Focus on photography

More than 35 local galleries host photo exhibitions this month

Mary Voelz Chandler

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Semyon Fridlyand, Siberia, Novosibirsk turbine plant. No date.

Todd Walker, BUSMM 1997, black-and-white negative using additive color and processed through a variety of computer programs.

Slater Bradley, I Hate Myself and Want to Die 2003-04, C-print

Joann Brennan needed a theme that could stretch.

The chairwoman of this weekend's national Society for Photographic Education conference in Denver found what she needed with "Agents of Change: Art and Advocacy."

And stretch it does in the more than 35 regional exhibitions organized to key into the conference. Politics? Technique? Alternative processes? National glory? The Month of Photography interprets "change" in numerous ways.

"I had an interest in what role art plays in the issues of our time," said Brennan, an associate professor of photography and chairwoman of the visual arts department at the University of Colorado at Denver. "An artist is a voice of the times in which we live."

With theme in hand, Brennan and photographer/arts advocate Mark Sink alerted area galleries and arts centers about the conference and asked that they schedule photography shows during that period. The result is MOP. First held in 2004 in conjunction with a regional SPE conference, the torrent of exhibitions offers many opportunities to focus on, well, photography.

Here are three, with an eye on edgy content, technology and commentary.

Chandlerm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2677

Exercise your eyes

* What: The Society for Photographic Education conference concludes Sunday at the Adam's Mark Hotel. Single-session passes ($25) are available to programs and lectures.

* Check out: "Kids With Cameras," a free show through April 5 at Emmanuel Gallery on the Auraria campus, featuring photographs from Calcutta's Red Light District, Haiti and Cairo. Opening reception, 7 to 10 p.m. today.

* Details: More about the conference and exhibitions at spenational.org/conference/conf2008/index.html; 303photo.blogspot.com; gallerysink.com/spe

On the Road: Photography of the Soviet Empire

* What: Work by Soviet Jewish photographer Semyon Fridlyand

* Where and when: Victoria H. Myhren Gallery, University of Denver, 2121 E. Asbury Ave.; through May 4

* Of note: Panel Thursday on "Photojournalism and Politics," begins with a 5:30 p.m. reception; Joann Brennan, chairwoman of the visual arts department at the University of Colorado at Denver, on "Agents of Change," 12:30 p.m. April 8. Free; in the gallery

* Change through commentary: The University of Denver is showing off its new trove of photography: images from the giant body of work left by photographer Semyon Fridlyand from a 40-year career in the Soviet Union. Fridlyand, who died in 1964, is best known for his work for the magazine Ogonyok (The Little Flame), a publication with the kind of widespread appeal as the United States' old Life. The Semyon Fridlyand Archive project has been developed by DU's Center for Judaic Studies with the Myrhen Gallery.

Numerous examples from this 10,000-plus-piece archive are on view in "On the Road: Photography of the Soviet Empire," curated from an extended loan from Russ and Cathy Dalbey, with financial support from the Dalbey Education Institute.

Fridlyand seems to have been everywhere and tried everything: The exhibition includes constructivist images of city life, shot from above so that the geometric form of the composition is as important as the content; powerful wartime battle scenes; and heroic Socialist Realist images shot from below to make the worker, the farmer, the subject seem larger than life. And then there are photographs of everyday life, shot in an easy, candid style.

As a bonus, the works on the wall are augmented by a computer offering access to thousands of other archive images.

It's like a trip with Fridlyand across a very large country, one he never saw split apart into singular nations.

* Information: 303-871-2846; du.edu/art/myhrengallery.htm

Critical Encounters

* What: Pioneering digital photography by Todd Walker

* Where and when: Sandra Phillips Gallery, 744 Santa Fe Drive; through April 12

* Change through technology: People in the region know the work of artist Melanie Walker, an associate professor of art at the University of Colorado.

But Todd Walker? That's Melanie Walker's father, a photographer who taught at institutions such as the University of Arizona and the University of Florida while spearheading exploration of digital photographic experimentation.

A mini-retrospective, dating from 1986 to 1998 (the year of his death), fills the gallery with work by Walker that demands study.

Whether building upon the nude form, blowing apart a landscape or giving a new dimension to the concept of a portrait, Walker's work has a shimmering quality that shows his dedication to sampling alternative photographic processes.

He worked in solarization, for instance, and, as digital manipulation became more well understood, used computer programs to get to the basic elements of his images.

The show has a certain mind-expanding quality. A tip, though: Perhaps a text panel on technique would offer insight into the technology behind the artist's eye.

* Information: 303-573-5969; thesandraphillipsgallery.com

still

* What: Photography and film by Slater Bradley; photography by Sally Mann and Nigel Poor

* Where and when: Center for Visual Art, 1734 Wazee St.; through May 1

* Change through edgy content: The title of this show wears two hats: the traditional term for a nonmoving image and the state of rest of someone dead or, in some instances here, depressed to the point of somnolence.

Into this milieu of mortality meeting photography, enter Slater Bradley, Sally Mann and Nigel Poor. They walk in the shadow of the memento mori.

