And there's more! Here are the best shows to see at Denver galleries this weekend:
Cannupa Hanska Luger, _Mirror Shield Project" (detail). Action on November 18, 2016 at Oceti Sakowin Camp, Standing Rock, North Dakota, organized in collaboration with Rory Wakemup.
Photo courtesy of the artist and David B. Smith Gallery
Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (BMoCA), 1750 13th Street, Boulder
January 23 through May 4
Opening Reception: Thursday, January 23, Members’ Preview 5 to 6 p.m., and Public Reception 6 to 8 p.m. (pay what you can)
"Poetics of Space": An evening of poetic exploration with curator Rebecca DiDomenico, Thursday, March 20, 5 to 6:30 p.m.; $5 to $15 here
"The Light Within Dark Times" with Michael Meade: Friday, April 4, 5 to 7 p.m.; $25 to $30 here
Sunrise, sunset: It's the most basic rhythm of our shared world, with darkness and light trading places in perfect unison every night and day. We reset our circadian clocks as darkness and light pass from one hemisphere to the other. On Earth, they are opposing forces locked in an eternal dance; there is no one without the other. Dazzle of Darkness, curated by Rebecca DiDomenico, a Boulder-based artist who’s been known to explore this in her own work, opens this week at BMoCA, with 31 artists (including DiDomenico) exploring the eternal phenomenon in different ways and mediums. Some sculptural pieces might be lit from within, others use photographic effects, reflections, fiber optics or layers of shiny ceramic leaves mimicking a tapestry. Still others signify symbolic objects of protection. For further forays into the balance between darkness and light, BMoCA will host two special events during the show’s run.
A photo with Filipino rodeo signs from the 11,111 series by Yumi Janairo Roth and Emmanuel David.
Photo courtesy of the artists and David B. Smith Gallery
David B. Smith Gallery, 1543 A Wazee Street
January 23 through February 22
Opening Reception: Thursday, January 23, 5 to 8 p.m.
Artist Talk: Saturday, February 22, 3 to 5 p.m.
Artists Yumi Janairo Roth and Emmanuel David are not only art collaborators and fellow instructors at the University of Colorado Boulder, but they share Filipino heritage. That all came into play to bring Last Year’s Wonders All Surpassed together, connecting the handful of Filipinos who joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West tour in the wake of the Spanish American War and the modern cowboys of Masbate Island in the Philippines in an interesting historical tweak — just in time to coincide with the National Western Stock Show. Creating the installation was no simple task. The core of the exhibition is 11,111, a composite work comprising more than 130 paintings and video following the Wild West Show’s route across the nation in 1899, the result of 300 shows mounted across 11,111 miles. In present times, Roth and David worked with Filipino sign-painters in Manila to paint colorful welcoming posters, which accompany large color photographs the artists made of modern-day rodeo competitors and fans on Masbate, where the island’s livestock industry has thrived for centuries, beginning under Spanish colonial rule.
Revue 2025
International Print Exchange: Dragons!
Art Gym, 1460 Leyden Street
January 23 through February 16
Opening Reception: Thursday, January 23, 6 to 9 p.m.
Two new shows debut this week at Art Gym: Revue 2025, a culmination of the studio/gallery’s 2024 Porter Scholarship program, and Dragons!, from members of the International Print Exchange, a showcase by printmakers around the globe compiled by Art Gym print studio manager Gregory Santos. Themed to celebrate the Asian Year of the Dragon, the exhibition covers screenprint, linocut, reduction woodcut and monoprint techniques.
Living Land: 2025 Resident Artist Exhibition
RedLine Contemporary Art Center, 2350 Arapahoe Street
January 24 through March 30
Opening Reception: Friday, January 24, 6 to 8 p.m.; members free, $5 suggested donation for non-members
Curatorial Tour with Jane Burke: Saturday, February 15, 1:30 to 2:30 p.m.
RedLine’s annual resident artist showcases get straight to the facility’s core mission by showing what artists have accomplished at any point during their two-year studio residencies — and for that reason, they tend to be more inspiring than your average exhibition. RedLine sets these artists free by giving them the time and space for unfettered making with a built-in community to collaborate with and lean on. This year’s show with sixteen new and departing artists participating falls under the banner of Living Land, a theme contemporary artists take seriously, living as they are in the worsening danger zone of climate change. It was curated by Jane Burke, who is now leading Union Hall Gallery into fresh territories.
James Pringle Cook, “St. Vrain River,” oil on canvas.
James Pringle Cook, courtesy William Havu Gallery
James Pringle Cook, Interior Paintings
William Havu Gallery, 1040 Cherokee Street
January 24 through March 1
Opening Reception: Friday, January 24, 6 to 8 p.m.
The Havu Gallery goes traditional with moody oil cityscapes and landscapes by Jim Cook and delicious, textured landscapes by Lynn Boggess. Both will make you long for spring.
Marina Kassianidou, “A Partial History (Vol. VI)” (pages 2–3), 2024. Artist’s book of inkjet prints on 104gsm smooth matt paper..
Courtesy of the artist and NARS Foundation
Bonnie Lebesch, Play Nice
Marina Kassianidou, A Partial History
Museum of Art Fort Collins, 201 South College Avenue, Fort Collins
January 24 through March 16
Opening Reception: Friday, January 24, 6 to 8 p.m. (artist talks at 7 p.m.)
