As of Now
As of Now
K Contemporary
1412 Wazee Street, Denver, CO 80202
February 12-March 12, 2022
Admission: Free
Review by Jillian Blackwell
K Contemporary’s As of Now exhibition sums up the gallery’s last five years of existence, not only in the work that it has shown, but also in how it has approached the world. With owner Doug Kacena at the helm, K Contemporary navigates the troubled waters of our times, exploring relevant cultural matters, current events, and how the pandemic has affected us all. Kacena champions artists who do not shy away from hefty topics that are difficult to handle, whose works add insight or nuance to discussions of subjects like race, politics, and death. As of Now not only highlights the featured artists’ work, but also explores how the gallery built connections between those artists and the broader world.
Suchitra Mattai, Oceans, Kisses, and Tears, 2021, vintage saris, bed frame, antique dollhouse furniture, hair rollers, fabric, and trim, 70 x 56 inches. Image courtesy of K Contemporary.
Francisco Souto, Resilient, 2020, colored pencil on paper, 8 x 8 x 2.63 inches. Image courtesy of K Contemporary.
Flanking either side of the front entrance of the gallery are pieces by Suchitra Mattai and Francisco Souto. Both works explore the idea of home and what it means to leave home. In Oceans, Kisses, and Tears, Mattai weaves antique dollhouse furniture and hair rollers into a matrix of vintage saris. The piece mixes everyday items and signifiers of home and culture. Souto’s hyperrealistic, meticulous colored pencil drawing depicts a pile of discarded clothes, perhaps left by a traveler. Around the thick frame of the drawing are hot spikes of neon colors. [1] These works are the stories of people who hold a dichotomy within themselves—who experience being both a cultural member and a cultural other.
Carlos Martiel, South Body (3/3), 2020, chromogenic print on Fuji crystal archive emulsion, 40 x 26.5 inches. Image courtesy of K Contemporary.
Advancing further into the gallery, there is a striking photo of Carlos Martiel’s performance South Body. Martiel, a black man, lies naked on the floor, the flesh of his shoulder pierced through with a golden arrow with an American flag on its end. Martiel’s performance gathered all the rawness and pain that has plagued many marginalized communities for years but only recently has been grappled with in a broader and more public way. The photograph captures and conveys the power of the moment.
Shawn Huckins, (Watson and the Shark), 2020, oil and acrylic on canvas, rope, 48 x 78 inches. Image courtesy of K Contemporary.
In a more tongue-in-cheek manner, Shawn Huckins’ (Watson and the Shark) confronts the body politic. Huckins crops his copy of John Singleton Copley’s Watson and the Shark (1778), leaving just the grasping hand of the victim and fin of the shark visible. This is juxtaposed with a Roman head against a neon blue background, which barely peeks over the bottom edge of the canvas, side-eying the tumultuous scene in the boat. The painting gives a generalized side-eye about the state of our democracy—who is on the boat and who is flailing in the water. And yet, a rope hangs from the bottom of the painting, extending a lifeline to the viewer.
Daisy Patton, Untitled (Of Hoston), 2018, oil on archival print on panel, 90 x 135 inches. Image courtesy of K Contemporary.
Daisy Patton’s large scale painting, Untitled (Of Hoston), asks the viewer to confront the body in death. The black and white face of the body in the casket peeks through a swirling field of vining flowers and colorful squiggles. The painting is encircled with real funerary flowers, abundant and resplendent. These paintings manage to contain humor and hope while addressing death and politics.
A detail view of Andrew Jensdotter’s Wildfire, 2021, carved acrylic on canvas, 78.75 x 107.75 x 2 inches. Image by Jillian Blackwell.
Kevin Sloan, Saint Snow, 2017, acrylic on canvas, 72 x 60 inches. Image by Jillian Blackwell.
In the far back room of the gallery, the mood turns somber. Andrew Jensdotter’s Wildfire catches the afternoon sunlight in every carved pock mark across its surface. Jensdotter creates his pieces by painting at least a hundred layers, then carving back into the layers of paint, exposing rings of color like a subtractive Chuck Close. This piece piles image upon image of wildfires from 2021. It is expansive and engulfing, filling the viewer’s field of vision with reds, yellows, and blacks. Alongside this compendium of climate change-based disaster is Kevin Sloan’s Saint Snow, a charcoal black snowman with head bowed, whose arms consist of charred and still glowing sticks. “I’m OK” is scrawled into the paint of the smoggy sky with a finger. The painting captures sadness at a devastated world, defeat before even really trying.
Doug Kacena, #ArtFindsUs / Shawn Huckins’ “Evening Glow at Lake Louise: Hey Siri, How Do I Leave The Planet?, 2020, mobile performance featuring photographic reproductions on vinyl, 9 x 18 feet. Image courtesy of K Contemporary.
The most intriguing and unusual aspect of K Contemporary’s last five years is how active the gallery has been in the city. Kacena’s vision for K Contemporary goes beyond enthusiasm for its artists—he is actively and imaginatively connecting the art to viewers in unconventional ways. Perhaps the works that sum up this approach the best are two large vinyl prints draped on the wall. These come from Kacena and his brainchild, #ArtFindsUs. During the height of the pandemic, Kacena printed these large reproductions of paintings by Shawn Huckins and Daisy Patton and put them on billboard trucks that drove all around Denver, bringing art to the people at a time when we were all stuck in our homes. Kacena’s own art is the act of heightening the experience of other artists’ work. I am sure we will continue to see K Contemporary injecting art into the lifeblood of Denver for many years to come.
Jillian Blackwell is a Denver-based artist and art educator. She holds a BA in Fine Arts with a Concentration in Ceramics from the University of Pennsylvania.
[1] This work recalls the artwork Chromatic Ambience (1974-1978) by Carlos Cruz-Diez that is on the floor of the Simón Bolívar Airport in Caracas, Venezuela. Cruz-Diez’s large tile work greets those coming and going from Venezuela.
