I sometimes describe art exhibitions using the familiar phrase “greater than the sum of their parts.” It is a tidy way of saying that, while each of the objects in a show might not be a star attraction, they can add up to a big idea the curator wants to illustrate.
But the opposite is true with “Movements Toward Freedom,” currently at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver. It’s the parts that make this exhibition interesting, and certainly worth a look before the show closes on Feb. 2.
The curator here, Leilani Lynch, brings forth a complicated concept, attempting to gather works by various artists that explore “the power, possibility and vulnerability of bodily movement in contemporary life.” In all, there are 21 artists on the roster, ranging from regional to international names. Among the better-known are Ronny Quevedo, Senga Nengudi and Brendan Fernandes.
The show is separated into sections that demonstrate how artists reinterpret physical movement — their own or that of others — as paintings, sculpture, video, photos and more to illustrate how we use such things as dance, exercise and sports to express identity, or to celebrate our freedoms, or to call for civic change. Like nearly every production from the MCA, the exhibit is highly charged from a social and political perspective.
Notably, it invites a lot of tactile interaction between the pieces on display and the visitors who come to see them. That can come in the form of simply being able to sit or walk on precious objects that one normally expects to be off limits in an art museum, to taking part in the wide-ranging programming that the MCA will produce during the run of the show.
That means visitors at any time can jump around on the basketball court-like installation that Quevedo has installed on the museum’s top floor. Or they can sit in the modular furniture that GeoVanna Gonzalez has set up in the main gallery that resembles French Victorian tête-à-tête sofas. Or they can do a few stretches on the actual yoga mats that Karlo Andrei Ibarra has incorporated into the installation “Contensiones,” which examines “how language is inextricably tied to the exercise of power,” as the signage explains.
More guided are the special events, which include various artists activating their pieces, or group happenings, like the four, 90-minute art-inspired circuit training sessions that will take place using the material in January. The lineup of events is listed on the MCA’s website; some are free with admission, others are paid.
With so many artists, activities and ideas floating around the outing, it can be difficult to pull curator Lynch’s notions together in a cohesive way. The idea is broad, and a bit vague, to start with, and the multitude of perspectives on the topic splay it further rather than coming together into something harmonic and revelatory. But it is hard to fault any exhibition that tries so hard to present something so novel, or any museum that gives its curators room to experiment. It is, to me, the kind of effort a community should support.
Plus, there is much to appreciate in all those “parts.” That is especially true in the exhibit’s opening section titled “Movement as memory/Joy as survival,” which features works by New York-based artist Kambui Olujimi.
Olujimi has been making work around the historic dance marathons that took place during the Great Depression, parsing out both their entertainment value for the public and the toll they took on the participants — dancing until they dropped as a way to win money and feed their families. It’s a nostalgic look back, filtered through a contemporary lens of race and economics. The dance competitions were racially segregated.
But it does have one particularly joyful, if ironic, moment: a short video, titled “In Plain Sight,” from 2016, that features a present-day couple dancing exuberantly to a disco version of the “Star Spangled Banner.” They seem to be reclaiming the song as a source of both pride and glee and they provide a happy, take-it-back ending to an American story that has chapters of desperation and separation.
Quevedo’s large-scale, sports-inspired piece — made from reclaimed wood sourced from a professional basketball court — is something merry to behold as well. It has the bearing of a real gymnasium, but the artist has rearranged the traditional foul lines painted on the floor into abstract patterns meant to invite museum visitors “to trace the lines with their bodies, almost like a choreography.” The piece, which reflects upon how we use sports to navigate conflict, is easy to operate while being truly thought-provoking.
Other pieces are not as successful in that way, less welcoming and more confounding, especially when they are not being activated and stand alone as still objects in a group show day after day. One example is “We Came to Dance,” an abstract dance studio, complete with barres and mirrors, that Fernandes (a professional dancer-turned-artist) has set up in the basement gallery.
The installation is functional — there are public performances and activations set to take place in this studio — but it makes little sense the rest of the time when it is just sitting there waiting for something to happen. A visitor would have to have some very hot moves to spontaneously bust out into a routine in that environment.
That said, “Movements Toward Freedom” is, at its core, an inspiring exhibit and a good outing for holiday company. It has something for everyone. You do not see references to sports and physical fitness often in contemporary art museums and so its appeal extends beyond the usual visual visual arts crowd.
And within that is an ambitious attempt to make us feel more keenly about our bodies, and the way we comport ourselves and the power that exists, for everyone, in everyday movement. That awareness comes in pieces — in the parts, if not the whole — but it is there to be felt.
Ray Mark Rinaldi is a Denver-based freelancer who specializes in fine arts.
IF YOU GO
“Movements Toward Freedom” continues through Feb. 2 at the MCA, 1485 Delgany St. Info: 303-298-7554 or mcadenver.org.