Holbrooke featured at Mountainfilm in Telluride Gallery Walk

Dad is Ambassador, now Special Representative, Richard Holbrooke, appointed by President Obama to help his administration tackle the thorniest foreign policy challenges it faces: Afghanistan and Pakistan. Ambassador Holbrooke is also a regular at Mountainfilm in Telluride, the event son David, a talented documentary filmmaker, has programmed for the past three years as its Festival Director.

This year, Ambassador Holbrooke is unable to attend Mountainfilm in Telluride, but another Holbrooke, son Anthony, is on the schedule. His show at the Ah Haa School for the Arts is part of Mountainfilm’s Gallery Walk, Friday, May 28, following the Symposium.

What some might see as an act of nepotism is simply a well-deserved tribute to an emerging artist, who Telluride Inside… and Out predicts will one day, like his father, be a household word. Indications of his prowess were on display at his first New York show at the AFP Gallery last fall,“Stone Land,” an exhibition of Anthony Holbrooke’s graceful marble trees. (The message to Mountainfilm regulars is abundantly clear: stone trees will never fall to drought, fire, blight, or a developer’s ax. They will not go extinct.)

The oldest known works of representational art are stone carvings: marks carved into rock known as petroglyphs have survived where painted images have not. (Prehistoric figurines of “Venuses” are thought to be as old as 800,000 years.) Mark Mennin is a sculptor known primarily for his monumental granite carvings in landscape and architecture and a major link between a time-honored tradition and contemporary approaches to art. Mennin is also Anthony’s mentor.

Anthony Holbrooke, is the featured artist at the Ah Haa School for the Arts, where his work will be on display outdoors in the school’s backyard over the long Mountainfilm In Telluride  weekend, May 28 – May 31. Some of the pieces were carved specifically for Telluride and this show.

“Anthony’s work is interesting to me for a number of reasons. First, he’s fantastic technically. He’s able to achieve such a loose, expressionistic quality in a hard and rigid material, that its wonderful to view. Secondly, the wonderful tension between the material and the form – organic forms carved from brick, stone and concrete – frozen life. Third, the pieces inspire the viewer to see the potential in every surrounding environment. Everything can change character, and anything is possible,”  said Doreen Remen, co-founder/supporter, Art Production Fund.

Anthony Holbrooke first came to Telluride over 20 years ago with his father and brother, guests of Susan St. James and the Ebersols. He returned that summer, living out of a tent and his car in Town Park, working as a “night diver” at the Floradora.

Anthony’s resume includes stints as a refugee relief worker, living in Thailand and Bosnia before returning to New York to pursue a career in TV journalism. Years ago, he began drawing political cartoons. He painted, took photographs and made guerrilla videos – that is until he discovered a bar of soap and began to carve.

Find details of Mountainfilm’s 32nd annual Festival schedule here: http://www.mountainfilm.org/festival/2010/online-schedule/index.html

Film selections at: http://www.mountainfilm.org/festival/2010/films.asp

To learn more about Anthony Holbrooke’s colorful life and work, click the “play” button and listen to his podcast.