Ivar Zeile

SIde Stories RiNo launched in 2018 as Denver’s first funded and State sanctioned projection mapped digital art installation, presented for 10 days in the River North Arts District. Denver Digerati was a logical choice for a commission to inaugurate the event, one of ten that were funded by the State of Colorado and RiNo District. My presence at the forefront of the District for well over a decade with Plus Gallery lended additional value to the project, as the video concept were ideally meant to reference the district in some capacity. I was also able to request the facade of the final iteration of Plus Gallery at 2501 Larimer Street, desiring to present on the majestic and unusual brick facade of the old Paint Factory Flu. For Side Stories I was able to commission works by two artists, create additional compositions based on footage I had taken during my years in the district, as well as visual artist references over that time. Additional footage was provided by artists involved in Supernova, culling specific scenes that could tell the story of “Radical Vestige” from my specific vantage point. The result is one of my favorite video compositions and one of the more successful for the inauguration of Side Stories, which is now an ongoing annual initiative.

Side Stories RiNo Interview with Ivar Zeile

About “Radical Vestige”

Radical Vestige is divided into four ACTS, with the third composed of six passages. The following notes pertain to the composition:

INTRO

RV opens with an excerpt from a ten-part composition titled “Layers” by NYC based filmmaker Alina Landry Rancier. A naked figure stands still as paint that has covered body from head to toe flows back in-reverse. The facade that RV is projected onto was part of the historic Benjamin Moore Paint Factory complex. Paint was stored in this particular building, adjacent to another that once housed giant tanks of resin. The buildings served as the home of Plus Gallery between 2009 and 2014, and several of the vestiges within ACT three relate to performances and exhibitions that took place within.

ACT 1 - Evolution

The RiNo District was initially industrial, with rail lines running up and down streets that are now prominent thoroughfares. The area evolved from train yard, lined to the east by simple housing, to a mixed-use landscape that went by many names depending on ones stake in the neighborhood. Eventually regeneration and communal vision transformed RiNo into the pulse of Denver. In 2010 Mike Whiting’s “Rhino” sculpture was commissioned and has since become an icon for the neighborhood, albeit one that is constantly tagged with graffiti. Animations used to suggest the evolution are by Digerati Director Ivar Zeile as well as local, national and international animators Mattis Dovier, Liam Young, Jan Smerak Kolouch, Zac Layman, Nikita Diakur, Jack Wedge and Dirk Koy.

ACT II - Pass the Ketchup

The triangular corner adjacent to the Rhino sculpture was once the most blighted block in the neighborhood, yet famously popular for a low-key diner called The Cutthroat Cafe. On any given day during lunch-hour, prominent businessmen in suits would be dining at booths alongside swaths of the district’s transient population, all drawn by the inexpensive yet high-quality food within a dingy shell. The simulation was created by Denver artist Ryan Wurst.

ACT III

Primitive text messaging

Wheelbarrow preceded the infamous DIY space Rhinoceropolis, hosting art exhibitions in a small, unconventional space. The artwork in this passage is from a sketchbook procured one evening in 2002 from a young and talented artist named Javar. Each page is composed of crude yet seductive markings, overlaid with remnants of vinyl lettering from the artist’s day-job at a sign company. No reference to the artist could be found online after sixteen years, and nobody has ever seen the pages within since the night it was acquired, outside of a handful of people. This passage shows the possibilities of secret texts or messages that Javar sought to convey, some abstract and others more intentional.

Advanced text messaging

Plus Gallery began its history in 2001 in the building located at 2350 Lawrence Street, and quickly became known as a spot for challenging contemporary art and experimental activity, with a number of notable careers being launched within. Colin Livingston is an artist who co-opted successful advertising motifs, cleverly bludgeoning them for his own attempts to become a “popular” artist. His mutated silk-screens celebrating his emergence as an artist borrowed the successful logo from then up-and-coming local entrepreneur John Hickenlooper’s Denver Mayoral Campaign. Hickenlooper flourished like no other politician from the state, while Livingston’s brilliant, complex artwork that attempted to promote “positive” messaging through the more insipid mechanics of pop culture,became some of the most critically acclaimed work ever presented at the gallery, while never quite attracting collector interest. Many of his slogans have an uncanny relation to the district’s transient population.

Slow Dance Sparkle

In 2006 a young artist named Peter Burr brought his “Cartune Xprez” to Plus Gallery for a legendary evening performance that served as the initial inspiration for what would eventually become Denver Digerati. “Slow Dance Sparkle” was accompanied by animated videos from his collaborative identity “Hooliganship” as well as vanguard works by animators and experimental filmmakers from around the world. The performance took place during Colin Livingston’s intellectually immersive exhibition “Palettes, Patterns, Logos and Slogans,” one of the greatest conceptual art installations of all time.

Second Hand Memories

Chinese-born artist Xi Zhang had numerous exhibitions within the RiNo district early in his celebrated career. In 2012 he introduced a voluminous series of gold-leaf paintings that graphically depicted figures taking selfies against traditional Chinese settings and motifs, depicting societies narcissistic tendencies as an ongoing universal reality. Motifs interlacing graffiti and symbols of gentrification also crept into the works, further reflecting unfortunate norms. At the time the works were introduced, a walk up the street from the gallery to the Meadowlark one evening was briefly interrupted by an inspirational, improvisational percussive street performance by that was captured through early phone-camera technology.

Invincible Tongue

Plus Gallery hosted the group exhibition “Invincible Cohort” one summer, curated by Susan Meyer and Jeff Starr, the first time those duties had been turned over to local artists in celebration of local artists. The exhibition included a dislocated arm holding a flashlight crafted by Justin Beard. During the course of the exhibition, the gallery hosted touring performance artist Gary Setzer, whose “Supralingual / Sublingual: The Tongue is the Terrain” delivered another stimulating and memorable evening in an ongoing series of the avant-garde happenings hosted by the gallery, which inspired at least one local patron to break out and join the artist in dance.

New Sphere Apocalypse

Another group exhibition Plus Gallery hosted in the Benjamin Moore building paired up-and-coming local artists Donald Fodness and Drew Englander with notable national artists Larry Bob Phillips and Paul Nudd. Dubbed “Apocalypse HOW?,” the conspicuous artworks viscerally depicted angst and varying degrees of societal malaise. Corresponding with the exhibition was the rambunctious evening concert “New Sphere” which brought prominent scenesters Pictureplane and Real Magic in for an energetic, creative and packed spectacle.

ACT IV - Meanwhile, up the street, in a warehouse

It’s doubtful those who participated will ever forget the most singular and ambitious three-month engagement that was MonkeyTown IV. Brought to Denver straight from NYC, the concept elevated experiential dining to its highest form through immersion in time-based artworks, including several animations commissioned by Denver Digerati, weekly changing performance pieces, and an extravagant dinner menu, complete with recently legalized edibles for further enhancement. The program was a major success and one of the more rare, legendary art occurrences to take place within RiNo just before property values changed the very nature of raw space within the district. The simulation was created by New York City based artist Jeremy Couillard, a Monkeytown featured artist, and includes references to animations by Denver artists Chris Coleman and Quintin Gonzalez that were also part of the experience.

OUTRO

RV concludes with an excerpt from another Layer by Alina Landry Rancier, closing a special chapter in an old paint factory’s history. The compilation is dedicated to the fading memory of some of the most genuine and daring art establishments that used to be Rhinos: Cordell Taylor Gallery, Plus Gallery, Andenken, Wheelbarrow, Rhinoceropolis, Stay Gallery, Object + Thought, Ironton, Ice Cube and Hinterland, as well as to those who supported them.