The Denver Art Museum (DAM) is back at it again with new art.
Daring,
Presumptuous,
Intrepid,
Heroic,
And audacious
Art:
A giant, shiny, red dinosaur greets worldly and curious Denverites on the third floor of the DAM for one of Denver’s most fascinating exhibits. “Audacious: Contemporary Artists Speak Out” serves as a vehicle for artistic displays of controversy. The eclectic mash-up of pieces in the exhibit is unified by the four common threads of “Self & Other,” “Ecologies & Exchanges,” “Threats & Surveillance” and “Politics & Geographies,” whose thought-provoking explanations are typed onto the white walls of the exhibit.
“Audacious” begins with a piece by Robert Therrien glaring at each viewer immediately upon entering through the giant glass doors. What looks like a black cloud of metal phone chords promotes the initial expectation of pensiveness about the controversial artwork throughout. From there, museum attendees can wander through the exhibit’s massive room which is sectioned off by wall dividers plastered with artwork.
Yang Shaobin’s Untitled (Portrait, No. 15) was created to reflect his ideas about social order.Photo by Ruth Hollenback | Clarion
Without the common threads, this exhibit would merely look like a neatly organized storage closet of random—yet uncannily beautiful—items tossed together without purpose. For example, Roxy Paine’s “Vibrating Field,” made of aluminum, rubber, soil and other materials, is literally a dirt bed of weeds sitting on a table, vibrating. However, because it sits under the theme of “Ecologies & Exchanges,” it immediately spurs a conversation about its unique implications.
Another piece, David Hammons’s “African-American Flag” is a regular full-sized American flag, but with the blue exchanged for green and the white exchanged for black. His goal in this piece, under the theme of “Self & Other,” is to expose the indivisibility of Americans and African-Americans with the Pan-African colors as a symbol of black strength and unity.
Other notable pieces in “Audacious” include Bruce Nauman’s blinking neon sign, which he calls “Double Poke in the Eye II,” Brian Alfred’s acrylic paint on canvas, “City Sunrise,” and Mel Chin’s provocative spoof on René Magritte’s “The Treachery of Image (This is Not a Pipe)” which he calls “Elementary Object,” made of a burled wood pipe and cement.
Finally, the exhibit offers a unique activity for those willing to participate: just around the first divider after entering is a wall with six clear glass bowls containing tiny blocks of different colors. Dark blue represents “empathetic,” light turquoise represents “optimistic,” sky blue represents “empowered,” dark pink represents “hopeless,” salmon represents “angry” and light pink represents “confused.” Many of the exhibit’s pieces are accompanied by a large test tube stuck in the wall right next to it. Viewers are instructed to drop a color block to represent how the particular work made them feel into the tube, and then compare to other people’s responses.
“Audacious: Contemporary Artists Speak Out” is located on level three of the Hamilton Building at the Denver Art Museum along with other Modern & Contemporary Art, Oceanic Art and the Sculpture Deck, which features a massive portrait window created for viewing Denver’s warmly-colored skyline.
“Audacious” is available with general admission until Feb. 26 of 2017—free for those 18 and under, $8 for Colorado resident college students and $10 for adults. The DAM is open Tuesday through Thursday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Friday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
