David B. Smith Gallery
1543 A Wazee Street
Denver, CO 80202
Opening this Friday:
Penelope Umbrico
Range
March 10 - April 15, 2017
Opening reception, Friday, March 10, from 6 - 9pm
Artist talk begins at 6:15pm
Free and open to the public / Artist in attendance
Penelope Umbrico, Weston with 35mmMediumFormat VintageInstant5 and Lightleak (IMG_0061), digital c-print, 16 x 20 in. (40.64 x 50.8 cm)
David B. Smith Gallery is proud to present the first solo exhibition from Penelope Umbrico with the gallery, Range. This exhibition considers an analog history of photography within the digital torrent that is its current technological manifestation. For this project, Umbrico focuses on iconic images of mountains in various online and print media such as Aperture’s Masters of Photography book series. Utilizing myriad iPhone apps, Umbrico re-photographs the Masters’ mountains and processes them through their multiple light leak filters that simulate the mistakes of analogue film photography. These filters are especially absurd in the context of both analog photography and smart-phone camera technology, as “Master” photographers would never accept such mistakes in their prints, and the impossibility of holes, gaps, or spatial volume necessary to produce these effects stands in opposition to the digital device simulating them. The resultant hallucinogenic colors and undulating moirés disorient and dislodge any perception of stability in the mountain, the Master (most often gendered as male), and the photographic medium itself. In this work the mountain, the oldest landmark, site of orientation, and spiritual contemplation, becomes unstable, mobile, has no gravity, and changes with each iteration.
In the Project Room, Master Copy/Copy (Mount Moran) (2014) takes as its starting point the image of a mountain in the exhibition for a further investigation of the idea of a master point of view. Umbrico created a 3D model in collaboration with Thomas Storey, who translated Google Earth’s satellite photographs of the earth’s surface—the tiled texture-mapped model we’ve come to know as Earth online. In Umbrico’s work, the stable form of the mountain moves through phases: from a singular monument in a photograph (a process which begins with natural light), through infinitely reproducible and distributable code on the web (manufactured light), into a 3D print, then as an inverted silicone mold, and finally as reconstituted earth again, made multiple; a small cast gypsum specter of a mountain.
Range presents a dialogue between distance and proximity, limited and unlimited, the singular and the multiple, the fixed and the itinerant, the master and the copy. And if the mountain was once stable and fixed, our current climate forces reconsideration of this certainty; in an era of alternate truths nothing is stable, everything is fragile.
Umbrico will be in attendance at the opening, Friday, March 10th. Please join us for an artist talk and gallery walk-through, beginning at 6:15pm.
For more information or images please contact the gallery.
Penelope Umbrico, Adams with Grunge IntensePeach Pop SplitScreen and Lightleak (IMG_6468), digital c-print, 32 x 40 in. (81.28 x 101.6cm)
Penelope Umbrico, Swiss Alps with NightBokeh MultiExposure Quad and Lightleak (IMG_8949), Chromogenic print, 23 x 17 in. (58.42 x 43.28cm)
About Penelope Umbrico
Penelope Umbrico’s photo-based installations, video, and digital media works utilize photo-sharing and consumer websites as an expansive archive to explore the production and consumption of images on the web. Her work navigates between producer and consumer, and the individual and the collective, with attention to the technologies that are produced by (and produce) these forces. Selected public collections include Denver Art Museum (CO), Guggenheim Museum (NY), International Center of Photography (NY), McNay Museum of Art (TX), Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY), Museum of Contemporary Photography (IL), Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (CA), Museum of Modern Art (NY), Perez Art Museum (FL), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (CA), and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (CA), among others. She lives in New York City.
About David B. Smith Gallery
David B. Smith Gallery is committed to presenting intelligent and culturally relevant exhibitions in its Denver location, featuring the region’s most important emerging talent alongside internationally recognized artists. Through its curatorial program, participation in art fairs, and extensive media coverage in publications such as Art in America and ARTnews, David B. Smith Gallery has cultivated a strong regional, national, and international collector audience. The New York Times hailed the gallery as offering "an exciting contrast of cutting edge works” and The Denver Post declared that it is the “premiere commercial space” in Denver. The gallery also maintains an active publishing division, which produces exhibition catalogues and editions.
David B. Smith Gallery1543 A Wazee StreetDenver, CO 80202
