Terry Maker and Walter Robinson: sculpture
Kiki Smith: tapestries and prints
Fred Stonehouse: paintings, drawings and prints
Christian Rex van Minnen: paintings, sculptures and monotypes
Robischon Gallery, 1740 Wazee Street
September 19 through November 9
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 19, 6 to 8 p.m.
Robischon Gallery greets fall with a strong lineup: A two-person show from Terry Maker and Walter Robinson, a pair of sculptors working with common and found materials, and three solo exhibitions showcasing modern woman-centric tapestries by Kiki Smith, the carnivalesque pseudo-folk art of Fred Stonehouse and Christian Rex van Minnen’s grotesque, pop-surreal takes on the Old Masters. Have fun: This roster promises an eyeful.
Oliver Herring: 31 Days
Emmanuel Gallery, 1205 10th Street Plaza, Auraria campus
September 19 through December 14
German artist Oliver Herring, whose influential TASK community-art platform drives his collaborational worldwide residencies, has spent the last month working with students, community members and anyone else who happened to walk into CU Denver’s Emmanuel Gallery to create a site-specific installation from scratch. The resulting environment, 31 Days, blends performative photo-portraiture, video, dance and fiber art.
Natascha Seideneck, detail from "Horizon," archival pigment print on aluminum, resin coated.
Natascha Seideneck
Downtown Aurora Visual Arts (DAVA), 1405 Florence Street, Aurora
September 19 through November 13
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 19, 4 to 7 p.m.
DAVA’s fall show, which had students doing fieldwork, shooting films and creating art referencing the ravages of climate change and pollution this summer, is all about saving the planet. For the crowning touch, guest mentors Anna Kaye and Natascha Seideneck added their own brands of artwork about our suffering environment to the exhibition. DAVA youth films will be screened during the reception.
Artists Andrew Bablo and Helen Popinchalk re-created the Yucca Fountain at the University of Northern Colorado.
Andrew Bablo and Helen Popinchalk
Campus Commons Gallery, 1021 22nd Street, University of Northern Colorado, Greeley
September 19 through March 14
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 19, 4 to 9 p.m.
Bostonians Andrew Bablo and Helen Popinchalk raised up a desert legend from the dust at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, re-creating Nevada’s atomic-era soda shop Yucca Fountain, right down to the shiny chrome fountain fixtures and comfy tuck-and-roll upholstered booths, as a working art installation. Yucca Fountain will kick off the year for UNC’s galleries with a reception where you can order up fountain-style food and drink (cash only) while bidding summer goodbye. Proceeds will benefit the UNC Bear Food Pantry.
Renluka Maharaj, "The Ties That Bind," 2019, acrylic paint, beads, gemstone embellishments, and adhesive on pigmented ink print.
Renluka Maharaj, Rule Gallery
Rule Gallery, 808 Santa Fe Drive
September 20 through November 2
Opening Reception: Friday, September 20, 6 to 9 p.m.
Renluka Maharaj’s photography-based practice crosses mediums and cultures in posed photos and bright bead-embellished pigmented prints that revive scenes from her post-colonial heritage as an Indian born in Trinidad and Tobago. Politics and history broil beneath Mahara’s colorful portraits.
The Littleton Museum hosts Within and Without, a solo exhibition by Nathan Abels.
Nathan Abels, Rule Gallery
Littleton Museum, 6028 South Gallup Street, Littleton
September 20 to October 20
Another Rule artist, Nathan Abels, will wander over to the Littleton Museum for a solo exhibition of his atmospheric paintings, which somehow seem to be supernaturally composed from pure light and particles of dust. Get a closer look at his mystical moments at this month-long show.
A still from Rick Niebe's 2018 film Graffiti, part of the Unseen Festival's opening-night program.
Rick Niebe'
Counterpath, 7935 East 14th Avenue
September 20 through 29, 7:30 p.m. nightly
$10 nightly, $70 festival pass
Against all odds, the Unseen Festival, a fully loaded, ten-evening slate of international experimental film — with literary readings and dance performances thrown in — returns for a third year to the small-press and performance space Counterpath, located on the eastern edge of Denver. Join Denver’s avant-garde film community and anyone else looking for something new and different for nightly themed screenings; get the full lowdown on the films, filmmakers, writers and performers at counterpathpress.org.
Carrie MaKenna and Kelly Austin-Rolo, Topographic Groundwork
D’art Gallery, 900 Santa Fe Drive
September 19 through October 13
Opening Reception: Friday, September 20, 6 to 9 p.m.
Carrie MaKenna Artist Talk: Sunday, September 29, 1 to 2 p.m.
