Phil Bender
Pirate: Contemporary Art
March 18 through April 3
Opening reception: 6 to 10 p.m. Friday, March 18
Head Pirate Phil Bender, who helped found the co-op gallery more than thirty years ago and whose work resides everywhere from flea-market bins to the Denver Art Museum, still takes a slot at Pirate every year, providing another chance to enjoy his elegant found-object grids. Don’t dawdle: As with all Pirate shows, Bender’s is up for only two weekends. William Manke exhibits in the associate space.
Grass/Roots: William Sutton and Jon Horvath
Colorado Photographic Arts Center
March 18 through April 28, 2016
Opening reception: 6 to 8 p.m. Friday, March 18
At the heart of CPAC’s new show, Grass/Roots, is a visual discussion of the American West from two different points of view. While Colorado photographer William Sutton focuses on the primal beauty of the untouched Wyoming grasslands, Milwaukee-based artist Jon Horvath points his camera at life in a small town on the Idaho plains. At 6:15 p.m. during tonight's reception, Sutton and Horvath will speak; catch the show at CPAC’s new digs in RiNo through the end of April.
Metagalactic
David B. Smith Gallery
March 18 through April 30
Opening reception: 7 to 9 p.m. Friday, March 18
Artists look to the sky for Metagalactic, a group show that explores space and its unknown realms, as seen from Planet Earth. Representations are as literal as a shot of the Milky Way from the NASA Hubble Space Telescope and as conceptual as DJ Spooky’s Voyager remix; in between, artists Michelle Blade, Ala Ebtekar, Tobias Fike, Cameron Gainer, Paul Jacobsen, Becca Mann and Chris Oatey paint, melt down and re-form meteorites, use the sun to burn holes in linen, and allow the weather to finish manmade work (among other things) while musing on our place in the infinite universe. Be prepared to feel like a speck in the cosmos!
Ravi Zupa
Black Book Gallery
March 19 through April 16
Opening reception: 6 to 10 p.m. Saturday, March 19
Denver artist and Westword MasterMind Ravi Zupa brings his international rep home for another turn at Black Book, showcasing his versatility and technical panache in mashing up influences from a global version of art history in paintings and prints, sculpting with found objects and speaking out on current issues with pointed imagery. Zupa will be in attendance at the opening; Dave Cooley’s Festooned hangs in the Project Room.
Daniel Sprick on Location from Museum of Outdoor Arts on Vimeo.
Daniel Sprick: Painting Out-of-DoorsMuseum of Outdoor Arts
March 19 through July 15
Opening reception: 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday, March 19
Denver painter Daniel Sprick brings the outdoors indoors in this new exhibit of more than fifty photorealistic plein-air works created specifically for MOA in the first of a series of exhibits there on the theme of “reinvention.” The show runs through July, but don’t miss the ritzy reception, which includes cocktails and bites, as well as a live set from the acoustic duo Tin Brother. Also on tap: paintings and animations in the White Box Gallery by Chicago-based artist Diane Christiansen, in conjunction with the Athena Project.
Want more? See the Westword event listings for current gallery and art museum exhibitions and openings in the metro area.
