Perfect Strangers

Beginning in June, Colorado artist Jack Balas took up residence in the Project Gallery of the Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver, at the front end of a long string of artistic happenings: He was there to create We’ll Be Seeing You, a series of photographic portraits and paintings using sitters — some friends and colleagues, some strangers — chosen in a unique, communal manner.

“I am creating a chain of models that starts at the museum and branches out into the community...starting with one person from each of MCA/Denver’s six partner educational institutions and asking them to recommend the next person to come — hopefully someone whom they would not expect to find visiting an art museum, let alone be depicted in one — and that person recommends the next, and so on,” Balas noted at the outset of the project, which involved hour-long sessions at the museum and follow-up feedback visits. Balas then arranged the resulting portraits in rambling flow charts across the gallery’s walls as their chain-letter-style numbers grew (the process part of the show ended yesterday); the finished installation will remain on view through September 20.

Artist and sitters will gather tonight from 6 to 10 p.m. at the MCA, 1485 Delgany Street, to celebrate the project’s completion, with Balas (who’s also featured at the opening of a more formal solo show, Tattoo Detour, tonight at 6 p.m. at Robischon Gallery, 1740 Wazee Street) speaking around 7:30 p.m. For information, go to www.mcadenver.org or call 303-298-7554.
Sept. 16-Jan. 18, 2008