Denver Office of Cultural Affairs

Reader: Arts & Venues merger diminishes Denver's arts efforts in name of efficiency

​In a recent post, Patricia Calhoun weighed in on critics of Arts & Venues, which merged Denver Office of Cultural Affairs and the Division of Theatres & Arenas. Taking issue is Anthony Radich, second chair of the Denver Commission on Cultural Affairs and executive director of the Western Stat ... More >>

Arts & Venues Denver merger not a hit with critics

​Michael Hancock hasn't yet taken office as mayor of Denver. That's on tap for later today. But Hancock's already being pressured by some arts advocates to take another look at the recent merger of the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs and the Division of Theatres & Arenas into Arts & Venues ... More >>

The One Book, One Denver selections this year have ties to... uh, Seattle?

​Despite the fact that there is no known shortage of awesome writers, authors and poets in this town, the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs' One Book, One Denver program has a long history of coming up with arbitrary treacle that has nothing to do with Denver for the three selections it nomina ... More >>

Arts & Venues Denver: The city's artful merger of culture and concrete

​In cash-strapped times, governments have to think creatively -- and it was the budget crunch that led to the idea of merging the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs with the Division of Theatres and Arenas, itself a subset of the Department of General Services. That marriage becomes official to ... More >>

A new sculpture for Denver comes at a steep price

​A little over four years ago, Frank Bingham's entire family was killed at the corner of 15th and Arapahoe streets downtown when he, his wife and two children were struck by a drunk driver while crossing the street. Only Bingham survived. At the time, Bingham was the director of the University ... More >>

An indefinite future for a giant blue ball and chain made out of yarn

​In the quiet hour of 4 o'clock this morning, the Ladies Fancywork Society struck again. The organization, devoted to epic works of guerrilla knitting, brought to completion what is arguably its biggest project yet (or at least since it knitted leg-warmers onto Borofsky's "Dancers"): knitting ... More >>

Denver won't have a rhyme in time for National Poetry Month

Denver Office of Cultural Affairs and Division of Theatres and Arenas to merge for art's sake?

​Denverites love the arts -- but the arts didn't officially become a part of the city structure until "1 percent for the arts," a program established under Mayor Federico Peña that earmarked one percent of any city construction project for art works. Even as that project grew, so did the str ... More >>

Curtis Fuller to headline Five Points Jazz Fest

​While this year's line-up for the the 8th Annual Five Points Jazz Festival is still being solidified and won't be announced until April, we do know legendary trombonist Curtis Fuller will headlines this year's fest, which is Saturday, May 21 at venues along Welton Street in historic Five Poin ... More >>

NewsCube's no more, but YesPleaseMore Pop Up Store pops up again on the 16th Street Mall

​The pianos have been silenced -- for now -- and the NewsCube was closed after just a few weeks of operation. But there are still signs of life popping up on the 16th Street Mall, including the skating rink that will open in Skyline Park after Thanksgiving and a second installment of the YesP ... More >>

John Hickenlooper handlers disagree about letting him go on David Sirota AM 760 show?

John Hickenlooper.​While officially anointed (by GOP boss Dick Wadhams) luckiest-guy-in-the-world John Hickenlooper is running for governor, did you know he's still Denver's mayor? Well, he is -- and AM 760 host David Sirota thinks these two roles came into conflict earlier this week in regard ... More >>

The Rhythm Is Gonna Move You

Denver Office of Cultural Affairs wants your Civic Center snap judgments

The view from Civic Center on July 3.​This summer the Biennial of the Americas has made Civic Center Park the epicenter of, if not the world, at least the Western Hemisphere. And now the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs wants your snap judgments of the action there.

City Sites

One Book, One Denver, one last chance to vote today

This book will not help you understand Denver​If you haven't yet voted for your choice for the next round of One Book, One Denver, then start panicking. Today is the last day to help choose the book that Mayor John Hickenlooper will command everybody to read this fall, in order that we may be ... More >>

Party in Five Points

Arty Party!

Kenny Be's Sign Language: You're invited to a gigantic guitar art party in Westwood

click image to enlarge​ The tiara-topped, oversized red guitar sitting on the new Westwood welcome sign seems to have magically appeared out of nowhere last weekend, but it has actually been over ten years in the making. The newly landscaped corner lot where Morrison Road meets South Sherida ... More >>

Burns Park sculpture to have work done

Wake-Up Call: Throwing the book

Here's the great thing about a book. Once you have it in your hands, it never goes offline. The Denver Office of Cultural Affairs hasn't been so lucky with the web site where the city's residents are invited to help choose the next One Book, One Denver selection. Voting allegedly started on June 1 ... More >>

Wake-Up Call: High on the Mile Haiku City

Verse came to worse last night at the Central Library, where close to a hundred people gathered for last night's Fresh City Life poetry reading inspired by "Mustang," Luis Jimenez's blue horse sculpture out at Denver International Airport. We were in the depths of the basement, but spirits soared ... More >>

Wake Up Call: The week ahead -- when worse comes to verse

Before we were panicked about swine flu and twisted by torture-memo leaks, we were terrified by the Devil Horse, Luis Jimenez's killer sculpture that stands guard outside Denver International Airport, its red eyes shooting deadly lasers at unsuspecting passersby. Or are those glowing orbs actually ... More >>

Sites Unseen

Doors Open Denver keeps growing.

City announces program to fight graffiti by paying for murals

Denver Office of Cultural AffairsA city-funded mural in Globeville City officials announced a new program yesterday that will encourage artists to paint murals on walls across the city as a way to fight graffiti vandalism. Erin Trapp of the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs told members of the ci ... More >>

Wake-Up Call: Pony up for the Arts

Fresh from shmoozing with Barack Obama, John Hickenlooper will be at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House tonight, presenting the 2008 Mayor's Awards for Excellence in the Arts to Charles Burrell, the Denver Young Artists, Su Teatro and the Bloomsbury Review, as well as a Mayor's Cultural Legacy Award t ... More >>

One Book, Many Attitudes

Graffiti prevention makes the city budget...for now

Denver discovers the difference between art and vandalism

Shepard Fairey’s Manifest Hope camps out at Andenken Gallery

Let Freedom Reel

Cinemocracy Rocks! puts democracy into film.

Art of the City

Convergence is the name of the game in Dialog:City.

Chandler Romeo’s Heart Land

Creative Space Survey Released

Mystery of the Missing Horse

The Denver Biennial

Democracy in Action

Cinemocracy brings the filmmaking to the people.

Down to Business

The View From Here

Denver creatives sound off on what they'd like to see happen in Denver's arts scene in the next year.

Denver Envisions the Art Scene in 2028

We asked these local creatives to predict what the arts scene in Denver will, or at least should, look like in 2028.

Kurt's Mile-High Celebration

Appreciate, depreciate or just plain celebrate Kurt Vonnegut today.

It’s Not Over ’Til the Fat Lady Strips

While a popular gallery closes up in Denver, Glendale strippers take it almost all off for the opera.

Down in the Valley

Public art's all a-bloom.

Pour It On

Art goes dry.

Get to the Points

Building Blocks

Learn to merge art and life at the Creative Business Expo.

Awards Away

Denise Montgomery and John Grant

Denver Office of Cultural Affairs

Creative Thinking

Denver gets down to business about the arts.

What's So Funny

Open Up, Denver!

Places that are normally out of sight see daylight during Doors Open Denver.