Art Attack: Thirteen of the Best Things for Gallery Lovers to Do in Denver This Week

There’s no rest for art lovers in this town. What more can we say? Enrich your life once again and chart your course beginning with this lucky-thirteen list of destinations.

Trine Bumiller, Close Encounters
Bryan Dahlberg, Developing Reality
Jon Mason, Juicy Summer Prints
Art Gym Denver, 1460 Leyden Street
August 15 through September 6
Opening Reception: Thursday, August 15, 5 to 8 p.m.
There’s no telling if aliens led painter Trine Bumiller to Wyoming’s Devil’s Tower National Monument, the carved magma monolith that figures in the climax of Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. But if they did, she didn’t go with them. Instead, Bumiller brought back the dozens of views of the weird peak that her new show at Art Gym comprises. Share the mystery at the opening, and take in Art Gym member shows by Bryan Dahlberg and Jon Mason while you’re there.

The Richert Effect
Mary Harris Auditorium, Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design, 1600 Pierce Street, Lakewood
Reception and Panel Discussion: Thursday, August 15, 6 to 8:30 p.m.
Free, ticket required, RSVP at eventbrite.com
Part of Clark Richert’s enormous legacy as a leading pattern painter rests with former students he mentored while teaching at the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design. It’s a truth not lost on the curators of MCA Denver, where The Nth Dimension, a companion show to Richert’s current retrospective featuring work inspired by his tutelage, runs alongside the main attraction. Some of those rising artists — Joseph Coniff, Zach Reini, Karen McClanahan, Jason Hoelscher, Matthew Larson and Kate Nickel — will talk about that legacy with moderator Zoe Larkins in a panel discussion at RMCAD, the launching ground where their careers began.

Linda Lopez, Stranger
Secret Love Collective, Gay Renaissance
David B. Smith Gallery, 1543 Wazee Street
August 16 through September 14
Opening Reception: Friday, August 16, 6 to 8 p.m.
David B. Smith features a solo by Arkansas-based ceramics artist Linda Lopez, whose sculptures sometimes resemble weird cacti or dust mops in stunning ombre colors. In the project room, the queer-friendly Secret Love Collective, also currently featured at the Center for Visual Art, creates a site-specific installation and safe space out of random textiles, wild costumes and hand-sewn works of art.

JP Terlizzi, Christos J. Palios, and Meg Griffiths, Coming Together
Colorado Photographic Arts Center, 1070 Bannock Street
August 16 through September 28
Opening Reception: Friday, August 16, 6 to 9 p.m.
CPAC celebrates our everyday connections over meals with work by Meg Griffiths, Christos J. Palios and JP Terlizzi, a trio of photographers interested in how the daily rituals surrounding food bring people together in special ways. Griffiths and Terlizzi will be in the house to meet and greet during the reception.

Charles Livingston, Intersection
Abby Gregg, Amoebic Currents
Pirate: Contemporary Art, 7130 West 16th Avenue, Lakewood
August 16 through September 1
Opening reception, Friday, August 16, 6 to 10 p.m.
Charles Livingston focuses his camera and ear on the supernatural effect of experiences in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where he worked for five years, for Intersection, while ceramic artist and painter Abby Gregg, who often blends those separate practices in three-dimensional plates and vessels, shows off her latest work. Artist Dani Kautz guests with a show of figurative drawings with an empowering backstory.
Summer Camp
Rule Gallery, 808 Santa Fe Drive
August 16 through September 14
Opening reception, Friday, August 16, 6 to 9 p.m.
It’s summer at Rule, a time for gallery reunions among scattered artists whose paths have crossed in Denver. For Summer Camp, colleagues Sarah Bowling, Jillian FitzMaurice, Caleb Hahne, Adam Milner, George P. Perez and Ben Siekierski offer a hodgepodge of styles and mediums tied together by bonds of friendship, collaboration and mutual respect.

