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Best Friends of Denver Culture -- Couple

Jan and Fred Mayer

Jan and Fred Mayer outdid themselves in 2003. With a gift of $11 million, their foundation established an endowment for the Denver Art Museum's New World department, which features pre-Columbian and Spanish colonial art. Over the past few decades, the Mayers have made many contributions to Denver's cultural life and have been particularly instrumental in the success of the New World department. Not only have they given substantial financial support, but they have also donated many of the collection's most magnificent objects.

Best Friend of Denver Culture -- Individual

Frederic C. Hamilton

Frederic C. Hamilton has long been a supporter of the Denver Art Museum. For the past 25 years, he's served on the board of trustees, sitting as chairman since 1994. Last summer, when funds to maintain and program the under-construction, Daniel Libeskind-designed expansion were needed, he got the trustees to ante up $60 million, throwing in the biggest chunk himself : $20 million, to be precise. The gift led the DAM to name the new structure after Hamilton, who came by the distinction the old-fashioned way: He earned it.

Best Art Visionary

Cydney Payton

Cydney Payton, director of Denver's Museum of Contemporary Art, has her hands so full that she could be a professional juggler. She administers the institution, raises funds, does programming and even, at times, curates and installs the museum's exhibits. And as if all of that weren't enough, she also recently oversaw a series of six enormously popular presentations by renowned architects vying to design the museum's new facility. But she's not done yet: As soon as the choice is made next month, she must launch a multimillion-dollar capital campaign to pay for the building. Experience shows that if anyone can keep so many balls in the air at once, it's definitely the amazing Payton.

Best Museum Exhibit (Since March 2003)

El Greco to Picasso From the Phillips Collection, Denver Art Museum

Viewers stampeded the Denver Art Museum this past fall and winter to take in the traveling blockbuster El Greco to Picasso From the Phillips Collection. The show was such a big hit that tickets for the last couple weeks sold out in advance. It's no mystery why: The artists are so famous that virtually everyone's heard of them. Along with stunning pictures by El Greco and Picasso, there were gorgeous works by Ingres, Cézanne, Renoir, Braque and Kandinsky, among others. The DAM has apparently figured out that bringing in the big names is what's sure to bring in the big crowds.

Best Little Big Show -- Solo

herbert bayer remembered , Emil Nelson Gallery

In a cramped old row house near the Denver Art Museum, Hugo Anderson has opened the quirky Emil Nelson Gallery. The inventory ranges from historic pieces, including things from Anderson's family's collections, to new works, some of it by his friends. The late Herbert Bayer, Colorado's most famous artist, was both an artist collected by the family and a friend of theirs, which is how this modest place was able to put on the spectacular herbert bayer remembered. The retrospective of the modern master's accomplishments began with pieces Bayer did in Germany and ended with those created after he fled the Nazis and wound up in Aspen.

Best Little Big Show -- Group

Full Frontal: Contemporary Asian Art From the Logan Collection, Denver Art Museum

The stock-in-trade of Ron Otsuka, the respected curator of Asian art at the Denver Art Museum, is traditional works. However, he was drafted into doing contemporary-art duty when Vail collectors Vicki and Kent Logan made a gift to the museum. Otsuka's compelling, extremely bold Full Frontal: Contemporary Asian Art From the Logan Collection looks at recent cutting-edge art done in China and Japan. Though there are only about a score of pieces in the fifth-floor show, the exhibit, which is open through May 23, covers a lot of previously unexplored aesthetic ground.

Best Solo by a New York Art Star

JUDY PFAFF: New Work, Robischon Gallery

Fall is high season for art exhibitions, so it was surprising when Robischon Gallery presented JUDY PFAFF: New Work in the late spring of last year. The exhibit was an in-depth look at the famous New York artist's most recent pieces. These mixed-media paintings concerned Pfaff's Victorian house, which was once owned by Father Divine, an African-American minister who founded his own religion. Inspired by the house and by Father Divine's life, Pfaff came up with one fabulous work after another. Only nominally flat, the paintings incorporated three-dimensional objects -- just like the installations that made Pfaff famous.

Best Duet by New York Art Stars

Symbols of the Big Bang, Singer Gallery at the Mizel Center

It was impossible to fully understand Komar and Melamid's Symbols of the Big Bang at the Mizel Center's Singer Gallery last fall, but the show was so good it didn't matter. The former Soviet artists did paintings and drawings in which different symbols were put together to create new ones, such as a combination of the Star of David with a swastika. In order to mount the exhibit, gallery director Simon Zalkind got a lot of help from Mina Litinsky, owner of Denver's Sloane Gallery and Komar and Melamid's local representative. It was wild stuff for a Jewish institution like the Mizel, but not for these politically motivated Jewish artists.

Best New Public Art (Since March 2003)

"Fire House," by Dennis Oppenheim, Denver Fire Station No. 9

Denver has spent a fortune on public art, but it hasn't always gotten its money's worth -- with the latest sorry example being Jonathan Borofsky's "The Dancers," which cost more than $1.5 million. Once in a while, though, the city picks up a bargain such as "Fire House," which internationally renowned New York conceptual artist Dennis Oppenheim created for just over $40,000. The aluminum-and-acrylic sculpture depicts a house held aloft by ladders; a lighting system conveys the idea that it's on fire. The conflagration of imagery is unusual, but perfect for such a site-specific piece.

Best New Public Art in the 'Burbs

"Virere," by Lawrence Argent

Local municipalities have been promoting drought-friendly grasses that stay green with less water, but last year, Englewood went further by planting "turf" in a South Broadway median that requires no water. The "grass" in question is a colored-aluminum sculpture called "Virere," by Lawrence Argent, the first of four works the Denver artist is doing for the town. Though "Virere" has blades that tower several stories over the street, it will never need mowing, either.

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