Curatorial Projects

The Unbearable Impermanence of Things
Vicki Myhren Gallery, University of Denver
September 12 – December 1, 2019
Curated by Libby Barbee

This exhibition presents work by contemporary artists whose projects incorporate ideas and aesthetics from nineteenth-century naturalism and natural history. The featured artists focus, in particular, on the pervasive yearning to arrest and preserve nature in the face of inexorable change and decay. In representing the impermanent as stable, the study of nature became an antidote to mortality. Through their exploration of these themes and tropes, the artists demonstrate and problematize the near-universal desire to create stable understandings of things and phenomena that are ever in flux.

Featured Artists:
Richard Barnes
Mark Dion
Megan Gafford
Conor King
John McEnroe
Mia Mulvey
Renée Rendine
Eileen Roscina Richardson
Gabriel Rico
Sarah Wallace Scott
Cole Swanson
Lex Thompson
Rebecca Vaughn
Ashley Williams

Denver Post review:
https://theknow.denverpost.com/2019/11/19/unbearable-impermanence-of-things-university-denver/228765/

(Image credit: Lex Thompson, Portrait of Mabel Maxwell, c. 1868-1869, Pigment Print, 45"x30")