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Something New: The Art Student League of Denver at Sandy Carson Gallery

By Theresa Anderson

March 1, 2013

The Art Students League of Denver (ASLD) has used the historic Sherman School at 200 Grant Street in Denver to hold panels, classes, workshops and exhibitions since 1987. ASLD partners with places such as Redline, Museum of Outdoor Arts, Boulder Museum of Outdoor Arts and Meineger’s Art Supply to expand programming as well as usable exhibition space.

Over the years in Denver, some galleries, museums and new art spaces have risen up, moved and expanded. Each time it occurs it’s exciting and creates quite a buzz. Denver feels a bit more grown up over the last 10 years with the addition of new, grand buildings that include the likes of Clifford Still, the Denver Art Museums Hamilton Building, and the Museum of Contemporary Art’s new space at 15th and Delgany. Just try to imagine Denver without them now.

Smaller galleries and Denver’s artist cooperatives are dominated by a few steady old favorites that usually put out interesting exhibitions. Then there are those that pop up and go down just as quickly. But when one of the established galleries exits the scene there is quite a pinch felt in the surrounding community. Robin Rule recently left her space next to Ice Cube Gallery, and artists are wondering –How will that gap be filled?

I have to imagine that when Sandy Carson’s sale of her gallery to William and Jan van Straaten went south, and the gallery sat empty for a couple years (save for a few unforgotten paintings) -artists, gallerists and curators such as William Beity had to feel bereft. Yes, Su Teatro, Museo de las Americas, Center for Visual Arts, Space Gallery and Vertigo Art Space remain as a backbone of Arts District on Santa Fe but artists and visitors depend on a variety of well curated exhibitions to attract new and serious visitors of all levels.

Critics, such as Michael Paglia and the now-gone Kyle McMillan, noted each loss or contraction of curatorial positions in the community. Artists have risen to this challenge by networking for curators, hiring curators, and filling the gap. A good example is a sampling of exhibitions at Vertigo Art Space that has been asking curatorial questions through the examination of the artist as curator.

So, I was pretty excited to hear that The Art Students League of Denver was taking over Sandy Carson Gallery at 760 Santa Fe Drive in Denver. Hopefully, there will be a new expanded role of teaching, mentoring and programming concerning curation and exhibition design. Wouldn’t that be a great asset to Colorado? Can artists, who often are tasked to curate their own exhibitions, take a class from a top curator? Can we have panel discussions on exhibition design? The effects of exhibition design and refresher courses?

The first exhibition, Side Effects Include…, at ASLD at Sandy Carson Gallery was co-curated by Karen Roehl and Joshua Wiener. The two asked a group of Colorado artists to consider the unintended consequences of being an artist. Each artist was asked to submit a relative piece of work, and create a video document that responds to one or more posed questions.

“What does a life in the arts means to your lifestyle? What do you spend your time doing, thinking, and researching? What unintended consequences result from your pursuit? What have you missed? The intent of this show is to have artists become investigative journalists to discover and share the true life of the artist.”

As a result, Katie Caron’s Heartland Drawings on glacine hang in the gallery window. After Caron’s pelvis was crushed by a gallery wall she spent four months in the hospital dealing with the pain and loss by crushing paper and then tracing the wrinkles with pen and highlighter. Other artists such as Sherry Wiggins, Tim Flood, Sabin Aell, Sharon Brown, and Sharon Feder have used the exhibition call to document how they spend their time, their research and thought processes. I’ve included a few images from some of the best pieces. There are more so you’ll have to go and see the rest.