Brigitte Moeckli and Andreas Schmid, Viewpoints
Bitfactory Gallery, 851 Santa Fe Drive
August 16 through September 12
Opening reception, Friday, August 16, 6 to 9 p.m.
Bitfactory hosts a multimedia installation from Swiss artist Brigitte Moeckli and Denver drummer Andreas Schmid, who collaborated by mail over a year, sending each other random photographs that inspired a series of drum compositions by Schmid. In the end, the sound was mixed to accompany photo projections in dreamlike sequences. The show lands at Bitfactory after stops in Zurich and the south of France; the photographs will be for sale in the form of dye sublimation aluminum prints.

Lindee Zimmer
Art Can, 25th and Larimer streets, across from the Ramble Hotel, 1280 25th Street
August 16 through 31
Open Fridays and Saturdays, 5 to 10 p.m.
The Ramble Hotel’s Art Can, which opened earlier this summer with a show by Jack Ludlam, offers free short-term residencies to artists, who work and show the finished product in a converted shipping container across the street from the hotel. Art Can’s second resident, Denver muralist Lindee Zimmer, takes over this weekend; drop by on Friday and Saturday evenings through August 31 to see what she’s up to.

Hypnotic Turtle DreamBox Grand Opening, and Arlo White, Science Fiction
Hypnotic Turtle DreamBox, Broomfield (address TBA)
Opening Reception: Friday, August 16, 7 to 11 p.m.
RSVP on the Facebook page for more information
The tiny collective empire of Hypnotic Turtle founders Arlo and Kim Kennedy White has spawned a radio show on 1190, a record label, an art factory and now, the Hypnotic Turtle DreamBox, a gallery and performance space located somewhere in Broomfield. For the grand opening, the group will be putting out lots of live music, including sets by Tammy Shine and John Fuzz of Dressy Bessy, Dead Orchids and Victoria Lundy, along with Science Fiction, an exhibition of works by Arlo White. Tune in to the Facebook page for the latest info.


[Update: The sculpture "Monument for the 308" is held up in customs, and its debut as part of Monumental has been pushed back to the week of September 9.]

Andreas Greiner, “Monument for the 308”
Denver Central Library, 10 West 14th Avenue Parkway
August 17 through December 15
Black Cube rolls out another piece of the Monumental installation project with the debut of German artist Andreas Greiner’s “Monument for the 308,” a giant dinosaur-like skeleton sculpture that’s actually based on a common type of broiler chicken bio-designed for human consumption. Birds, after all, are descended from dinos, right?

Burner Bazaar and Fusion Factory Closing Yard Sale
The Fusion Factory, 3563 Walnut Street
Saturday and Sunday, August 17 and 18, noon to 7 p.m.
The Fusion Factory’s Burner Bazaar has been a touchstone event at the venue since 2011, but this next one’s a little different: It might be the last, or at least the last at the factory. Calamitee Meg and the rest of the Burning Man-devoted Fusion Factory peeps are losing their lease because of building-code violations and clearing out after the bazaar, which doubles as a moving sale. Come shop for burner gear and commiserate as another independent event space bites the dust.

CT Nelson: Through Thick and Thin
Threyda Gallery, 878 Santa Fe Drive
Opening Reception: Saturday, August 17, 6 to 10 p.m.
Denver oil painter CT Nelson rarely comes out of the woodwork to show new work, but when he does, it’s cause for excitement among the fans of his way-out, cosmic and heavily impastoed canvases. A group of Nelson’s favorite artists will show work alongside his twelve newest paintings. And don’t lollygag: The first 25 people in the door at 6 p.m. will receive a special signed print by Nelson.

Sharon Duwaik and Rene Farkass, The Buddy Buddy Art Show
Historic Robidoux House, 1615 Galena Street, Aurora
Saturday, August 17, noon to 5 p.m.
Sharon Duwaik and Rene Farkass are indeed buddies, and they’ve teamed up for a one-day show of recent and affordable artworks in a special setting at the M.J. Lavina Robidoux House, a gorgeous 1913 Craftsman-style Aurora landmark listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Blend art and history on a Saturday afternoon.

Interested in having your event appear in this calendar? Send the details to [email protected]. For more events this weekend, find details in this week’s 21 Best Things to Do in Denver.