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Let’s Talk About Art

A A A Comments By Amber Taufen Thursday, Oct 2 2008

“I’ve been getting a lot of calls from people who want to hear about the history of contemporary art,” explains Adam Lerner, director of Belmar’s Laboratory of Art and Ideas. “People want to learn more about the art they see in museums around the country. But we didn’t want to just make it Contemporary Art 101.”

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So you can expect much more than the basics from the Above Average Show. “It’s a fake talk show that explores contemporary art,” says Lerner. “I will have a thirty-minute monologue where I talk about contemporary artists but frame it in this very playful context, where we have special guests — experts — who I kind of banter with about this art and then ask them hard questions that a typical lecturer would never ask, like, ‘Is this real, or a lot of hullabaloo? Is it noise or serious?’

“So combine a lecture on contemporary art with the kind of talk that people who love art and know about art might have with each other in a bar,” he continues. “And you sort of add to that a little bit of the typical kind of lab whimsy, where you would have very arbitrary discussions about things like the Dewey Decimal System and death statistics.”

Makes perfect sense to us. Anything else?

“Yes,” Lerner adds. “All guests receive two free drinks and an inflatable martian headdress.”

The Above Average Show opens tonight with Episode One: Fabulous, during which Lerner and friends will discuss the works of Olafur Eliasson, Matthew Barney and Takashi Murakami, plus famous demographer Patrick Kreuger, who can tell you when you’ll die. Special guest Elissa Auther rounds out the roster. A reception kicks off the fun at 6 p.m., and the program runs from 6:30 to 8; tickets are $7.50 for members and $12.50 for the general public. Future shows are planned for October 14 and 21.; call 303-934-1777 or visit www.belmarlab.org.
Tuesdays, 6:30 p.m. Starts: Oct. 7. Continues through Oct. 21, 2008

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