Decades and 30x30

The severity and simplicity of the Venet is perfect with the two stark lithographs by the great Richard Serra. These prints are essentially black fields on white paper, yet Serra somehow communicates the idea that the fields are curved, a three-dimensional illusion that's no surprise coming from an artist best known for sculpture. Equally straightforward is the monumental "Black Cathedral," a small-run color lithograph by the late Robert Motherwell, a key player in abstract expressionism. Robischon is one of only a handful of galleries in the world that represent Motherwell's estate.

The final leg of the show, in the center space, includes two presentation pieces for Christo and Jeanne-Claude's proposed "Over the River," for which the duo suggests covering a part of the Arkansas River in southern Colorado with a synthetic canvas roof. The mixed-media works combine drafting and photo-based elements and are meant to reveal various views of the not-yet-built installation. If all goes according to plan, "Over the River" will span the Arkansas in 2010.

Nearby are two prints by the late Luis Jimenez, who has been associated with Robischon since the '70s. Jimenez is best known around here for a piece that isn't: "Denver Mustang," a monumental fiberglass depiction of a rearing horse, mane flying in the wind, nostrils flaring, eyes glowing red. The sculpture is already ten years late on its delivery date to Denver International Airport, and it looks like it might never be completed, since it fell on the artist last year and killed him.

Jimenez embraces essentially the same ideas in his work as the Luo Brothers do -- illustrating biculturalism -- only he was at it a generation ago. It's also similar to what Lu Fan has done in "Tang Lady," a fiberglass sculpture standing on the floor not far from one of Jimenez's prints. "Tang Lady" is essentially a life-sized reproduction of an antique Chinese figurine.

The last of the big ten in Decades is John Buck. The two Buck pieces, "Utopian Parkway" and "Hugo," are closely related; both are carved juletong wood bas-reliefs accented with acrylic paint. These panels have an architectonic character, with simplified natural shapes inserted hieratically into voids.

The second anniversary show is 30x30, which is very different from Decades but is also very good. To put it together, the gallery selected thirty artists from its stable and asked each of them to create a piece that measured thirty by thirty inches. That's right: It's actually 30x30 by thirty. That this show was possible demonstrates the good relationship the gallery has with so many of its artists -- a not-so-common situation.

The first thing you'll probably notice is the video projection on a screen suspended from the ceiling. The piece was shot through a telescope and shows the moon for fifteen-minute intervals. The video, "Faux Moon," is by Gary Emrich and is one of the best things I've seen by him. Other camera-related works include two marvelous landscapes, a pinhole photo by David Sharpe and a carbon print by Eric Paddock.

As these pieces reveal, 30x30 shows off a variety of mediums, but paintings outnumber everything else. There's a marvelous passage at the start where contemporary representational paintings by four of the best local practitioners are lined up. There's the Stephen Batura grisaille of men in a landscape; the aerial view of a mountain road by Jim Colbert; an enigmatic still life of a cluttered tabletop by Jerry Kunkel; and finally, the even more enigmatic scene by Wes Hempel, showing a young man reading a letter in front of a photo mural of World War II-era soldiers. It's impossible to point out everything that's good in 30x30, because everything in it is. And I especially liked the way the pieces hung in single rows across the walls, reading like an installation.

In a statement acknowledging that many of the artists selected for 30x30 are from the area, Robischon and Doran expressed their gratitude to the people of Denver. But that struck me as odd: Shouldn't we be thanking them?