Curator Mark Sink chose a user-friendly topic when he picked beauty as the theme of the massive photo exhibit now on the walls at RedLine. So much potential for so many lovely pictures.
That’s not how it looks, though. Anyone who knows Sink — and many do, he’s a collected photographer himself and a force in the local art scene — understands his quirky eye. He never approaches anything without seeing its dangers and, in Sink’s complicated head, beauty is anything but pretty.
For this show, he’s assembled scenes of litter that have washed up on beaches, massive strip mines, women in the most atrocious makeup. There are landscapes in peril and snippets of porn that aren’t likely to turn anyone on.
“Playing with Beauty,” as the show is called, is broad. Too broad, it has to be said. The exhibit includes 127 objects spanning 140 years and nearly kills itself off with a lack of restraint. What viewer can actually consume that much work with the respect these photographers deserve?
But generosity is not the worst thing you can fault an exhibit for. In his compulsive inclusiveness, Sink showcases some unforgettable photography, as well as a story about a century-plus of pop culture. There’s overkill, but also a throughline that reveals how ideas about beauty have evolved.
The dots are connected — memorably — between past and present; between John C.H. Grabill’s 1891 gold-toned print of an Indian village shot from across a high plains creek, and Chuck Forsman’s 2002 shot of the Wyoming countryside taken from the driver’s seat of his car. The world has been altered by settlement and automobile exhaust, but both artists have their eyes focused on the same Western terrain.
“Playing with Beauty” jumps across time periods like that. There is a wall of vintage pictures, some truly historic because of their age or subject matter, from William Henry Jackson’s 1871 photo of an explorer wandering above breathtaking Berthoud Pass to Philippe Halsman’s candid portraits of so-sexy Marilyn Monroe.
Today’s photographers have a different idea of beauty, much more realistic, and often political. Martin Stupich’s wide landscape prints are full of depth and sweet pastel colors — so soothing, and undeniably beautiful, until you notice he is shooting land stripped away after years of mining.
The real insight “Playing with Beauty” offers, though, is into the role of photographers themselves in contemporary work. There’s very little sitting back and shooting the landscape, wildlife or sumptuous women. Now, it’s the fabricated collages of Paula Gillen, who layers vintage magazine erotica over textbook illustrations of dinosaurs and other Paleolithic life.
It’s Patty Carroll’s amazing photos of the dioramas she creates of women, draperies and women wrapped up in drapery so that it obscures all but their puffy silhouettes. It’s Mandy Barker’s scenes of beach debris collected, reassembled and photographed on black backgrounds so it all looks like some faraway star system.
The most interesting photography these days is all about intervention, creation, process, documentation. The show’s best work might be a series of portraits by Susanne Junker, a former high-fashion model who has moved behind the lens.
She has women (and sometimes men) apply make up to their faces without a mirror. She shoots the process as lipstick runs across cheeks and eye shadow starts to look like bruises. Where does beauty start and stop? Can it be manufactured?
With 39 photographers in the mix, there’s too much to mention, though a visitor might not want to overlook J. Gluckstern’s pile of snapshots taken at twilight (you can take one home) and Renluka Maharaj’s gender-exploring series of portraits (warning: all body parts exposed) or Laura Shill’s staged settings of flowers and people (she calls herself a “maximalist” artist).
Is the show beautiful? That’s in the eye of the beholder, as everybody knows, but it is interesting, a snapshot itself of artists who make, explore and shoot their own world. Sink has an eye for work that is affected, but human, manipulated but not overrun by technology, smart, edgy and, in its way, attractive.
Toying with identity
Across the hall in RedLine’s Project Space, “Role Play” plays out like a book of short stories written by authors who are suicidally self-obsessed, folks who suffer so heavily from damaged egos that they are compelled to kill off their own identities in some search for social truth.
The eight photographers on display shoot themselves, figuratively speaking, donning costumes, make up, and plenty of attitude to create scenes that star their visages in fictional settings. These are anti-selfies, to put it in the context of our age, pictures of people who want you to see them not as they are.
This is a rich exhibit, showy, international and a lot of fun to wander through, though it can feel overly introspective, and too personal, as if you are eavesdropping on somebody’s weekly session with their therapist.
The themes are meant to be broad and usually resonate that way, to a point. Chan-Hyo Bae, for example, creates detailed tableaux centered around himself in the role of fairy tale princesses. He’s “Cinderella” leaving her glass slipper at her coach or a passed-out “Sleeping Beauty.”
He’s searching for himself here, exploring how his Korean features fit into the canon of children’s literature he grew up with. But it’s a fine line between his inquiry on race relations and his need to work out personal issues.
Still, all of the work seems to have something interesting to say about where we connect to the world, or where we want to.
Sally Stockhold’s series “The Life I Never Lived” has her portraying lead roles in the scenes “Hotel Chelsea, Janis and Jimi, 1968.” and “Hotel Chelsea, Sid and Nancy, 1978.”
These are the ruins of rock ‘n’ roll, and none of the protagonists in her dramas ended up faring so well. Still, they were famous, legends. We do wonder what it would be like to be them.
“Role Play” is most effective when it plays it down. Nabil Boutros‘ 14 self-portraits are simple, face-forward takes of the artist in moderate disguise. Sometimes he wears a tie, other times a scarf, sometimes he is bald, others bearded. He is religious or secular, working-class or wealthy, young or old.
The effort is less about his own identity quest and more a quiz for viewers on how they perceive the same dude in different garb.
This exhibit pushes and pulls you, plays with your mind and challenges your prejudices. Every effort is 100 percent, including the work by co-curators Rupert Jenkins and Conor King, who lay it on thick, in the spirit of the artists they are presenting.
These artists are on the most solo journeys imaginable, and yet they are packed on the same bus. That makes “Role Play” a wild ride, bumpy but memorable.
Ray Mark Rinaldi: 303-954-1540, rrinaldi@denverpost.com or twitter.com/rayrinaldi
“PLAYING WITH BEAUTY” RedLine galleries; “ROLE PLAY” at RedLine Project Space (organized by The Colorado Photographic Arts Center) ; both shows through April 25; 2350 Arapahoe St.; redline.org
