All Bangs
2010
Eric Michael Corrigan
Installation view
Photo: Zorn Photo, courtesy Bobbi Walker Fine Art

Denver artist Eric Michael Corrigan has essentially taken over the entire Walker Fine Art-a huge and cavernous space-to present "High-Bias," a single work of art in the form of an all-enveloping installation. Using found objects to create staged environments, Corrigan anchors the whole thing with some compelling paintings. And it's been conjured up in support of Corrigan's over-arching subject-the cultural losses brought on by the digital revolution. In particular, Corrigan looks at music, long a central feature in society. The kind of music you listen to helps to define you. The social event of listening to music with your friends is practically a rite of passage in America. But nothing has suffered greater upheavals than has music, owing to its morphing delivery forms. For over half a century, music had been packaged in vinyl disks in cardboard sleeves; now it's digital-downloading. Music has thus lost its physical manifestation-the album-and Corrigan addresses this by piling up thousands of them shrink-wrapped on wooden pallets. Once they represented important cultural artifacts, and now they're landfill.

There are a number of other music-themed elements. The enormous main space is sectioned by an angled wall made of box-speakers called All Bangs, because there's an audio track of Lester Bangs' interviews. There's a bandstand with instruments and memorabilia, and there's a run-down version of a green room. There's one element-a red Jaguar convertible-that doesn't link up directly with music, but Corrigan connects it indirectly by propping up an electric guitar behind the passenger seat. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of "High-Bias" is that the paintings, done in old-fashioned oil on canvas, are the strongest feature of the show. Corrigan has used album covers, and other related sources, as inspiration for these paintings, many of which are very Warholian in their use of photo-based imagery, and in the repetition of the imagery, as in Getting Rid of the Beatles and Also on Cassette. Other paintings such as RSO and Some Girls combine a pop mood with a more expressionist character that relates to graffiti.

Denver has long been an installation-friendly place, with the Denver Art Museum having just presented "Embrace!" featuring examples in the medium by noted artists from all over the world. It took some guts-and a lot of talent-for Corrigan to add "High-Bias" to the mix at precisely the same time.