DIALOG:Denver at Robischon Gallery

August 7, 2008 | Filed Under Art | Leave a Comment 

 

Denver is a couple weeks away from the convention and it’s pretty exciting. Tents are going up and schedules for events are circulating. I am very happy to be a part of an exhibit opening at Robischon Gallery on the 21st of August. The exhibit is in conjunction with DIALOG:City.

As part of the show fifteen Denver artists were asked to do a political yard sign. The gallery assigned the topic, mine was ‘animal rights’. My first impulse was to do something regarding performing animals; at the time of the assignment there was a traveling circus installed in a parking lot a mile north from the studio. Last time they were here we took pictures of the miserable looking elephants in the parking lot and wrote letters.  Sue Coe has so powerfully covered the topic of performing animals that I didn’t think I could approach it.   

I consulted Jo Tyler to get her thoughts on what what might be interesting to cover; she is very active in the world of animal rights issues and I knew that she’d have some great advice. Jo came up with some topics and the one I chose was about the misnomer ‘Free Range’ used in relation to chicken and egg production.  Michael Pollan in the Omnivore’s Dilemma wrote of hens laying eggs in large metal storage buildings, dimly lit but uncaged – thus the phrase ‘free-range’- with a small door on one end that leads outside. The door opens so infrequently the chickens close to the exit are the only to take advantage, that is if they realize what it is. Typically chickens get about a square foot  to ‘range’ in with up to 2,000 other individuals and are debeaked so that they don’t hurt each other.  I believe that people who are making these shopping choices are trying to do the right thing, it’s disappointing that these impulses are taken advantage of still at the detriment to millions of animals daily.