“Dazzle of Darkness” was not meant to be a metaphor when Rebecca DiDomenico dreamed it up for the walls of the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art.
The curator spent years honing her concept and fine-tuning her roster, bringing together the work of 31 artists across multiple disciplines to demonstrate the idea that darkness is a very underrated aspect of our universe. There is beauty in blackness, this exhibition argues, value in places that lack light.
Instead of fearing dark places — the night sky, the deepest parts the ocean, shadowy street corners — we should understand the role that darkness plays in nurturing our existence.
But the world changed as this show came together, or at least it started to feel that way for many people. A coincidence of wars, political upheaval, an environmental crisis and lingering PTSD from a global pandemic pushed our collective psyche into a place somewhere between fear and panic. Across social and geographic divisions, there is a prevailing sense we are living through a difficult episode in world history.
And that gives “Dazzle of Darkness” a different — and more urgent — context. It’s a show that explores darkness as we experience a dark time. It invites us to dwell in the moment, to really feel it.
But, also — and this is the good news — to try to appreciate it. Life begins in the dark, with a seed underground, with a baby in a womb, and this show reminds us that good and worthy things arise when things are at their dimmest. It’s a dose of badly needed optimism.
DiDomenico looks at this idea through a number of seemingly diverse artworks that all link to this same idea.
Some of the objects are quite simple in presence, among them Patrick Marold’s “Black Pillar,” a 4-foot-tall floor sculpture that consists of a large column of wood, cut from a single tree that appears to be burnt on all sides. It’s a charcoal black monolith.
But Marold has shaped it so that it twists gently as it rises from the ground, and he exposes the natural cracks of the wood — and those moves allow the pillar to reflect light and cast shadows in ways that emphasize the tree’s complicated grain and growth structure, one of those miracles of nature that often go unseen. Instead of ruining the tree’s allure, it unveils its inner beauty.
The unique, reflective quality of black powers other pieces in the show. Jerry Wingren’s “Resting Stones” is three polished, black rocks on a pile of black sand. The different shapes and textures of the work catch the light in varying ways — emphasizing both positive and negative space — turning the piece into a meditation on stillness and presence, and how our own bodies and souls occupy the planet.
Ana Maria Hernando’s “Hortensia” is an oil-on-canvas still life depicting a bouquet of hydrangeas rendered in only blacks and deep grays, the way we might see these flowers if we encounter them after sundown when there is little light to help us sort out the visual details. She is not just painting flowers here but also the time of day; it’s a portrait of nighttime itself and full of subtle complexity. “Darkness invites us to embrace the inherent, if latent, light that resides in blackness,” she writes in her artist’s statement.
Other works seek to render the nighttime sky and the things that light it up. Babak Tafreshi’s “Fireflies of the Great Smoky” is a long-exposure video that captures the neon green trails of fireflies as they flitter through a dark forest.
Brian Barber’s “When Stars Came to Earth” captures the configuration of stars in the dense sky in a glass sculpture meant to reflect “the spiritual and mythic significance of the stars within Native American culture,” as the exhibition catalog puts it. (The piece broke in transit, but you can see its intention in the shards of glass on display.)
There are more high-concept takes on the beauty and mystery of darkness. One good example: the three ceramic pots on display by ceramist Toshiko Takaezu. The clay here is produced in a number of rich colors, with shades of blue, pink and yellow.
But the pots have very small openings at the top, pinholes really, and Takaezu, who died in 2011, wanted viewers to see the clay pots less as objects themselves and more as frames for what is inside them — which is nothing. She was “sculpting the darkness within,” as the catalog suggests. A viewer cannot actually see it, but it is there, contained, and meant to be contemplated.
“Dazzle of Darkness” is a departure for BMoCA. The entire gallery is painted black, both the walls and the columns, giving the show an immersive feel. It’s sort of like entering a fish tank with lots of bright, glowy things to swim through.
It also successfully merges the work of national art figures with artists whose careers are rooted locally. Among the more widely known names are Tony Oursler, Swoon and Cannupa Hanska Luger. They join artists who have defined the Colorado art scene for decades, including Mark Sink, Clark Richert, Stacey Steers, Martha Russo, Terry Maker and Kim Dickey.
It’s an all-star lineup, no matter how you look at it. And in the dark space of BMoCA’s back galleries, every participant shines bright.
IF YOU GO
“Dazzle of Darkness” continues through May 4 at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, 1750 13th St., Boulder. Info: 303-443-2122 or bmoca.org.