Bender Bender

Celebrating Phil Bender

The Lab at Belmar

Tuesday May 6th, 2008 at 7:00 pm

Artist Phil Bender - Photo by Ken Hamel/DenverArts.org

THE LABORATORY OF ART AND IDEAS AT BELMAR

IS GOING ON A BENDER BENDER

Join us in celebration of Denver artist Phil Bender and his exhibition Last Place

Lakewood, CO, April 21, 2008--- On May 6, 2008 at 7pm The Laboratory of Art and Ideas at Belmar is hosting a party, Bender Bender, in honor of leading Denver artist Phil Bender. This celebration is a final salute to Last Place, Bender’s latest exhibition on display at The Lab since January 23, 2008. Friends, fans and patrons will gather to roast Bender and toast Last Place. The event is free and open to the public with advanced registration, online at belmarlab.org.

Bender collects everyday objects—worn snow shovels, used matchbooks, backgammon game boards—and arranges them in massive geometric grids, suggesting both nostalgia and scientific classification. Discarded, obscure, or otherwise disregarded, Bender’s objects convey a sense of archeology, recovering evidence of life in the recent past.

For the exhibition Last Place, Bender gathered things from thrift stores, garage sales, and side streets, documenting the character of the West by cataloguing its cast-offs. The result is both familiar and distant. Culling together collections of matching tools, games, implements, souvenirs and other decorative and functional things, Bender identifies patterns of behavior and usage in the home, workplace and outdoors. Because all of the objects are outdated and no longer function in the mainstream of modern life, they convey a sense of nostalgia for a former way of life.

About Phil Bender

Phil Bender was born in St. Louis in 1947 and his family moved to Dallas the next year. In the mid-seventies Phil and his first wife moved to Denver, where he graduated from the Metropolitan State College and the University of Colorado. In 1980, he and seven like-minded Colorado artists founded Pirate: A Contemporary Art Oasis, one of the first cooperative galleries in the region. Phil has exhibited nationally, including a 1996 solo exhibition in the Close Range Gallery of the Denver Art Museum. In the catalogue for that exhibition, Bender says he wants to pull off what he calls the artist’s ultimate scam: “I’d like to make a living doing what I love to do. I dream of having the freedom to play all the time.”

About the Lab

The Laboratory of Art and Ideas at Belmar is an institution dedicated to art and thought which combines elements of museum, think tank, and public forum. The Lab is the cultural anchor of the Belmar District, a 104-acre, mixed-use development located in Lakewood Colorado. In its dual role as a gallery and a community space, The Lab presents international contemporary art exhibitions and experimental public programs including lectures, film screenings, performances, and more. In addition to exhibitions, The Lab presents live programming including lectures, symposia, and music performance. The Lab has continued to build upon its successful lecture series, which combine a sophisticated discussion of ideas with elements of humor, irony and chance

The Lab at Belmar opened its new 11,500 square-foot two-story building in September 2006. Belzberg Architects transformed the building’s raw interior space into a flexible space able to accommodate The Lab’s diverse programmatic needs.

Launched in 2004 out of a Belmar storefront, the Lab began as a collaboration between Continuum Partners and the Denver Art Museum, where Lab director Adam Lerner was formerly Master Teacher for Modern and Contemporary Art. Lerner and Lewis Sharp, Director of the Denver Art Museum, worked together to develop The Lab as a center for experimental programming that goes beyond the traditional art museum or gallery

The Laboratory of Art and Ideas at Belmar is located at 404 S. Upham Street in Lakewood. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 12 to 6 pm, and Sunday 12 to 5 pm. Admission to the Lab is a $5 donation. Lab members and students with valid ID are admitted for free. The admission price to programs at The Lab varies according to the program. For general information, please visit www.belmarlab.org, call (303) 934-1777 or write This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .