Plus Gallery opens exhibition "Fluid Circumvention" featuring new ceramics by Tsehai Johnson

It has been almost 5 years since Denver based artist Tsehai Johnson mounted her last solo exhibition "Disorderly" at Plus Gallery, one that had the unusual gravity of being the final show in the gallery's initial space at 2350 Lawrence Street. Johnson's centerpiece for the exhibition, "Exploding Carpet," was a virtual explosion of ceramic forms jumping out of and off the floor.  It was easily one of the most memorable works in the first seven years of the gallery history, and one that would emerge back into view three years later at the Center for Visual Arts for their exhibition "Collective Nouns." Since that time Johnson has also mounted works in some of the leading venues in the state, including the Denver Art Museum's major extravaganza "Overthrown: Clay without Limits" in the summer of 2011. Johnson's initial foray into the Denver Art Museum's main exhibition space seemed to mark a particular point in time for Plus Gallery, with other of our respective artists being honored with ambitious exhibitions of depth and stature in major city venues, like Patti Hallock's solo exhibition currently on view at the MCA Denver, Mike Whiting's current outdoor solo exhibition "8-Bit Modern" at the BYU Museum of art, and Bruce Price's upcoming solo show at the DAM this May. And while not known as an artist working in a "public" vein, Johnson has quietly been working on a mammoth Art in Architecture Commission for the Byron Rogers Federal Building in Denver, set to be installed later this summer. All of these attributes are a testament to a formidable and focused career that emphasizes the inherent quality in Denver's contemporary scene.

Works in progress for Byron Rogers Federal Building, Denver

Plus Gallery is pleased to unveil Johnson's latest gallery installation "Fluid Circumvention" this Friday evening, March 1st. For almost 20 years Johnson's ceramic-based art practice has manipulated form in a unique and conceptually appealing way that juxtaposes the domestic with the sexual, the mundane with the messy. Driving her practice are several converging interests, from the clash between fantasy's perfection and the messiness of reality, the close juxtaposition of labor and pleasure in domestic space, and finally an exploration of how the logic and organizing principles of everyday objects reveal the very mutability of life. With "Fluid Circumvention" she explores the powerful effect of massed objects coupled with the small disorders of everyday life in works such as "Swarm," a complex, visually arresting two-wall installation featuring mutating cups, each appearing as actual liquid in motion. Johnson's work nudges us to inhabit each living moment with more esthetic attentiveness and to find the poetic potential in the everyday.

Detail from the installation "Swarm"

Born in Ethiopia in 1966, Tsehai Johnson received degrees from Reed College, Massachusetts College of Art, and the University of Colorado. Exhibitions of note in recent years include Biennale Internationale de Vallauris, Magnelli Museum (France), White Columns (New York City, NY,), the Denver Art Museum (Colorado), Ft. Collins Museum of Contemporary Art (Colorado), Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (Colorado), University of Wyoming Art Gallery (Wyoming), and the World Ceramic Biennale (Korea). Collections of note include the Museum of Ceramics (New York), Museum of Outdoor Arts (Colorado), and the Reyzjanesbaer Art Museum, (Iceland). She is the recipient of a Colorado Council of the Arts Fellowship and residencies in Spain, Iceland and at PlatteForum in Denver, Colorado in conjunction with the 2010 Biennial of the Americas. Johnson is currently an Assistant Professor in the Art Department at Metropolitan State College of Denver..

Please join us this Friday in welcoming Tsehai Johnson back and to view her latest efforts in "Fluid Circumvention" from 6:30-9pm. 

2011: PLUS GALLERY YEAR IN REVIEW

2011 was undoubtedly a tremendous year for Plus Gallery artists and our internal endeavors to positively shape the face of Denver's contemporary landscape.  We'd like to share a quick recap of some of those moments, ones that many might not be aware of and those that anyone following our weekly news and program would already have discovered.  But we'll start with the largely unknown:
In 2010 we started posting what works have sold through the year on our Facebook page, we feel that it's a positive way to share information about our program and develop a certain sense of transparency.  We don't always update it readily throughout the year, but we've recently posted the majority of our second half of the year sales:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.175243182512019.31084.113473022022369&type=3

Our facebook page doesn't necessarily supplant our weekly newsletter, but we are developing it as a source for exciting reports, photographs and other opportunities that our patrons might enjoy, please join us there or recommend to anyone you know who is using facebook.
One of the most pleasing reports of the year that we would like to share are the exhibitions that have officially achieved "Sold Out" status in 2011. Those that hit the mark this year are:

- Xi Zhang's "Dream Dusts" (2010/2011)

 

