Plan ahead, and get ready to paint the town:
Eamon Ore-Giron Artist Talk and DJ Set
The Holiday Theater, 2644 West 32nd Avenue
Thursday, April 28, doors at 6 p.m.
$15 MCA members, $20 non-members
Eamon Ore-Giron’s large-scale paintings homogenize twentieth-century modernist art movements to great visual effect, one minute reflecting age-old Indigenous patterns, Malevich the next, and so on, in a geometrical, historical mix. Competing With Lightning, his show at MCA Denver, also reflects the musical waves of his performance mode as DJ Lengua, with paintings reminiscent of the shapes and rays in Oskar Fischinger’s influential music animations of the ’30s and ’40s, in a tapestry-lined sound installation set apart from the rest of the exhibition. This talk — a conversation between MCA curator Miranda Lash and Los Jaichackers, the DJ collaboration of Ore-Giron and fellow artist Julio Cesar Morales — dives into this piece of his practice. Bonus: Stick around after the talk for a live set by Los Jaichackers.
Untitled: Creative Fusions
Denver Art Museum, 100 West 14th Avenue Parkway
Friday, April 29, 6 to 10 p.m.
Included in museum admission
Untitled: Creative Fusions brings the theme of "Voices Breaking Down Borders" to the Denver Art Museum under the leadership of musician/healer and artist Bianca Mikahn and muralist Danielle SeeWalker, a citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. The liberating evening will immerse visitors in American cultures of the displaced and underserved through Indigenous rituals, food, comedy and documentation by film and imagery, as well as Black performance, music, therapies and visuals. It's all tied into the museum’s La Malinche exhibition and its themes of cultural reclamation.
Hangama Amiri, Mehmani/Guests, 2022, Chiffon, muslin, cotton, polyester, silk, velvet, vinyl, ikat-print, suede, and found fabric.
Hangama Amiri, courtesy of David B. Smith Gallery
David B. Smith Gallery, 1543-A Wazee Street
Friday, April 29, through June 18
Opening Reception: Friday, April 29, 6 to 8 p.m.
Artist Talk and Exhibition Walk-Through: Saturday, April 30, 2 p.m.
Part Afghan, part Canadian, artist Hangama Amiri sources the culture of her hometown of Kabul for her debut at David B. Smith Gallery. The series is dominated by intimate visual imagery from the private home lives of women in Afghanistan’s largest city, where they suffer limited freedoms yet resiliently preserve traditions. Learn more about the work when Amiri and curator Kate Mothes discuss Henna Night/Shabe Kheena during a walk-through of the exhibition.
Line and Weight: Courtney Giblin and Clark Valentine
Firehouse Art Center, 667 4th Avenue, Longmont
Friday, April 29, through June 5
Yoga and Musical Meditation: Saturday, April 30, 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Artist Talk: Thursday, May 5, 6 p.m.
Second Friday Opening: Friday, May 13, 6 to 9 p.m.
Artists Courtney Giblin and Clark Valentine both work within the limited strictures named in their shared exhibition’s title, which not only intimates a spare compositional vision, but also an uncomplicated, meditative practice. That might explain why Firehouse added a morning of yoga, meditation and kirtan (Hindu chanting) to its programming for Line and Weight on Saturday, April 30. The 10:30 a.m. yoga class has a $12 fee and runs for an hour; kirtan begins at 11:45 a.m. and will be followed by refreshments and show viewing.
Aaron Storck, Ready for the Future
Lane Meyer Projects, 2528 Walnut Street
Friday, April 29, through May 29
Opening Reception: Friday, April 29, 8 p.m.
Lane Meyer Projects at Pon Pon Bar opens its doors to artist Aaron Storck from Kansas City, whose humorous series of paintings, video and sculpture concoct a tale of a silly and arcane oracle called the Wizard Nyngxt. What will the Wiz see in your future? Some sample fortunes include “2070—DANG” and “GOOD TIMES, 2200.” That’s all we know.
A hubcap grid by Phil Bender at Pirate.
