Colorado is rich in Western art right now — no matter how you define the genre. And from what is hanging on the walls, sitting on pedestals, projecting on screens and playing over loudspeakers in Denver galleries, there are many ways to do that.
Two of the city’s mainstay dealers, Visions West in LoDo and Gallery 1261 in the Golden Triangle, are fully stocked with art connected to buffalo, buttes and gun barrels right now.
So is the region’s best showplace for new work, the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, currently staging its landmark exhibition “Cowboy,” an extravaganza of artists near and far, all with new — and often provocative — ideas that reconsider the concept of the show’s deceivingly simple title. “Cowboy” has gotten attention nationally, and it’s wise to see it before it closes on Feb. 18.
But all those fine, and mostly fun, exhibitions are really in place because of the biggest art event in town right now, the Coors Western Art Exhibit & Sale, which is a part of the annual National Western Stock Show, taking place near downtown. Denver likes to play down its ties to the Old West — with a mindset that we are a thriving modern metropolis, and no longer a cowtown — but all that goes out to pasture when January rolls in. Somehow, after all these 118 years, the ranching way of life rules this urban zone, if just for a few weeks.
This year’s Coors Western Art Exhibit has undergone major changes, at least behind the scenes. There is a new curator in town. Kate Hlavin replaced Rose Fredrick, who held the job with considerable esteem for 27 years. Fredrick has moved on and started her own art consulting business.
Hlavin arrives after a decade in the art field. She worked at Denver’s Hindman Auction, one of the country’s most prominent sellers of secondary market Western art, so she knows the terrain.
She is shaking things up a bit. There are 20 new artists on the walls this year, quite a large number for a show that prides itself on sticking to its usual ways. But change, even when you are celebrating tradition, can be a good thing.
I’m not sure visitors will notice the difference. The gallery space, tucked into a corner of the Stock Show’s grand exhibition hall, feels the same as it always has. It manages to find that balance that Rose Fredrick mastered, of presenting serious and solemn art depicting the regional landscape and ranching lifestyle and cheeky works that contemporarize the genre and poke a little fun at its history.
I need to be clear here. The art at this show is not what you generally see in contemporary galleries. It leans very much toward the sentimental and does much to avoid the political. Even the most sarcastic of the pieces seem to glamorize the Western way of life, finding romance, or punchlines, in the hard work that has always been settling new land and raising livestock, or in the natural glory of horses and cattle. If you are looking for edgy, the galleries listed above will give you plenty of that.
But the Coors Western Art Exhibit is rewarding in its own unique and legitimate way, and full of highly talented artists who take their jobs seriously. I never miss it because of that. It’s the real deal, and people love it; the show can do $1 million in sales in just a few weeks.
This year’s featured artist is Joseph McGurl, and his oil paintings fall into the traditional landscape category, with a lineage that goes back to Albert Bierstadt. Like that famous 19th-century artist, McGurl has a skill for painting both the land and the light that defines the West. His showpiece is titled “Morning Stillness, The Colorado River” and it captures a placid river gorge just as a golden sunrise takes it over. A viewer has to look closely to see two fishermen in a small boat casting rods into the river.
Instead of focusing on the human element, McGurl steps back for a wider view where the emphasis is on the craggy cliffs, misty skies and glassy water. It is the majesty of nature that deserves our attention here, and the painter gives it to us in luminous tones. There is a timelessness in the setting. Maybe this scene took place 200 years ago, and maybe yesterday. It’s apt material in the setting of the Stock Show, where the lines between past and present are always blurred.
There are other works in this manner of honoring the natural world, some re-creating mountains and valleys, others showing cowboys, past and present, at work, and others depicting the animals that inhabit the range.
Their styles differ, as well, ranging from realism to abstraction. Painter Amy Lay seems to straddle both worlds. Her ”Mantra” is a portrait of a mighty bison in a field, standing tall with its horns outstretched. It’s a representational piece, rendered in oil and charcoal, but she lets her lines fall loose and her images blur, creating a dreamlike universe for the wild creature.
At the other end are pieces that go for a little irony, or even cuteness, like Gregory Mortenson’s “The Little Wrangler,” an oil painting of a boy, maybe 6 or 7 years old, in full cowboy gear, dressed as if he’s ready to lasso a bronco. He gazes directly at the viewer with a look of very serious determination.
Taking things farther from the past are works like Brad Overton’s brightly colored paintings of Coors beer cans, rendered in off-beat and exaggerated colors, or his “Bella’s Back,” which features a leggy brunette in short shorts and cowboy boots holding a revolver in two hands, which she points dead-on at the viewer. She’s a bit sexed up, but she’s also armed and dangerous; people can take that however they want.
The same can be said for everything in this show. Visitors can view it as an homage to the Western way of life or as a bit of nostalgia, as Western propaganda, or simply as entertainment. With all the options for Western art viewing around the city, they may have a hard time deciding which apporach to take.
See it all, I say.
IF YOU GO
The Coors Western Art Exhibit and Sale continues through Jan.21. It is free with grounds admission to the National Western Stock Show. Info: coorswesternart.com.
