the past five years. This year it is a highlight of DAM Uncorked, the museum's most fun and dare we say "intoxicating" event of the year. 10 works of art will be offered for sale during the cocktail hour at the DAM Uncorked Dinner & Auction on Saturday, April 21st, including works by Plus Gallery artists Xi Zhang and Donald Fodness.

All proceeds from the sale of works in Salon du Musée will benefit the museum's acquisitions fund. The art may be viewed at the museum, by appointment only, beginning Tuesday, April 17. Proxy bids will be accepted from people who cannot attend the event. To schedule a viewing, or to place a proxy bid, please contact Mary Peck at mpeck@denverartmuseum.org or 720-913-0037.


ADDITIONAL WORKS ON VIEW AT PLUS GALLERY DURING BETTS EXHIBITION

We have a new set of small pixel-based sculptures by Mike Whiting on view upstairs in the gallery, fresh from the  "Suburbia" show in Colorado Springs.  A new work on paper by Kate Petley is also newly installed upstairs, along with Allie Pohl's latest Red-neon and Fuscia Chrome Ideal Women and one of Dave Yust's oldest available circular canvases, in honor of his retirement from 47 years of teaching art!  We also have a selection of William Betts editioned small-back-drilled-mirror panels of beach-scenes that are going to go fast.....come take a look at these and a host of other recent works by Plus Gallery artists.


WILLIAM BETTS and PLUS GALLERY PRESENT "REMOTE SENSING" OPENING RECEPTION THIS THURSDAY, APRIL 19th 6-8pm




        Plus Gallery welcomes William Betts back for "Remote Sensing," an exhibition of new surveillance themed paintings that have become the focal point of the artist's concern.  It has been five years since Betts last properly exhibited his work in Denver, his 2007 solo exhibition "Vertigo" substantially building on the promise that led him to be the most successful artist in the early years of the gallery history.  Since that time his accomplishments have been substantial and uncommon for any emerging artist in the United States, built through a network of leading art dealers in diverse markets throughout the North American continent.  His use of technology in painting is profound, his practice merging a wide variety of historically relevant themes with continual societal shifts that touch everyone's lives.  Time has only pronounced his merits,  grounding his practice and propelling Betts forward into a category that is singular throughout contemporary art in the world today.
        There are many layers to William's work that must be considered when confronting his forward thinking trajectory.  The first is his proprietary interface of computer software used in the determination and creation of his paintings.  Adapted to machinery designed by the artist as a provocative way to move past traditional approaches to image making, Betts' prior experience in the commercial business sector provided him with the knowledge and experience to confidently emerge into the increasingly competitive art arena of the 21st century.  His line-paintings pushed the limits of how paint can be applied to canvas, delivering exacting micro-detailing that the artist knew to be impossible to create by hand.  With the works immediately finding an audience, Betts continued to lengthen the path of the "impossible" with a series of moire paintings that were hallucinatory to confront in person, further amplifying the singular attributes of his apparatus and ideas.  The only thing missing from the artist's first two bodies of work was a context that had human implications, something Betts quickly discovered as a result of tragedy in the modern world.
        William introduced his "Surveillance" series of paintings in 2006, his direct response to the London bombings that rocked the UK, where he lived in 2002.  Betts was keenly aware of the British government's elaborate and controversial surveillance system which they pointed to as a deterrent to a terrorist incident.   He was fascinated by the surveillance images that emerged after the bombings and what they represented in our modern world. Since that time, Betts adaptation of surveillance imagery have been impressively expansive, tapping a realm that by it's very nature defines and defies reality.  Early works depicted images of remote highways, culled from actual continuous camera footage the artist contracted with the state of Texas to utilize, a remarkable feat in itself.  Overhead city views touched on the rapidly evolving swath cut by Google in it's ambitious program to leave no location on the earth out of reach by the click of a mouse.
        Betts further pushed the psychological factors inherent in such imagery, making statements that only an artist can propose as he defined through his titles certain locations depicted form overhead as neighborhoods where a pedophile resides, pairing the coordinates of a police profile with the corresponding satellite imagery.  Further forays into the more extreme examples of surveillance brought him into hotel bedrooms, depicting supposed "johns" preparing to engage in illicit behavior with what most obviously appeared to be prostitutes.  Because these works were composed of dots to simulate pixelated photos - with any level of  distinct clarity coming through only at a great distant - there was no way to conceivably know the actual origin or truth within the photo.  It was through this ongoing pursuit and expansion of boundaries that has propelled the intellectual and visual implications of Betts' work into a new, remarkably poignant direction that is beyond compare.
                The group of paintings that William Betts has culled for "Remote Sensing" further expands his efforts to, as he calls it, "carefully isolate, manipulate and corrupt specific aspects of the process to create images."  His current subjects strike an uncanny balance between the known and the imagined, conveying an ambiguity that is a direct and more refined result of his desire to allow the viewer to determine their own position when confronted by his work, rather than forcing a specific commentary.  Several images depict commercial airplanes that suggest an unusual vantage point for a regular commuter, the composition carefully selected and transposed to question our perception.  According to William, "Airliners and airports represent the ideal subject for an investigation into the nature of surveillance; airports are our literally our culture's crossroads and airliners have a conflicting history representing escape and threat concurrently."  The layers of mediation within this work are critical to him, as the removal and distance from this remote viewpoint is analogous to how we experience so much of life today.                       
        Another grouping of images suggest crowds, the artists showing an unusual balance between abstraction, playfulness and a current social reality that is pervasive in so many ways it literally boggles the mind, his careful selection of frame and manipulation of the colors building an ambiguity that is simply spectacular. The final, and perhaps most unsettling set of paintings, depict office environments as seen from outside, suggesting a voyeurism that knows no boundaries or motive.  The imagery suggests the context of high-rise settings, where the vantage point could be as close as the next building or from a snipers viewpoint from a strategic location.  Without any degree of specificity, and certainly some suggestion of isolation as well as camaraderie, the images leave us uncertain of who might be watching us at any time and why.
                "Remote Sensing" comes at a watershed moment in William Betts' career. Though he has received numerous regional accolades and awards in recent years, his constant presence in New American Paintings since his emergence in 2004 led to that publication awarding the artist their Annual Prize for a distinguished painter in January of this year, by a distinguished jury consisting of Bill Arning, Director, The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, James Rondeau, Curator and Chair of Contemporary Art, Art Institute of Chicago, and Peter Boswell, Senior Curator, Miami Art Museum. And perhaps more telling is Betts' first inclusion this May in the the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart's major exhibition "Tracing the Grid," combining his work with some of the most prestigious contemporary artists in the world today.  It's a trajectory that's not unwarranted, and one that Betts' has worked hard to craft through ingenuity and an innate understanding of how to be historically relevant in the world of art.

Plus Gallery will open "Remote Sensing" on Thursday, April 19th with a reception for William Betts from 6-8pm.

William will be interviewed the night before, April 18th, on the untitledartshow.com at 8pm.