My Water Toy Fort in the Forest
Dialog: City

Friday, August 29, 2008
by Terry Talty

DENVER — Dialogue: City was several contemporary art events installed in Denver during the 2008 Democratic National Convention. By the time I heard about the events, it was Friday, the day after Mr. Obama's acceptance speech and the last day for two of these events. I guess I missed Ann Hamilton organizing a choral society to sing the letter O on the previous Monday.

But on Friday, Denver weather was perfect -- sunny, in the 80s with a slight breeze -- to be carbon neutral abiding by the theme of the convention. My partner and I rode our bikes to City Park, where there blew the piece called Air Forest, by artist Minsuk Cho.

Loudly.

Motors in the weighted bases injected air inflating the sculptural structure that most resembled an inflatable water toy. A large one that we had seen from across the lake. Up close, the plastic fabric was white with grey polka dots. The uprights of the piece were tubes, about 12 feet tall, filled with air that cast a solid black shadow on the ground. The shade was welcomed. Between the uprights was stretched horizontally a single layer of fabric that created a fuzzy, less-dense shadow. When people passed below it, the polka-dot fabric cast polka-dot shadows on them, playing on their clothing like light find it's way through a forest canopy. In the center of each of these horizontals was a short, dangling tube opening to the sky.

On the following day, I looked up the name of the piece, which was not found at the site, and realized that the polka-dot fabric could have been seen as a canopy and the uprights as tree trunks. These tubes that open to the sky -- oxygen vents. No, I'm sure they were supposed to represent what one can see of the sky between the overlapping branches of a group of trees. As I realized the significatant piece of information I was being given by the title, I asked my partner what the sculpture was called, and he said, Floating City. Without knowing the name, and given the less than random appearance of the arch-like uprights, the industrial-shaped tubes that permitted a view to the blue sky, or the choice of dots as the fabric's pattern, there was something very man-made, urban about it. Approaching views of the piece, on bicycle, suggested a city of the future, implying a larger structure as it more slowly came into sight by pedaling than it would have by car. Standing at one end or the other of the structure, the views through multiple linear, capped forms had the sense of infinity that Renaisance architects wanted in columnades. It was architectural, created, not a Colorado forest.

But not all forests are natural. And this piece is not made of stone. It's the inflatable pool toy city park.

Terry Talty is an Art Tourist, traveling to see art exhibition as if they were the new Seven Wonders of the World.