THE RITE OF SPRING…BREAK!
A 4 NIGHT CONTEMPORARY & DIGITAL ART EXTRAVAGANZA
At the historic EVANS SCHOOL in downtown Denver
1115 Acoma Street
Thursday, March 17th - Sunday, March 20th
Nightly from 7pm - 9:30pm-ish
FEATURING:
Bar-Ess, Jeremy Billauer, Alex Branch, Ben Coleman, Trey Duvall, Brendan Fernandes, Adler Guerrier, Sarai Levinson, Cherish Marquez, Maggie Mather, Scott McKinney, Kevin Mercer, Sharifa Moore, Ethan Omo, Oliver Pietsch, Austin Slominski, Emilie Trice, Derrick Velasquez, Joshua Ware, Eren Yazzie, Jullian Young
Curated by Emilie Trice
Special thanks to our exhibition partners: Redline and City Street Investors.
The Rite of Spring…Break! is a group exhibition at the historic Evans School that combines site-specific installations with emergent digital practices—including interactive video projections, audio interventions, and augmented reality.
The exhibition’s title is a reference to Stravinsky’s famous ballet, The Rite of Spring, which ushered in a new era of modernism when it debuted in Paris in 1913. Considered sacrilege at the time, the ballet was so avant-garde that it incited a literal riot and forty people were arrested on opening night. The infamous score is an early example of dissonance and is considered by many iconic musicians and scholars as “the most important piece of music of the 20th century.”
The premise for the ballet was a pagan ritual in which “a sacrificial virgin dances herself to death.”
Spring Break — i.e. the week every March when university students typically engage in epic debauchery — is also a pagan-like ritual, updated for the 21st century, while still worshipping the gods of excess, intoxication, and sexuality. Since the exhibition venue itself was originally a school, the theme of spring break is also a nod to the historical building itself.
Spring is also the season of rebirth.
The Rite of Spring…Break! will interweave these themes in a weekend-long celebration that pays homage to — as Stravinsky said — “the mystery and the great surge of the creative power of spring.”
Selected artists & works
Sharifa Moore
A Bed for Lying & Inculcation
Installation and video
The title of this sculptural piece is a playful homage to a performance by Robert Morris in 1961 entitled: Box for Standing where artist stood silently in a box made to his dimensions. The bed is a self-portrait of the artist, tailored to the dimensions of the artist’s body weight in 6” steel nails. A video accompanies the sculpture.
Sharifa Moore is an interdisciplinary artist, independent curator and educator. She is currently the Executive Director & Associate Curator at Denver Digerati.
Jullian Young
Alight & Awaken
Projection-mapped video installation
Alight & Awaken is a video composition projection mapped onto a set of 8 ceramic objects. The series of ceramic objects is a 3D rendering of the sounds of trees being cut down. The objects were carved out of foam and cast in clay.
Jullian Young is a Visiting Professor in Emergent Digital Practices (New Media) at the University of Denver.
Oliver Pietsch
Tales of Us
Single channel video, 28 min duration
Oliver Pietsch is a German video artist based in Berlin whose work has been recognized and honored by numerous juried film festivals across Europe.
These include:
Best Film Award for “From Here to Eternity”, Swedenborg Film Society, London, 2012
Stipendium der Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, 2010
Deutscher Kurzfilmpreis-Nomination for „The Shape of Things“, 2009
Int. Medienkunstpreis, ZKM Karlsruhe, Jury Prize, 2005
Adler Guerrier
Adler Guerrier creates symbolic, abstract maps of his immediate surroundings in south Florida. The textures, palette and compositions of his folded map works construct a portrait of Miami and its unique characteristics, as observed by the flâneur.
South Florida’s beaches — specifically in Miami and Fort Lauderdale — are infamous for the college-age crowds they attract during spring break, and the debris they leave behind. Adler’s work offers a more sentimental and poetic perspective of these destinations, which are his adopted home.
Adler Guerrier was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti and lives and works in Miami, FL. Guerrier recently had a solo exhibition at Perez Art Museum Miami, Miami, FL. He has exhibited at institutions such as The Bass Museum of Art, Miami, FL; and The Whitney Biennial 2008. His works can be found in public collections including the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, and the Studio Museum in Harlem, NY.
