"HYPOTHESIS: PROCESS IN SCIENCE AND ART"
When: Through Oct. 21
Where: Gallery of Contemporary Art 1420, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, Centennial Hall, 1420 Austin Bluffs Parkway
Admission: Free; 255-3567 galleryuccs .org
Something else: The “Hypothesis” lecture series begins Sept. 30 with Scott Johnson and Curt Holder and continues on Oct. 7 with Erin Elder and Minette Church; Oct. 14 with Chris Coleman and Brandon Vogt; and Oct. 21 with Kim Abeles and Janel Owens.
Daisy McConnell covers her ears and winces.
In the cavernous Gallery of Contemporary Arts 1420, the fire alarm sounds like a train horn in a steel barrel.
When the test is done, McConnell walks into the middle of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs gallery, which has been closed during an almost yearlong renovation of the science building. It’s about a week before the opening of “Hypothesis: Process in Science and Art” — her first exhibition since leaving Colorado College’s I.D.E.A. Space and becoming co-director here — and the space is disturbingly empty.
“I only gave these guys three months,” she said of the artists. “I was surprised they were willing to do it. I said, ‘Treat it as an experiment.’”
Artist Chris Coleman shuffles in from the back, hefting a skeletal machine about the size of a filing cabinet. Part Barbie’s Erector Set Dreamhouse, part “Lost in Space” prop, it dovetails with UCCS geography professor Brandon Vogt’s work on cloud-to-ground lightning strikes. In Coleman’s piece, two views of an “endless, generated landscape” are projected on the wall. Watch the projections or the machine itself — a close-up camera films strata of cut-out mountaintops as they roll on a conveyer belt. Clear balls hanging over the belt flash randomly — perhaps to suggest lightning strikes.
That’s the tantalizing proposition of this exhibition: Coleman, and artists Scott Johnson, Kim Abeles and Erin Elder paired with Vogt, and scientists Minette Church, Curt Holder, Janel Owens and David Weiss.
Some worked directly with the scientists. Some didn’t. In the end, the art was to riff, if not directly on the science, on an important thread of the researcher’s work. To represent the science, each piece will be accompanied by a brochure, sort of a road map through the scientist’s often highly complex and obtuse work.
McConnell talks about Abeles’ work, which relates to Owens’ research, as she walks over to a long, cream-color wall hung with 19 plates. On each is Abeles’ “smog portrait” of an American president. A quote reflecting each chief executive’s stance on environmental protection circles the plate in careful, gold cursive.
The process here is as important as the words and image: Her stencil of the famous face is coated with a chemical that darkens when exposed to pollution. To underline her point, ecologically friendly presidents spent less time on Abeles’ roof and, consequently, are lighter. Teddy Roosevelt’s and Jimmy Carter’s portraits, for instance, are far sketchier than, say, those of Calvin Coolidge and Ronald Reagan.
Some of Owens’ research focuses on the interaction between food components and environmental pollutants.
“All of the artists have some connection to or interest in science,” McConnell said. “To the experimental nature of it. That’s what interested me.”
She gestures to Johnson, who fiddles with five shiny, industrial spigots connected to copper lines that will run, Hot Wheels-track style, to the ceiling and to locations around the gallery. It’s one sliver of an ambitious project he’s conjured around Holder’s research on leaf water resistance and photosynthesis in cloud forests.
Water, Johnson explained, will drip onto a mirror-topped table that’s meant to suggest a lab table. At least, that’s what he’s thinking right now.
“You try things and see what happens,” said Johnson, who is also an art professor at Colorado College. “Often you don’t know what the work is until you’re done and you step back.”