D’art gets down to business after its introductory member show with work drawn from the textures of nature by Carrie MaKenna and Kelly Austin-Rolo. Both artists build up their canvases from a base. MaKenna layers found materials from nature atop acrylic paint and Austin-Rolo’s works are scraped or torch-fused or layered with beeswax — or maybe all three and more.
Virginia T Coleman, The Allure of Steel
Catherine Carilli, The Collective Unconscious: Nature and the Imagination
Next Gallery, 6851 West Colfax Avenue, Lakewood
September 20 through October 8
Opening Reception: Friday, September 20, 6 to 10 p.m.
Next features raw, minimal steel sculpture by Virginia T. Coleman and hazy, nature-based abstracts, landscapes and still-lifes by Catherine Carilli.
Sandy Marvin, Odes to Common Things
Patricia Rucker, The Lively Landscape
SYNC Gallery, 931 Santa Fe Drive
September 19 through October 12
Opening Reception: Friday, September 20, 6 to 9 p.m.
Sandy Marvin, known for her landscapes, unveils pastel paintings of ordinary objects, and Patricia Rucker chimes in with swirling, subtly colored monotype landscapes.
Dark Side of Sage
Bitfactory Gallery, 851 Santa Fe Drive
September 20 through October 10
Opening Reception: Friday, September 20, 6 to 9 p.m.
Folks sometimes forget that tattoo artists are first and foremost artists with specialized skills. The Dark Side of Sage pulls together the tattoo artists of Black Sage Studios in Evergreen — Melis Fusco, Brian Henry, Milo Alfring and Sharon Healy — for an exhibition of art in a rainbow of mediums other than ink on skin. Now you can have art by one person on your arm and on your wall.
The 21st Colorado International Invitational Poster Exhibition
Curfman Gallery, Lory Student Center, and Hatton Gallery, Visual Art Building, Colorado State University, Fort Collins
September 20 through November 1
Opening Reception: Friday, September 20, 6 to 9 p.m.
Poster art, a bold embrace between design and purpose, never gets old. Like clever TV commercials or startling book covers, posters can catch your eye and draw you into interesting places. The international showcase CIIPE21 is all about popular imagery, with a message on an accessible level (yes, you can buy posters, too) and a fascinating walk through the annals of artistic ingenuity. The show opens with a fancy catered reception and cash bar, which sounds pretty snazzy.
Para Mi Pueblo: Chicano/a Murals From Colorado Artists, through December 22
Bauhaus 100: Good Design Is for Everyone, through December 22
Los Supersónicos, through October 25
Street Art Murals: From Blank Urban Walls to Works of Art, through September 29
McNichols Building, 144 West Colfax Avenue
The McNichols Project: Outside/In Celebration: Saturday, September 21, 6 to 9 p.m.
The fall exhibitions at the McNichols building are sweeping in scope, anchored by Para Mi Pueblo: Chicano/a Murals from Colorado Artists, a big bow to fifty years of local Chicano history with examples of work by a multi-generational crew of artists who work big. The show is supported by Street Art Murals, a celebration of Denver’s Urban Arts Fund mural commissions, which have transformed concrete walls all over town, and “El Grito de Aztlán,” a large-scale painting by Carlos Frésquez and Francisco Zamora (aka Los Supersónicos). Somehow, the unrelated Bauhaus 100: Design and Sustainability takes over the building’s second-floor galleries, but we’ll take it.
Valerie Savarie and Sharon Eisley, Nest
Valkarie Gallery, 445 South Saulsbury Street, Lakewood
Through October 13
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 21, 5 to 8:30 p.m.
Valkarie Gallery artists Valerie Savarie and Sharon Eisley are back with their annual duo showcase focusing on Savarie’s mixed-media carved-book sculptures and Eisley’s anthropomorphic animal paintings. An annual highlight is the opening of the Cabinet of Curiosities, which will be unveiled at the reception at 6:23 p.m. We’re keeping mum on that.
Juntae TeeJay Hwang, Creative-in-Residence Final Performance
Denver Art Museum, 100 West 14th Avenue Parkway
Saturday, September 21, 6 to 8 p.m.
Free, register in advance
Multimedia performance artist Juntae TeeJay Hwang has spent the last few months in residence at the Denver Art Museum, where he’s led impromptu workshops on different aspects of performative expression. As his residency comes to the end of the line, the artist will give a farewell performance, “Reflection,” in Sharp Auditorium. It’s free, but you must register in advance.
Susan Blake, Rule Gallery
Mr. Pool, 2347 South Street, Boulder
September 22 through November 16
Opening Reception: Sunday, September 22, 1 to 4 p.m.
Rule pops up yet again this weekend at Mr. Pool, where a well-matched show of pattern-based works by Susan Blake and Bruce Price will hang through November 16. These are paintings you can stare at for a long time.
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.
