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Voelz Chandler: Collages a glimpse of Libeskind

Published December 8, 2006 at midnight

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The Denver Art Museum's new Frederic C. Hamilton Building has been open for two months, and the discussion continues - or is it a debate? - over its form both inside and out.

Laud it or loathe it, I think it would be difficult to find anyone who believes that Daniel Libeskind did not give this city a building like nothing else, elevating the level of conversation about architecture here while inviting people in to look at work from two museum collections and, for the next few months, three superb special exhibitions.

The act of creating - how that building came to be that building - is at the heart of "Inspiration, Process and Place," a show of works on paper by Libeskind at Sandy Carson Gallery.

Carson first approached the architect about the venture a couple of years ago, but his schedule made it impossible. Fortunately, she tried again, looking at a fall exhibition that could amplify the architect's way of seeing and working after residents had a chance to experience the museum.

The result is an installation that includes two extravagant collage drawings Libeskind made in 1981 (have fun inspecting the fantastical The History of Vegetables and So Forth), a wall of chalk and charcoal drawings that relate to the Jewish Museum in Berlin, and four intricate and abstracted ink on paper works from a 1989 series titled "Theatrum Mundi."

As would be expected, the bulk of the work hits close to home: More than three dozen pieces derived from the Hamilton Building project include five colored marker drawings that are pure expressionism, drawings (OK, glorified doodles) on hotel stationery, as well as sketches on note paper and just about anything else at hand. In some instances, these are lyrical interpretations of the museum and the nearby building designed by Gio Ponti, and in others, sheets of changing views of the dramatic angles of Libeskind's new museum building as it shifts and becomes more concrete.

If there is a limitation here, it is that viewers have a near-blank slate in terms of context. Some pieces easily indicate where: Libeskind drew and drew and drew, on stationery from places as diverse as the Sherry-Netherland Hotel to the convention center in Jerusalem. But the sense of evolution - and basic documentation - is sorely lacking. And what was going on in 1981 to produce pieces with such unusual imagery?

Still, any chance to get inside a designer's mind is an opportunity to take a trip like no other.

The second part of "Inspiration, Process and Place" addresses photography by Andrea Modica.

Modica's past series (and books) include "Treadwell," about a young woman in Upstate New York, and "Human Beings," a record of the bones found when officials discovered a cemetery at the Colorado Mental Health Institute. For a while, Modica lived in Colorado. But she moved to Vermont, where she has a studio, and also lives in Philadelphia, where she teaches photography at Drexel University.

In past work, Modica found a delicate balance between life and death, isolation and community, guided by her hefty 8-by-10-inch camera.

For the 2006 "Northeast Kingdom" series displayed in a distinctly separate space at Carson, she has enlarged the scale of her prints to capture the cycles of life in an apple orchard. There are blossoms, there is fruit ready to pick, and there are apples lying in the dirt decaying. They are beautiful and sad, all at once, with strong shifts in focus and steady compositions that impress with their sensitivity and honesty.

MADE FROM THE MUSEUM: Remember the plastic coating that covered the Hamilton Building for months, to the point that more than one person believed we were going to get a white building? But workers eventually peeled off the protective film, called Nitto, to reveal the soft gray metal beneath.

The Nitto, or at least some of it, is now a material in a show organized by the Invisible Museum, an organization that from time to time creates exhibitions that tend to the memorable.

And that's the case with "The Nitto Files: An Artistic Conspiracy." Artist and activist Marina Graves and photographer Randy Brown chose a group of artists to use cast-off-but-rescued Nitto to create work. In many cases, those involved created a compare-and-contrast situation, using Nitto as the ground for a drawing or photograph, but also making the same image with traditional paper. The difference is in the coloration, since Nitto-based work tends to read as a much brighter white, a quality that affects whatever is layered upon it.

Some of the artists used the museum's new building for inspiration; David Sharpe, for instance, made a model of the Hamilton Building out of Nitto and set it on the Platte River to look as if it were floating away.

"The Nitto Files" is the most clever show to open in a long time, but it doesn't have much more time on view. It closes Dec. 15, at 910 Santa Fe Drive. Along with seeing what artists such as Patti Hallock, Christopher James and Doris Laughton do with the material, it's an opportunity to visit the Nine10 Arts Building, a colorful and innovative warren of studios, shops and exhibition spaces (as in unsold live/work space).

In both show and location, the bottom line is all about preserving, recycling and sustaining. Information: 303-832-2413.

IN THE NEWS: Kendra Fleischman has been chosen to design a new piece of public art to sit near the recent expansion of the Arvada Center complex. The Golden resident vied for the $65,000 commission against Bruce Gueswel of Loveland, and Howard Kalish of Brooklyn, N.Y. . . . After 11 years, Lisa Spivak has left the position of gallery director at the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design. A spokeswoman for RMCAD said interviews are under way to find a replacement.

Inspiration, Process and Place

• What: Works on paper by Daniel Libeskind, and photographs by Andrea Modica

• Where and when: Sandy Carson Gallery, 760 Santa Fe Drive; through Jan. 5

• Information: 303-573-8585;

or 303-954-2677.

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