Sketches

RADAR. With its outlandish appearance, the Denver Art Museum's Hamilton Building has overshadowed what's on display inside. There are a few exceptions, and first among them is RADAR: Selections From the Collection of Vicki & Kent Logan, installed in the Anschutz Gallery. Put together by Dianne Vanderlip, the outgoing curator of the Modern and Contemporary Art department, RADARincludes sections on the cutting edge in Asia, Europe and America. Many of the works were donated by the Logans, who live in Vail and are among the most important collectors of contemporary art in the country -- and, in recent years, among the DAM's most significant donors, having given as gifts over 200 works of art and promised hundreds more. Some of the biggest names in international art are here, among them Takashi Murakami, Yoshitomo Nara, Zhang Huan, Damien Hirst, Jenny Saville, Michel Majerus, Neo Rauch, Carroll Dunham, Kiki Smith, George Condo and Fred Tomaselli, all represented by major works. An absolute must-see. Through July 15 at the Denver Art Museum, 100 West 14th Avenue Parkway, 720-865-5000. Reviewed December 28.

60 Years of Colorado Modernism, et al. Among the specialties of the Kirkland Museum is art made in Colorado -- in particular, modern art, which makes sense, as the late Vance Kirkland, for whom the museum is named, was Denver's premier mid-century modernist. 60 Years of Colorado Modernism, put together by director and founder Hugh Grant, ambles through the two-story facility, with pieces culled from the museum's extensive collection, including examples by Kirkland himself along with the work of Herbert Bayer, Al Wynne, Robert Mangold, Beverly Rosen, Martha Daniels, Betty Woodman and more. Another Kirkland specialty is design and decor, and a second show, From Framing to Furnishing, highlights architects' work owned by the museum. Creations by legendary designers such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Joseph Hoffman, Donald Deskey, Gio Ponti and others are featured. Through March 4 at the Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art, 1311 Pearl Street, 303-832-8576. Reviewed December 21.

Terry Maker, et al. The Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art presents its crop of winter exhibits with Terry Maker: New Work in the large West Gallery. Maker is well known for her three-dimensional mixed-media wall pieces that would be paintings if she used paint instead of cut, rolled and otherwise altered papers. In the East Gallery is the elegant Jimi Billingsley: Transit Glyphs, which is made up of color photographs depicting graffiti etched into the windows of subway and elevated trains in New York. In the Union Works Gallery is DJRABBI: Society of the Spectacle (A Digital Remix), a DVD collaboration by Mark Amerika, Rick Silva and Trace Reddell. It combines political and pop-cultural references, with visuals by Silva, sound by Reddell and edgy subtitles by Amerika. Through January 27 at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, 1750 13th Street, Boulder, 303-443-2122.