If it were up to me, children wouldn’t be allowed in museums. Nothing under the age of, say, 15. They’re noisy, nosy, and they don’t have the capacity to truly understand the kind of art on the walls of today’s serious galleries.
Zoos are for kids. Or history centers with their dusty, dinosaur bones. But contemporary art museums? No kids, no how. Well, maybe on Tuesdays or something, and us taller, smarter human beings would know to stay away.
That said, every once in a while I come across an exhibit where the artists are so successful at employing a broad and comprehensible language that the work seems perfect for a bit of family fun. Two exhibits at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, one by Margaret Kasahara, the other by Andrew Ramiro Tirado, fit this description.
They’re not designed for young people, not in the least. They’re smart and thoughtful and elevated in their thinking. Kasahara, in particular, takes on some adult-size issues.
Still, both artists use color and shape and simple iconography to make their points. That invites everyone in, regardless of their experience with fine art.
The art center, which exhibits work from around the world, was wise to give these local artists their own exhibits. Both have been working credibly on the fringes and deserve the spotlight of an upper-crust institution. Credit museum director Blake Milteer for tapping two creative minds with the potential to gain broader audiences.
The prestige of a museum show forces an artist to think bigger; there’s a ton of pressure to deliver, show depth, expand concepts to fill the large spaces. The good news here is that both artist made their move boldly.
Kasahara, known mostly for flat paintings that rip up notions of Asian stereotypes, breaks out in the most delightful ways. She fills the gallery top to bottom, with works that tap into the images associated with Far Eastern pop culture: origami, koi fish, Hello Kitty and Pokémon characters, kites, sushi.
In the center, she has installed an “Umbrella Field,” suspending 45 paper parasols in green, orange, purple, yellow, blue and fuchsia from the ceiling. They are large versions of those tiny umbrellas that add cocktail-lounge flair to Singapore Slings and Mai Tais.
But her kitsch affectations have a serious edge. The colors represent the different ethnic groups in the United States and form a sort of camp rainbow of the population, which turns out to be mixed and multi-hued, indeed.
She has some fun with the enso, that circular, hand-drawn mark that represents a sort of mindful freedom in Buddhism. Her circle, nearly 20-feet in diameter fills an entire wall, and it is a bit confused; it’s made of chopsticks and fortune cookies and those cardboard containers Chinese restaurants use for take out. Mixing the funky and the spiritual gets right at the exoticism our society can consider an organic Asian attribute.
Kasahara has some complex thoughts here, though they are presented simply. Her canvases rely on clean lines and shapes that are filled in with pure colors, to look mass-produced or airbrushed. By replicating these images as serious art, she shows how our concepts of race and identity are influenced by the superficial evidence we find around us. Things are more complicated, of course.
In the case of Tirado, just the opposite happens. He is known as a sculptor, creating lately three-dimensional objects in the shape of arms and hands. At the center, he has built his show around an interesting set of large-scale drawings that hang on the walls. He has deflated his work, flattened it for his museum gig.
It’s still all hands all the time; he’s exploring how we work with our most primary tool, how we flex, grab, reach, point and push, how our muscles move and joints bend.
But he mixes up styles and media, there are simple line drawings and realistic pastel sketches, some are whimsical, some anatomical. Our hands, and by extension, our abilities, our power to make and break, pinch and punch, arm us with mighty instruments.
This show is an experiment in the making. In the center of the gallery, as viewers watch, he is building a gargantuan model of hand out of steel straps. It will be 44-feet long by the time he is done. If all goes well, it will move somehow, spinning or contracting. He’s making it up as he goes and the clock is ticking on getting it done.
There’s some suspense and plenty of entertainment value in the process, which is an added attraction to the show already on the walls. There’s absolutely no guarantee the thing will look good, or even work. But we get to watch him build his giant robot arm right before our eyes.
A giant robot? In an art gallery? OK, kids can come to this one.
Ray Mark Rinaldi: 303-954-1540, rrinaldi@denverpost.com or twitter.com/rayrinaldi
MARGARET KASAHARA, ANDREW RAMIRO TIRADO
The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center showcases recent work by two Front Range artists in side-by-side galleries. Through Sept. 28.
30 West Dale St., Colorado Springs. $10 adults, $8.50 students, 12 and under free.719-634-5583 or csfineartscenter.org.
