Bold art alters space

“Altered Space: 21st Century Installation Art” is the riskiest exhibition the Fine Arts Center has hosted in years, say curators Blake Milteer and Tariana Navas-Nieves.

“We’re committed to balancing our traditional role as an anchor for the community and going out on a limb,” Milteer said.

“Part of what a curator does is create a beautiful, cohesive exhibit,” he said.

“This is different.”

“There’s an element of risk,” Navas-Nieves said. “We won’t know what it looks like until we see it.”

The two chose artists with whom they weren’t familiar before they began to put the show together: Christina Marsh and Matt Barton of Colorado Springs, and Gwen Laine of Denver.

All the pieces will be new creations, so the artists themselves don’t know exactly how they’ll turn out.

And to top it off, two of the three pieces will evolve over the course of the exhibit, in not-entirely predictable ways.

Laine’s piece consists of 153 transparent photographs of people’s forearms and open palms, suspended by helium balloons — which will slowly deflate over the course of the exhibit, randomly superimposing the photographs.

Her goal is to represent the role that chance plays in determining the courses of our lives.

Part of Marsh’s piece consists of picture frames made of white chocolate, which will eventually melt into different shapes under the gallery lights.

“I’m playing with the idea of transience, and how you try to create something permanent,” Marsh said.

Though the artists are working separately, Marsh said she created her installation with the other pieces somewhat in mind.

“I want there to be a flow,” she said.

“What’s adjacent affects how my piece is perceived.”

Barton’s piece will look the same at the end of the exhibition, but it’s hardly more conventional: He’s creating a multimedia vision of what he calls “a beautiful end of the world.”

The installation was inspired by a dream he had in which two moons were slowly moving toward each other.

“There was a sense that something is really, really wrong, but it was also gorgeous,” Barton said.

He hopes to inspire that mood in his audience.

“The space operates like a still-shot from a dream where the viewer is free to explore,” he wrote in his artist’s statement.

Milteer and Navas-Nieves said the FAC Modern’s commitment to local and regional artists and collections won’t end with “Altered Space.”

“We want to bring the world to the Fine Arts Center, but we also want to bring our local artists to the world,” Navas-Nieves said.

DETAILS

Altered Space: 21st Century Installation Art

When: Opening 5-8 p.m. today; regular hours 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays; through April 26

Where: FAC Modern, Plaza of the Rockies, 121 S. Tejon St., South Tower, 1st Floor

Admission: $7.50 for adults/$6.75 for seniors, students, and ages 5-17/free for FAC members and children 4 and younger; 477-4308, www.csfineartscenter.org /exhibitions.asp