 - Ali Pohl's "Mirror, Mirror" (2011)

 

 - Bruce Price "Full" (2005)

 

And there are three that are very close, with only single works left from each:

- Frank T. Martinez' "Complex Conformity" (2006)

- Robin Schaefer's "Mimesis" (2008)

 

 

- Jenny Morgan "This too Shall Pass" (2009)

In 2011, Tsehai Johnson was included with a major installation in the Denver Art Museum's exceptional and unprecedented exhibition "Overthrown: Clay Without Limits,"  and Xi Zhang became the youngest artist ever to deliver a Logan Lecture this fall, two very rare honors that we hold in highest regard.  Many of our artists have been featured in Museum exhibitions in the past but few as prestigious as the DAM.  We don't expect this to be a rare occurrence in the future as our artists across the board are gaining ground in their careers and reputations, not just in the region but throughout the world.  In 2012 we'll see our first International Museum presence with William Betts' inclusion in the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart's group exhibition "Tracing the Grid." Jenny Morgan will have an exquisite display of recent and some of her best works from solid local collections on view at Denver's Center for Visual Arts in early 2012 in the group exhibition "Out-Figured" which will include local as well as internationally renowned artists.  Mike Whiting returns with new works in February for an exhibition at Colorado Spring's Gallery of Contemporary Art alongside local luminaries Phil Bender and Chris Coleman.  And later in the Spring he'll be featured at BYU's prestigious Museum of Art in Utah with a solo exhibition that will include major outdoor works.  Finally, in the fall of 2012 Dave Yust will be given some due for one of the longest and most prolific careers in contemporary art by a Colorado Artist when the Loveland Museum hosts "Dave Yust: 40 Plus years of Printmaking."

Our own schedule for 2012 holds great anticipation and excitement for us, we'll be celebrating the end of times in January 2012 with a mind-boggling exhibition of works on paper by two very excellent local emerging artists Drew Englander and Donald Fodness, alongside two national artists of amazing talent and visceral visual intensity Larry Bob Phillips and Paul Nudd.  Expect lots of surprises as we look to see if the Rapture is really upon us.  Things get down to serious business thereafter as we host solo exhibitions by three of our top artists Xi Zhang, William Betts and Jenny Morgan.  The fall will include the next solo exhibition from Karen McClanahan, an artists who has been with us from almost our very beginnings in 2001, and the rarest of rare a new solo exhibition by Susan Meyer.
2011 had so many great moments for Plus Gallery, from our first exhibition of the year by Melissa Furness that featured a full-wall video installation and some of the most intricate and genre expanding paintings of any year, to our most recent solo by Frank T. Martinez, his fourth and absolutely finest body of work yet.  In between we hosted our first photography show in our current space featuring Patti Hallock's timeless, playful, stunningly composed "The West Is Here" in conjunction with Denver's Month of Photography celebration, followed by our only group exhibition of the year, the highly praised "Peaking the Edge" which featured not only some of the best talent from around the US but two terrific artists from New Zealand Shannon Novak and Sara Hughes.  The exhibition ended up being wonderfully redefined following our Broadway Corridor Public Art Celebration as a team of young artists led by Liz Greene presented one of most memorable performances in recent memory.  But even that couldn't prepare us and the city for what followed:  Allie Pohl's debut solo exhibition at Plus "Mirror, Mirror."  Allie created one of the most breathtaking and magical installations in the history of the gallery, progressing her "Ideal Woman" theme further with a floor-to-ceiling caryatid form in chromed resin, surrounded by mirrors that reflected the ideals of the online dating scene.  Oh, and there was her neon and video loop too that accompanied the show.  We could have just ended our careers there, going out on a high note, but nevertheless we continued forward and hosted our ten year anniversary in conjunction with a new set of paintings from Gabriel Liston. Liston presented his best work to date with an intimate collection of full-color and striking black-and-white scenes depicting youth at its finest and most real.  The show and our anniversary also found us with one of the best gifts we could ever receive, a site-specific exterior graphic application for our canopy developed from across the world by Shannon Novak, an artist whom we've grown to admire quite a bit since striking up a relationship in 2010.  After some well-needed time off at the end of the summer, we returned in our finest form yet with Robin Schaefer's latest highly nuanced and thoughtful body of work "Unlearning the Differences."  We'll never forget the pairing of sister and brother that month in the space as Kagen Schaefer unveiled a work of the most extreme detail, beauty and inspiration to a select and appreciative crowd, his one of a kind desk commissioned by legendary contemporary film director Darren Aronofsky.  And of course that was followed by the return of Bill Amundson in October with "Blurred Vision," an exhibition that broke many records for the gallery including the first time ever having to turn people away at the door for his unprecedented artist talk.   And of course none of this would have been possible without our terrific team of interns, who supported the gallery program and helped us get through all of the exciting (and not-so exciting) times.

