Petticoat Junction

The Project Space at MCA Denver, where artists-in-residence are ensconced, has rapidly become one of the state’s most prominent venues — not just because of the high quality of the offerings here, but also because those offerings are often the work of Colorado artists.

Related Content

• Odd Future at Fox Theatre in Boulder on 3/11
  January 25, 2012
• Waffle Brothers opens in Boulder
  January 13, 2012
• Crappy Christmas crafting at MCA over the weekend (PHOTOS)
  December 19, 2011
• Beer dinners, sparkling wine and more on this week's culinary calendar
  February 6, 2012
• Boulder is America's happiest city, Colorado 5th happiest state, says Gallup Well-Being survey
  October 26, 2011

More About

• Ana Maria Hernando
• MCA Denver
• Jeff Starr
• Jack Balas
• Boulder (Colorado)

Since its launch last year, the Project Space has hosted the efforts of Jeff Starr, Jack Balas and Terry Maker, Coloradans all. Now the venue is featuring La Montaña (the mountain), an installation by Ana Maria Hernando, an Argentine immigrant who lives and works in Boulder. In her work, Hernando explores issues of feminism, as well as what it means to have grown up in Latin America (she’s had cloistered nuns make doilies that she’s then embedded in transparent plastic, for example). With this eponymous MCA show, she continues to pursue those same themes.

Over the past four years, Hernando traveled repeatedly to a remote village in Peru called Mollamarca, where she purchased the crocheted petticoats made by the women of that town. Back in Boulder, she stiffened the yarn skirts with transparent sizing so that she could shape them and allow the textiles to retain their range of vivid shades. Finally, she laid them on top of one another to form the image of a multi-colored mountain.

For the last decade or so, conceptual realism has been on the cutting edge of contemporary art, but with artists such as Hernando at work, it looks as though conceptual abstraction just might be the next big thing. Attend an opening reception for her installation tonight from 6 to 10 p.m. at MCA, 1485 Delgany Street; the show will be on display through April 19. For more information, visit www.mcadenver.org or call 303-298-7554.
Tuesdays-Sundays. Starts: Jan. 27. Continues through April 19, 2008