Geometric Abstraction. This group show at the UMC Gallery at the University of Colorado at Boulder brings together works by a variety of artists who did geometric abstraction in the '60s and '70s. This kind of thing was perfect for the times, because the simplicity meant there was no content other than form and color, making it corporate-friendly, unlike the narrative-heavy pop art of the same period. Despite the stylistic affinities that link all of the Geometric artists, the show includes artists from two distinctly different generations: Frank Stella and Sol LeWitt, who were responding to abstract expressionism; and Herbert Bayer and Ilya Bolotowsky, who were embracing geometry before the first abstract expressionist flung the first wad of paint. The two generations were motivated by different impulses, even if their pieces are superficially compatible. The included works come from the Colorado Collection, CU's impressive art holdings. Through November 4 at the UMC Gallery, University Memorial Center, Broadway and Euclid Street, Boulder, 303-492-7465.
Jack Balas and Wes Hempel. Berthoud-based artists Jack Balas and Wes Hempel have been partners for more than twenty years, and each is an established artist with his own distinctive style. However, the two are also able to play together on hybrid pieces, as is revealed in this show. But they don't work simultaneously on the same piece: Balas typically comes in after Hempel has completed his part. In some cases, Hempel's contribution was an abandoned painting that Balas took over and made whole. Balas was trained as an architect and fine artist, which possibly explains his interest in neo-pop, while Hempel is a self-taught artist who started out as a writer, which could be why his paintings are so narrative. Balas's pieces often include scribbled passages and shifting scale distortions; Hempel, on the other hand, lends his tightly done pictures a surrealistic quality through depictions of historic art and architecture. There is one thing the two artists have in common: They both like to incorporate depictions of good-looking young guys. These figures represent the everyman on whom the intellectual content of the pieces rest. Through November 5 at the Robischon Gallery, 1740 Wazee Street, 303-298-7788.
The Modern Muybridge Series. This is a clever show that features recent work by Rodney Wallace, who runs the gallery with the oddball name of KOUBOU a Deux, an invented Franco-Japanese phrase that means "artist workshop for two." The show's title refers to Eadweard Muybridge, a pioneer of scientific photography who took sequential photos of people and animals in motion. Free association connects them to Warhol's repetitious imagery, and Wallace references both sensibilities simultaneously. Particularly Warholian are Wallace's bright colors. Also compelling is Wallace's gritty take on city life: His pieces include depictions of a woman loaded down with luggage, a homeless man pushing a shopping cart and an assault in progress, among other contemporary urban scenes. To do the paintings, Wallace took digital photos, some of them staged using models, and then projected the images onto blank canvases. Tracing the images with watercolor pencils, he painted in the forms using acrylics that melted the tracings so that no outlines were left behind. Through November 5 at KOUBOU a Deux, upstairs at 7571/2 Santa Fe Drive, 720-203-1944. Reviewed October 13.
Revealing the Muse and Colorado Innovators. Hugh Grant, founder and director of the Kirkland Museum on Capitol Hill, curated Revealing the Muse and Colorado Innovators (both at the Lakewood Heritage Center) using pieces borrowed from his institution's permanent collection. The Kirkland Museum has an impressive assemblage that includes paintings by Kirkland himself, work by other Colorado artists and an extensive group of decorative arts. Colorado Innovators provides a survey of mid-twentieth-century artists working in Denver. Most of the objects included have either never before been exhibited or haven't been seen in living memory. Revealing the Muse is a Vance Kirkland retrospective that begins with his work from the 1930s and ends with pieces done shortly before his death in 1981. I think it could be argued that surrealism was Kirkland's most important influence, and one of his most important innovations was the mixing of oil paint and water poured onto the surfaces of his pieces. Beginning in the 1950s, this mixture led to some of his greatest paintings ever. Through February 10 at the Radius Gallery, Lakewood Heritage Center, 801 South Yarrow Street, Lakewood, 303-987-7850. Reviewed September 8.
Selected Recent Acquisitions and Highlights. The impressive roster of permanent holdings of the CU Art Museum in Boulder is known as the Colorado Collection, a fitting appellation. It was started modestly as a teaching aid in 1939, but today it represents much more than that, containing more than 5,000 works of art, including drawings, paintings, photographs, sculpture and pottery. Director Lisa Tamiris Becker chose the pieces in Selected Recent Acquisitions and Highlights of the CU Art Museum's Permanent Collection. The show focuses on those items that were acquired between 2002 and 2005, along with significant works brought in since the inception of the collection more than sixty years ago. The show has examples by the old masters, including Brueghel, Rembrandt, Daumier and Dürer; modern masters such as Picasso, Rauschenberg, Warhol and Dubuffet; and contemporary notables, including John Baldessari, Jackie Winsor, Manuel Alvarez Bravo and Mary Kelly. In addition, there are Asian, South American and African artifacts. Through October 21 at the CU Art Museum, in the Sibell Wolle Fine Art Building on the CU-Boulder campus, 303-492-8003.
Steve Altman and Crowded. The fall openers at the Singer Gallery of the Mizel Center are Steve Altman: Incognito and Crowded: Drawings and Collages by Elliott Green. Altman is a well-known local painter whose work combines an abstract-expressionist sensibility with depictions of recognizable things. Singer director Simon Zalkind organized the show, selecting recent paintings and older pieces that together briefly survey Altman's career. Zalkind was especially interested in Altman's take on the themes of life and death -- and everything in between. The newer paintings feature prominent depictions of the figure, while the earlier ones tend to be more thoroughly abstract. The other, smaller show, Crowded, installed together with the Altman exhibit, highlights Green's cartoonish and somewhat Picassoid collages and drawings. The show's title refers to the fact that Green's compositions are crowded with as many figures as possible. The New York artist is fairly famous, and he was directly involved with this show, lending all of the pieces for it. Through November 6 at the Singer Gallery, Mizel Center for Arts and Culture, 350 South Dahlia Street, 303-316-6360. Reviewed October 13.
Trading Voices, et al. This juried show in the Lower Gallery at the Arvada Center was put together using a clever if obvious idea: Have a Coloradan judge the Arizona pieces, and an Arizonan pick the Colorado ones. In this case, the local was Denver Art Museum curator Dianne Vanderlip, who was matched with Marilyn Zeitlin from the Arizona State University Art Museum. The concept for the show, which compares artists from the two states, came from Arvada's gallery and museum director, Jerry Gilmore, who lived in Arizona and still maintains ties to the art scene there. Interestingly, the Colorado artists outnumber those from Arizona by a ratio of two to one. In the Upper Gallery is a site-specific piece based on artist Amy Mishkin's harrowing life experiences, titled Pivotal Experience. In the Theater Gallery is New Works on Paper, made up of prints by Chuck McCoy that combine fine art and commercial processes. Trading Voices runs through November 21, Pivotal Experience through November 13, New Works on Paper through November 20, all at the Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities, 6901 Wadsworth Boulevard, 720-898-7200.