Brendan Fernandes
72 Seasons
Documentation of site-specific performance.
Read about the performance here.
Brendan Fernandes (b. 1979, Nairobi, Kenya) is an internationally recognized Canadian artist working at the intersection of dance and visual arts. Currently based out of Chicago, Brendan’s projects address issues of race, queer culture, migration, protest and other forms of collective movement. Always looking to create new spaces and new forms of agency, Brendan’s projects take on hybrid forms: part Ballet, part queer dance hall, part political protest...always rooted in collaboration and fostering solidarity.
Brendan is a graduate of the Whitney Independent Study Program (2007) and a recipient of a Robert Rauschenberg Fellowship (2014). His projects have shown at the 2019 Whitney Biennial (New York); the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York); the Museum of Modern Art (New York); The Getty Museum (Los Angeles); the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa); MAC (Montreal); among a great many others. He is currently artist-in-residency and Assistant Professor at Northwestern University and represented by Monique Meloche Gallery in Chicago.
Derrick Velasquez
Derrick Velasquez has had solo exhibitions at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver; Herron School of Art and Design, Indianapolis; Black Cube Nomadic Museum, Denver; and group exhibitions at the Pearlstein Gallery, Drexel University, Philadelphia; The New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe; among other venues. Velasquez is the recipient of a Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant and is represented by Robischon Gallery in Denver, where he lives and works. The exhibited piece is courtesy Robischon Gallery.
Kevin Mercer
Telos, 2022
Video game
Telos is an experimental, interactive narrative combined with digital collage and painting techniques. The participant embodies a newly-arrived signal suspended in the mysterious and surreal DigiDream, a space steeped in vintage technology and otherworldly imagery. As the participant navigates the Dream’s chambers, they encounter fellow signals, uncover narrative threads, and recall the memories of their previous existence.
Ethan Omo
Gods of the Faithful, 2018
Single-Channel Video
2000 × 2000p, 6 minutes
The artist created this piece in response to realizations he experienced upon his de-conversion from Christianity. The piece deconstructs the monolith, traditionally used for acts of idol worship and/or sacrifice. It is an exploration of the concept of time, eternity, and the contradictions at the intersections of omnipotence and omniscience.
Cherish Marquez
Cherish Marquez (b.1989 El Paso, TX, USA) is Latina and Queer-identifying interdisciplinary artist with a focus on digital media. She spent her childhood in Sierra Blanca, TX, and adult life in Las Cruces, NM. Currently, she lives and works in Denver, Colorado. She holds a BA in Fine Arts and Creative Writing at the New Mexico State University and an MFA in Emergent Digital Practices from the University of Denver.
She is currently an artist in residence at Redline Contemporary Art Center where she mentors students in the (E)ducation (P)artnership (I)nitiative for the (C)reative, aka EPIC Arts Program. She has shown her work in Ars Electronica Galley Spaces (Online), CADAF Contemporary & Digital Art Fair (Online), Social Distance Gallery (Online), RedLine Juried Exhibition at RedLine Contemporary Art Center (Denver, CO), Proud+, The Studio Door (San Fransico, CA), Coalesce && Object at the Vicky Myhren Gallery (Denver. CO), and OUTSIDERS at Leon Gallery (Denver, CO).
Joshua Ware
Joshua Ware is an artist and poet who was born in Cleveland, OH. His visual art has appeared in exhibitions in Denver, Boulder, Santa Ana, and the Scandinavian Collage Museum in Berkåk, Norway. He is also the author of Unwanted Invention / Vargtimmen and Homage to Homage to Homage to Creeley, both published by Furniture Press Books. He currently lives in Denver, CO.
Maggie Mather
Museum of Selfies, 2021
Video Game
Museum of Selfies is a game about social media, and its effects on users’ self-worth, particularly women and femme users.
Ben Coleman
Ben Coleman is a British multi-disciplinary artist residing in Denver, CO. His practice is rooted in sound and performance making, but often plays with other media, including music, text, video and installation.
His work has been presented by the High Museum of Art, Alliance Theatre, Atlanta Contemporary, Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia, Gibney Dance, Dashboard, Georgia Institute of Technology, Flux Projects, Zuckerman Museum of Art and Emory University.
He is an artist in residence at Redline Contemporary Art Centre, Denver.