Bradley focuses on young people through the aura of lost entertainers such as Kurt Cobain, including the powerful C-print mounted on plexiglas I Hate Myself and Want to Die; four images of a decomposing whale; and two short DVDs, including the beckoning Ghost.

Mann, who found fame with push-the-boundary images of her children, in "still" walks in two arenas: Civil War battlefields shot in the most dense, somber and beautiful of grays and blacks, and the remains left behind in a forensic study site.

Poor takes on the short, brutish life of the fly in two installations. Killing Season offers a veritable glossary of terms that applies to insects, from carapace to venation; the sheets, specked with images of insect parts, stretch across several walls. Soaring across a large expanse is 287 Flies, 287 oddly elegant digital prints mounted on plexiglas.

This swarm of dead flies is surprisingly arresting; the exhibition overall is at once moving and frightening. Just like death.

* Information: 303-294-5207; www.mscd.edu/news/cva

A sampling of shows

The region's galleries and arts centers have organized more than 35 shows related to photography to tie in to this weekend's Society for Photographic Education conference. Here's a sampling:

* "Greg Friedler and Randall Bellows," Space Gallery, 765 Santa Fe Drive, 720-904-1088; through April 13: Friedler's evocative look at Havana, with Bellows' architecturally inspired images printed on metallic paper.

* "Wonders & Marvels," work by Carol Golemboski, with "Exposed: An Exhibition of Photographs by Eleven Artists," Sandy Carson Gallery, 760 Santa Fe Drive, 303-573-8585; through April 5: Golembo ski's mystical images, with fruit-juice- based anthotype-process works.

* "Conflict on the Plains," work by Thomas Carr, Dairy Center for the Arts, 2590 Walnut St., Boulder, 303-440-7826; through March 28: Archeologist and photographer Carr interprets the struggle for Plains Indians to survive in 19th-century America.

* "Flux," with photography by Robert Buelteman (back gallery show with photo- based work by Bonny Lhotka, Jimmy Sellars, Corvo Brothers and Sabin Aell) and sculpture by Andrew Sweet, Walker Fine Art, 300 W. 11th St., 303-355-8955; through April 5: Buelteman employs an electrically charged metal plate to print an image onto film.

* "Out of Place," work by artists including William Lamson, Kahn + Selesnick, Teun Hocks and Chi Peng, Robischon Gallery, 1740 Wazee St.; through April 26, 303-298- 7788: Innovative photography in which the human form is used in a number of surprising ways.

* "In Process," work by photographers including Christina Ianni, Olivia Edwards and Kirk Norlin, Tennyson Studios, 4420-4430 Tennyson St., 303-477-1847; through March 29: Alternative processes include Vandykes, cyanotypes, Polaroids and toy cameras.

* "Photographic Edge," Edge Gallery, 3658 Navajo St.; through March 23, 303-477-7173: Work by members with an emphasis on photography.

* "Myron Wood: Photographs of the West," Byers-Evans House Museum, 1310 Bannock St.; through May 1, 303-620-4933: The late Colorado Springs photographer turns his eye on the region.

* "Lou Stoumen: Ordinary Miracles," Camera Obscura Gallery, 1309 Bannock St., 303-623-4059; through April 20: Work by the late photographer, filmmaker and teacher.

* "Photography 171: A Continuum of Process and Method," organized by the Colorado Photographic Arts Center and Denver Public Library Western History Collection, Denver Central Library, 7th floor, 10 W. 14th Ave. Parkway, 720-865-1821; through March 30: Processes "lost and found again" are the focus.

* "The Displaced: Disappeared Peoples of Colombia," by Grupo Arteaccion, UMC Art Gallery, University of Colorado, 303-492-7465; through March 21: Documents the displaced in a country of political strife.

* "Body Art: New Photography From China," organized by the Asian Art Coordinating Council with Foothills curator Michael Chavez, Foothills Art Center, 809 15th St., Golden, 303-279-3922, today through May 4 : Work by artists including Huang Yan, Li Wei, Cang Xin and Wu Yuren.

* "Kids With Cameras," photographs from Calcutta's Red Light District, Haiti and Cairo, Emmanuel Gallery, Auraria Campus; through April 5, 303-556-8337: Selections from the group's projects, co-sponsored by the University of Colorado at Denver. Opening reception, 7 to 10 p.m. today

* "The Simple Truth," Rule Gallery, 227 Broadway, 303-777-9473; through April 5: Curated by Valerie "Photogoddess" Wolny, with emerging artists including Rebecca Dolan, Katie Taft, Rachel Hawthorn and Ellen Yeiser.

* "Jasper De Beijer," MCA Denver, 1485 Delgany St., 303-298-7554, through Aug. 3: Photographs of scale models that explore the issue of the handmade world.

* "The Captured Moment," Core New Art Space, 900 Santa Fe Drive, 303-297-8428; through March 23: Open entry show of photography.

"Huang Yan" Michele Mosko Fine Art, 136 W. 12th Ave., 303-534-5433; through April 5: The Chinese artist's wife paints traditional images on people and he photographs them - with surprising results.