Happy Holidays to all!

 

PLUS GALLERY ARTISTS IN EXHIBITIONS THROUGHOUT COLORADO AND NY

Jon Rietfors: "Value Added" solo exhibition. Opens December 9th, on view through March 25th at the Loveland Museum of Art

Kate Petley: "Gline: Time and Light" installation in group exhibition. Opens December 2nd, on view through January 14th at the Lincoln Center Art Gallery in Fort Collins

Tsehai Johnson: "Strange Beauty: Baroque Sensibilities in Contemporary Art" group exhibition. Opens December 6th, on view through February 14th, 2012 at IDEA Space in the Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center, Colorado College, Colorado Springs

Justin Stewart: "Fully Empty #2" installation in group exhibition "The Longest Night. "Opens December 9th, on view through December 18th at Gowanus Ballroom in Brooklyn, NY

Melissa Furness: "A Feminine Contemporary Sublime" group exhibition. On view through December 21st at the A.I.R. Gallery in NYC

AND TSEHAI JOHNSON REPRISED NEXT MONTH IN COLORADO SPRINGS

From December 6, 2011 to February 14, 2012 the Interdisciplinary Arts program at Colorado College will feature the exhibition Strange Beauty: Baroque Sensibilities in Contemporary Art. The exhibition presents paintings, sculpture, installation, photography, and performance art by selected Contemporary artists who revisit artistic strategies and cultural concerns of the 17th Century. The exhibition will take place in the IDEA Space, located in the Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center, 825 N. Cascade Avenue, Colorado Springs, CO.  On Tuesday, December 6 beginning at 4:30 pm, the public is invited to attend an opening reception and IDEA Cabaret presentation by IDEA Curator Jessica Hunter-Larsen and the Colorado College student co-curators who contributed research to the exhibition. The exhibition and reception are free and open to the public.

Exploring some of these intersections between contemporary and Baroque culture, Strange Beauty features bodies of work by Liza Lou, Kehinde Wiley, and Sherrie Wolf, an installation by Tsehai Johnson (a reformatting of her DAM installation from the summer's blockbuster "Overthrown: Clay without Limits" exhibition) and a selection of pieces by Ken Aptekar, Jimmy Baker, Renee Cox, Andres Serrano, and Cindy Sherman. The exhibition text, written by students in the Colorado College course "The Age of the Baroque: Art and Empire in the 17th Century" will further explore connections between Baroque and contemporary art and experience.

Colorado College is a nationally prominent, four-year liberal arts college that was founded in Colorado Springs in 1874. The college operates on the innovative Block Plan, in which its 1,975 undergraduate students study one course at a time in intensive 3_-week blocks. The college also offers a master of arts in teaching degree. For more information, visit www.ColoradoCollege.edu . For directions or disability accommodation at the event, members of the public may call (719) 389-6607.

TSEHAI JOHNSON FEATURED IN BIENNIAL EXHIBITION "ARTIST FOOTPRINTS" THIS WEEK AT REDLINE

Plus Gallery artist Tsehai Johnson unveils a brand new work for the Biennial of the Americas exhibition "Artists Footprints" starting this week at Plus Gallery neighbor Redline.  Johnson will talk about her work tonight, July 7th at Redline, and the exhibition will officially open with a reception on Thursday, July 8th from 6-10pm.

PLUS GALLERY ARTISTS IN NOTABLE BIENNIAL EXHIBITIONS AROUND DENVER

A few artists from the Plus Gallery stable will have works on view for and during the Biennial of the Americas in select locations.  Here's a brief rundown of what you might find:

Tsehai Johnson unveils an exquisite new ceramic work as part of the official Biennial exhibition "Artists' Footprints" at Redline just three blocks from Plus Gallery.  This exhibition, curated by RedLine artist in residence Viviane Le Courtois, explores the boundaries of art and life through innovative systems of creation and production, and will be on view starting July 8th.  Johnson will discuss her work at Redline on Wednesday July 7th at 7pm.

Bill Amundson, Jon Rietfors and Patti Hallock will all have a work on view in the official Biennial exhibition "Objectophelia" which commences tonight at a temporary location next to the MCA Denver and at 1900 16th Street.  The exhibition has been curated and organized by former Plus Gallery artist Lauri Lynnxe Murphy.

Finally, Riva Sweetrocket and Colin Livingston have works on view as part of the Denver Art Dealer Association's spotlight exhibition for the next three months at DIA.