Three exhibitions with intertwined themes open simultaneously at the Museum of Art Fort Collins (MoA) this weekend, beginning with Jane Waggoner Deschner, an artist from Billings, MT who embroiders found family photos with excerpts of anonymous text from obituaries, blending elements of the personal with an objective eye. In MoA’s Lynnette C. Jung-Springberg Gallery, Fort Collins painter and fiber artist Bonnie Lebesch collages stitched, embroidered and painted cloth assemblages for the show Play Nice, and in the museum’s small new Vault Gallery gallery—an actual renovated vault—Marina Kassianidou’s A Partial History examines the artist’s models of books from her family archive in Crete, which she’s recreated complete with dents, tears, smudges and wormholes intact. The show is curated by the local collaborative artist-run art production and exhibition program Dinghy Rig, launched by Aitor Lajarin-Encina and Marius Lehene, who will continue collaborating with MoA for exhibitions in the vault.
Shelby Rahe, "Sleep Conductor."
Shelby Rahe
Lane Meyer Projects, 2528 Walnut Street
January 24 through March 17
Opening Reception: Friday, January 24, 8 p.m. to late
Adam Geluda Gildar and a supporting cast of artist friends have hung up their microphones after a good run of karaoke marathons, leaving the Lane Meyer Projects space within the Pon Pon Bar open for new exhibitions. It was a good run, but now the stage is set for artist and filmmaker Shelby Rahe to take over. Rahe’s show, I’m Falling Asleep, includes a one-channel video, two sculptures and a printed booklet on the subject of the hypnagogic experience of letting go in the space between falling asleep and dreaming.
Jasmine Dillavou: “Prophecy//Telling”
The Storeroom, 1700 Vine Street
Friday, January 24, 6:30 p.m.
Free
Jasmine Dillavou’s window exhibition Prophecy//Telling comes to an end at the Storeroom with a live Friday-evening performance of poetry and movement that morphs into a stream-of-consciousness writing ceremony.
Harita Patel, "A Lotus Grows Beyond This Pond."
Harita Patel
Harita Patel: Thresholds of Transformation
Jennifer Pettus: Begin Again
Nolan Tredway: Monsters in Business Suits
Edge Gallery, 40 West Hub, 6501 West Colfax Avenue
January 24 through February 9
Opening Reception: Friday, January 24, 6 to 9 p.m.
Edge Gallery opens a quartet of shows by associate members. For Pounce, Heather Hauptman shows off her embroidery skills with re-imagined women’s clothing she’s embroidered not just with illustrations, but with political retorts to the times. New associate Harita Patel mixes media, pairing relief printmaking techniques and painting to Japanese rice paper, while Jennifer Pettus continues in the direction of mixed-media fiber-based sculpture and assemblage and Nolan Tredway paints the secret monsters who walk among us for his possibly political show, Monsters in Business Suits.
Lisa Lee Adams, Stirrings
Susan McNeff Skokan, Swirlings
Collaboration, member show
Next Gallery, 40 West Hub, 6501 West Colfax Avenue
January 24 through February 9
Opening Reception: Friday, January 24, 5 to 9 p.m.
At Next, Lisa Lee Adams explores the restless worlds of creative stirrings and things that go bump in the night, rendered in mixed-media collage for a show called Stirrings, while Susan McNeff Skokan creates an alliterative immersive installation blending painting, sculpture, fiber art and found natural objects as a companion exhibition about natural rhythms called Swirlings. In the members gallery a new show, Collaboration, shows what artists can do when they work together.
Refracting Light: Work from Prism Studios
Core Art Space, 40 West Hub, 6501 West Colfax Avenue
January 24 through February 9
Opening Reception: Friday, January 24, 5 to 10 p.m.
Core’s got something different this time: a showcase for twenty artists working in studios at Prism Workspaces at Tenth Avenue and Vallejo Street in the La Alma Lincoln Park neighborhood. Called Refracting Light in tribute to Prism, the exhibition includes a rainbow of reflective works in different styles and mediums.
Gallery Garage Sale, Art Market and Closing Party
BRDG Project, 3300 Tejon Street
Sale/Art Market: Saturday, January 25, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Party: Saturday, January 25, 7 p.m. to midnight
Send off the BRDG Project two ways on January 25, the gallery’s last day at 3300 Tejon Street. During daylight hours, BRDG will host an art garage sale fundraiser and giveaway, as well as a small art market by community artists. After dark, it’s a party, with a last chance to view BRDG Project’s final shows—deMOCKracy and Circle. Gallery organizers hope to wash up on new shores eventually, but for the meantime, BRDG willbe wandering, seeking to open a new chapter.
Mug to Mug
Friend of a Friend Gallery, 3575 Chestnut Place, Suite 112
January 25 through March 1
Opening Reception: Saturday, January 25, 7 to 10 p.m.
Friend of a Friend, the project space originally started by artist Derrick Velasquez, will christen a new gallery space on Saturday, January 25, after going dark in its last iteration at the Evans School. It returns in a bigger, better space with new co-directors Jenny Nagashima and Ian Gutin, who will join Velasquez in jazzing up the concept with a more commercial—but maybe not too commercial—edge. The first show, then, is all about making friends. Called Mug to Mug, the show is an exchange of handmade mugs and portrait makers among friendly faces. Friend of Friend describes it as a “group hug” between forty artists from ten states. And you.
Interested in having your event appear in this calendar? Send the details to [email protected].