Phil Bender
Abby Gregg, Decorator Crab
Collaborative work by students in Abby Gregg's Concepts in Painting and Drawing course, CU Denver
Pirate: Contemporary Art, 7130 West 16th Avenue, Lakewood
Friday, April 29, through May 15
Opening Reception: Friday, April 29, 6 to 9 p.m.
Phil Bender hangs another eponymous show of gridded objects, while fellow Pirate Abby Gregg expresses herself in heavily daubed abstract paintings drawing on the landscape. Gregg’s CU Denver Concepts in Painting and Drawing students also have space in the gallery to show off a group collaboration.
Ursula von Rydingsvard: The Contour of Feeling
Denver Botanic Gardens, 1007 York Street
Saturday, April 30, through September 11
Film Screening and Artist Q&A: Ursula von Rydingsvard: Into Her Own, Friday, April 29, 6 to 8 p.m., $12-$15
Curator Conversations: Thursdays, May 12, June 16, July 28 and August 18, 9:30 to 10:15 a.m., $13-$19
Brooklyn-based sculptor Ursula von Rydingsvard’s rustic practice generates monumental works from rough-hewn cedar wood and bronze. But this indoor show at the Gardens represents smaller — but no less compelling — work including cedar sculptures and early works consisting of collected objects and mixed-media drawings. For more insights, curator conversations are scheduled once monthly through August.
Matt Tripodi, 1982
Leon Gallery, 112 East 17th Avenue
Through June 11
Opening Reception: Saturday, April 30, 7 to 11 p.m.; karaoke at 9 p.m.
Matt Tripodi named this Leon show 1982 for his birth year, a clue that the work therein is autobiographical on some level. In this case, he shows an inherent sense of inbetweenness or, as he describes it, “being caught between two disparate generations, analog and digital.” In that spirit, he used manual tools — neon, airbrush, wood-burning, etc. — to create art that might bring a smile to the lips of his fellow millennials.
Matt Verges and Robert Davis Garner, Samsara
Valkarie Gallery, 445 South Saulsbury Street, Lakewood
Through May 22
Opening Reception: Saturday, April 30, 5 to 8:30 p.m.
Matt Verges offers skulls decorated with intricate drawings rendered in ink and prints on wood of creatures bound by the faltering environment, and Robert Davis Garner paints portraits of characters caught in their singular worlds without chance of escape. Seen together, the bodies of work seem to fit together like puzzle pieces. Continuing shows include ceramic sculpture by Penny Bidwell, through May 29, and a resident artist group show.
Carla Fernández, headpieces made in collaboration with Mariana Palacios, Mexico City.
Photo by © Sandra Blow
Denver Art Museum, 100 West 14th Avenue Parkway
Sunday, May 1, through September 5
The couture brand of Mexican artist and fashion designer Carla Fernández incorporates handmade Indigenous textiles into her distinct modern garb, going directly to the source in a traveling studio to work with master artisans. The exhibition Carla Fernández Casa de Moda examines the Fernández oeuvre from various themes, mapping out and introducing her textile sources and taking closer looks at her patterns, collaborations, collections and activism, to name a few.
Modern Women/Modern Vision: Works From the Bank of America Collection
Denver Art Museum, 100 West 14th Avenue Parkway
Sunday, May 1, through August 28
Anderman Photography Lecture: Sandy Skoglund, Tuesday, May 31, 6 to 7 p.m., $10-$20 (museum members free)
Women have always upheld their end of the photography canon: Berenice Abbott, Diane Arbus, Margaret Bourke-White, Imogen Cunningham, Dorothea Lange, Cindy Sherman and a host of others whose works are among the 100 images of Modern Women/Modern Vision have proven so again and again. Perhaps it was because it was easy to independently pick up a camera and start shooting, but these women stand tall next to their male counterparts. For context, the exhibition is organized in six sections to help you through it, exploring female inroads in photography in terms of innovators, documentary work, the Photo League (a cooperative formed in 1936), modern masters, environmental work and the global lens.
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