I See What You Mean, Lawrence Argent, 2005
The 40-foot tall Blue Bear, designed by Lawrence Argent is formally named “I See What You Mean™, 2005” The Bear can be found peering into the Colorado Convention Center and has become a favorite of tourists and locals alike. Argent felt it important to focus on what it is like to be a resident in Denver when a convention is taking place. “I’m always interested in what might be going on in there, the exchange of information, ideas, and ideologies but there’s never really any indication from the outside what’s going on inside.”
In the process of brainstorming, the city was going through a period of drought and bears would venture into the city. After seeing a photo of a black bear looking into someone’s window from a local newspaper, Argent saw the ultimate resemblance of “curiosity” and the idea of a curious bear never left his mind.
Now that the idea of a bear came into play, Mr. Argent wanted his bear to have a unique texture similar to the toys his sons played with which inspired the idea of a toy bear look. In presenting the concept to the selection committee, the blue 3D modeling clay he used intrigued everyone so much that it ultimately became the bear’s trademark. With combining Argent’s passion for regional western art with a non-resident’s perspective of curiosity, the story of how the Colorado Convention Center’s Blue Bear known as “I See What You Mean” has not only become one of the iconic symbols of the Colorado Convention Center, but also an iconic symbol of the city itself.
See
Notice the scale, geometric planes and the intense blue color that make up the bear. How do you think Argent made this sculpture? It’s a true celebration of curiosity.
Story
My first visit to Denver was with my son nine years ago. We were on a mother-son adventure together and had a day in Denver before heading into the Rockies for hiking, biking and river rafting. We were staying downtown in a quirky hotel and having fun noticing all of the fun details. We left the hotel to explore the city and came around the corner toward the convention center and spotted this beautiful giant, curious bear peaking into the windows. We ran up and looked at him from every angle. He was massive! This 40 foot tall bear was such a fun surprise we couldn’t stop laughing in awe. Seeing the deep blue of the bear made it other-worldly and instantly made me think of Yves Klein Blue.
International Klein Blue (IKB) is a deep blue hue first mixed by the French artist Yves Klein. IKB’s visual impact comes from its heavy reliance on ultramarine, as well as Klein’s often thick and textured application of paint to canvas.
Yves Klein, “IKB 191”, 1962, and “Anthropometry of the Blue Period” (1960)
For Klein, blue depicted the undeniable vastness of space, expressing that “blue has no dimensions; it is beyond dimensions.” Although Yves Klein used a range of colors, his most iconic works often featured International Klein Blue, a shade of pure ultramarine that Klein claimed to have invented and trademarked.
Hahn/Cock Katharina Fritsch, 2017, Minneapolis Sculpture Garden
Both Argent and Katharina Fritsch took recognizable animals and painted them an impossible, saturated blue. That act does something specific: it removes the animal from the natural world and lifts it into the symbolic. You stop asking what kind of bear is that? and start asking what does this bear mean? Yves Klein did the exact same thing with his International Klein Blue (IKB). He believed that this specific ultramarine shade was the only color that could carry pure feeling without narrative. No story, no object, just sensation. Fritsch’s rooster is almost certainly in dialogue with Klein. Argent’s bear may be less consciously so, but lands in the same conversation.
Say
- How do you think the bear’s color and scale help to create the mood of this sculpture?
- The title of this piece is “I See What You Mean” but goes by “The Big Blue Bear”. If you could name it, what would it be called?
- After learning about Yves Klein Blue and seeing these intense blues used in these examples, what’s your opinion of a potential connection?
Do
Blue is the world’s favorite color consistently, across cultures, in survey after survey. Nobody fully knows why. It may be the association with clear sky and clean water: two things that meant safety for early humans.
- What is your favorite color? Why? Do your own survey among family and friends. Ask them why they love their favorite.
- While you are out and about this week, find examples of your favorite color. Take some pics!
- Buy something you can wear that is your favorite color, you’re worth it.
About the Artist: Lawrence Argent
Lawrence Argent (January 24, 1957 – October 4, 2017) was a visual artist known for his public artwork I See What You Mean, installed at the Colorado Convention Center. Argent was born on January 24, 1957 in Essex, England and grew up in Australia. He studied art at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia, and received his MFA in 1986, from the Rinehart School of Sculpture at the Maryland Institute, College of Art, in Baltimore, Maryland.
Career
Argent accepted a teaching position at the University of Denver School of Art and Art History in 1993. He created a number of public art works, photographs, and installations including Cojones (1999), Library of Applause (1994), Whispers (2002), and three of his more visible pieces I See What You Mean (2004) at the Colorado Convention Center, Leap (2011) at the Sacramento International Airport, and I am here (2014) in Chengdu, China.
Argent was at the forefront of a movement known as digital sculpting, using “computer-aided design software to create sculptures with once-impractical whorls, warps, swirls and bends.”
Argent died on October 4, 2017. The cause was cardiac arrest.
