This is part of a piece I wrote for the Invisible Museum’s Eye-Level late last year. The original article compared MCA and Redline as architectural experiences, relating their design choices to their very different missions. That particular issue of Eye Level never came out, and at this point, I might as well put some text up to share. Here’s the part on Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art:
To a drive-by glance, Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) is a massive block of dark glass with several overhanging elements, broad angular articulations, and rectilinear protuberances, striking in a neighborhood of older structures. If one pauses, one immediately notices a clear panel, off-center in the greenish-black grid of panes, and a look down the side courtyard on the left reveals a wood-covered overhanging room, also with a clear window. Cantilevered to hang out over the side “alley,” this prominent feature helps set the tone for a building that signals institutional authority while reveling in its own design quirks.
With modest lettering indicating “MCA DENVER,” a neighbor could easily pass by without realizing that this was a museum. The current exhibitions are listed, but the signs are partially hidden behind the outside wall of an entry tunnel that spans most of the building’s façade. They are also listed vertically, so one needs to tilt one’s head sideways to read them. It’s frankly difficult to perceive this as a warm welcome, and one needs to go down a tunnel and up a ramp if one wants to learn more. One is greeted by a ticket seller before reaching the top of the ramp, so that one is standing sideways on a significant slope as one considers purchasing admission. The newcomer seems deliberately thrown off balance, and the cashier is positioned slightly above the nervous art lover. Continue reading →
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Representation may not be the point, exactly, but I often do enjoy it when “pictures” appear. In general, I find that in general, apparently non-objective works tend to begin as deliberate “pictures of something,” while on the other hand, virtually none of the most apparently mimetic works actually began that way. Whatever I try to do, turns into something else, and then I do the best I can to follow it to its destination.
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A few of the 111 sheets from The Unsecret Block. The simplest way through each brief moment of animation is to go down each column from the top left. There are many other ways to navigate the block. Movies to come in the near future.
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Over 1600 images on 111 sheets. This “block” is threaded through in a variety of ways to create three distinct pieces of animated visual music. This installation, which includes both video and still images, will appear as the centerpiece of “Time & Attention,” opening at Ironton on October 23rd. Esoteric secrets of abstract animation will be laid bare. Related drawings, prints, and cinema will also appear. Movie bits will appear on this site as the show approaches. Contact me to make sure you’re kept informed.
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While movies assemble still images into various illusions of motion, monotype printmaking compels one to select and freeze a moment in a fluid work process. Some of these images include multiple “drops,” which makes the concept of “moment” somewhat more complex. A series of decisive instants are rendered as simultaneous, by way of translucent stratification.
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“Images in series often implicitly refer to temporality, but few serial works delve into time and space as directly and viscerally as Eric Waldemar’s new multimedia works, which will appear in Time and Attention at Ironton, starting on October 23rd. In The Unsecret Block, the centerpiece of the show, Waldemar teases rhythm and motion from an intricate matrix of over 1600 images, taking a variety of routes through a “block” of 111 sheets. A twenty-year endeavor to merge drawing and cinema arrives at some sort of momentary culmination this fall, and it should not be missed. “
Moving images soon to come. Keep an eye on this site, or, even better, subscribe by email or RSS.
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More to come on this, but I’ll be teaching printmaking classes this Winter (2009) at both Denver Art Museum and the Art Students’ League. At the League, I’ll also be teaching courses in hands-on animation, so prepare to make profound visual music and cartoons, both. Send a note if you want to know more.
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I’m showing “The Royal and Most Pleasant Game of the Goose,” an etching, in a curated show called “Locals’ Night, at Ink Lounge, a print-centered gallery in Denver. It opens November 21st, and runs until January 7th, and there’s a lot of good work in it, from what I saw laying around as they prepared to hang the show. My piece is from a series of board game-related pieces I did in the early 1990s. I thought it was time to pull that work out again, and up came an opportunity. Here’s a little version:
The Game of the Goose dates back to at least the 1500s, and this etching is related to a version that was printed in England around 1800 by John Wallis. Played with dice, this is considered the prototype of all “race” games, and a variety of terrors, dangers, and opportunities lurk on the way to the central portal. Some of these, like Death, ended the game entirely for the unlucky player. This was a drinking and gambling game, and if one landed on the Ale House, for instance, one would be obliged to add money to the pot, drink, then wait through a whole cycle of turn-taking before rejoining the race. Falling in The Well could also cause wet, frustrating delays. On the other hand, landing on a Goose would double the number one rolled, allowing one to swiftly proceed toward victory and profit. Original impressions of this early British printing are exceptionally rare, the late 20th century Waldemar variant even more so. It is one artifact of my continuing study of how the human species spends their time. It’s a small edition (7). Go to Ink Lounge and buy one, or at least look at it. Here’s the site for the show:
http://www.inkloungegallery.com/pages/exhibits.html
See you there.
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Two recent works, The Thinking Truck and Canvas Cinema: Thinking is Finding will take up over half of the show at “Faux Mouvements… and Other Excursions ,” which will be screened twice:
Monday, November 17th at 7:00 and Sunday, November 23rd at 3:30, at Starz Film Center (at the Tivoli, on the Auraria Campus in Denver). Who knows? These shows could be rapidly selling out, so make sure to get some tickets. The link: http://www.denverfilm.org/festival/film/detail.aspx?id=22333&FID=43
The show includes work by Dan Boord, the director of the CU Boulder Film Program, made in collaboration with Luis Valdovino, also CU film faculty. It includes Pip Chodorov, who’s been prominent in both European and American experimental film communities for many years. It includes Alexandre O. Phillipe, a Frenchman living in Denver, whose work I frankly don’t know. As I said, it also includes two movies by my very self, both of which premiered this Summer at Boulder Public Library. See you there…
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