Teen Scenes

PlatteForum’s ArtLab and MCA/Denver’s Teen Council (TeCo) boast similar goals but differing circumstances: Both are located in the Central Platte Valley and cater to creative teens, but each serves dissimilar constituents. While PlatteForum’s kids come from a life of struggle and work with resident artists on hands-on projects, TeCo’s have had a few more advantages in life and participate in docent programs at the museum. But the walls came down during this year’s collaborative Confluence Project, for which both groups joined resident artist Katie Watson to create a site-specific installation for the museum’s Fox Family Idea Box. With Some Time on Your Hands opens today at the MCA with a special Teen Nickel Night reception from 6 to 8 p.m., followed by a public opening from 8 to 10 p.m.

“Katie is an irreverent, ironic parody artist who worked with twenty kids, playing with the notion of slowing down or speeding up time. The installation is about a funky machine making anti-aging protective gear, and the whole space is like a factory, with a series of lenticular prints of ArtLab students in a sort of assembly line,” explains PlatteForum’s Judy Anderson. “And in the lower part of the Idea Box is a kiosk with student films for bogus products. It’s all about the nature of desire.”

Anderson and MCA director Adam Lerner hope to continue this initial partnership annually; see the installation at MCA, 1485 Delgany Street, through April 4. Admission tonight is a nickel for teens and ten cents for adults before 8 p.m.; regular museum admission is $5 to $10. Get info at www.mcadenver.org.
March 5-April 4, 2010