In the moment
framing of certain scenes— for example, in “Park,” she gives us just a few empty spots in a shortterm parking garage at Denver International Airport— mix 20th-century reductivist thinking with a postmodern self-consciousness.
But for the most part they are straightforward, journalistic, handed over without opinion.
They simply are, and in that way, they simply say this moment happened. Maybe it’s important because it got you somewhere or showed you something, or maybe it just wasted your valuable time and made you bitter. Either way, un-time emerges as the foundation upon which all time is built.
How fitting that her paintings depict architecture. Which always seems so permanent, until it’s brought down by a wind stormor fire or anewdevelopment scheme, or itsowncrumbling.
Nothing lasts forever, and that makes the permanent equal to the things that were temporary in the first place. McKenzie’s objects, large, hand-made, welledited, bring all that together.
Mark Dean Veca’s “Le Poppy Den,” installed in a smaller, 10- foot by 14-foot room at Smith, is a separate exhibit but a swell complement toMcKenzie’s show. It too, questions what it means be to be temporary.
Veca has painted directly on all four walls, in acrylic, a swirling pattern of black botanical(ish) lines, set on a red background whose shade can be described only as agitating. This is an immersive piece: You enter the room, maybe sit on one of the black beanbag chairs on the floor, and take it all in.
It is, as the drug in its title suggests, trippy, and a lot of fun. Veca alternately attempts to please us and disrupt our day and he succeeds at both. It hurts, but you want more of it.
The piece isn’t really for sale. So what’s it doing in a commercial gallery like Smith?
Thrilling us. Respecting the value of the moment. Giving us something that feels like a memory even aswe look at it in the flesh.
The piece, a serious effort, will be painted over when the exhibit ends. LikeMcKenzie’s scenes, it will be gone— maybe forgotten, maybe not.