Chihuly. For the past several years, the Denver Botanic Gardens has used its 24 acres of landscaped grounds as a setting for outdoor art exhibits. All have been popular, but none more so than Chihuly, which has attracted well over a million visitors to date. Artist Dale Chihuly, who emerged in the 1970s, is credited with being the first among those who transformed blown glass from its traditional use as a craft material into one used for fine art — in this case, by making monumental sculptures and installations. It is the latter type of work that made Chihuly a superstar in contemporary art. His signature method in creating these kinds of pieces is to combine, in a single work, scores, if not hundreds, of individual glass elements. Those elements are then assembled or otherwise arranged to create his finished pieces. Many of Chihuly's sculptures recall the forms and colors of plants, making them the perfect complement to the actual plants at the Gardens. Through November 30 at the Denver Botanic Gardens, 1007 York Street, 720-865-3200, botanicgardens.org.
Drips, Drops, Pours and Spins. Mike McClung, the director of Michael Warren Contemporary, has curated a show featuring four abstract artists who all use the liquid and viscous quality of pigments to create non-objective compositions, the subjects of which are the pigments themselves. The south side of the gallery is filled with luscious abstractions by Denver artist Quintin Gonzalez, who works the paint like cake icing. His bold sense of color lends his work a carnival-like character. On the north side are the comparable works of Melanie Rothschild of Los Angeles. Particularly striking is her installation of paint drips lifted off the surfaces to which they were first applied. In the spacious back gallery are works by California artist William Loveless, in which he drops ink or watercolors into glue so that they form point-based patterns. Finally, in the intimate niche space are drip paintings with embroidered cut-outs by L.A.-based Spanish artist Raul de la Torre. The affinities among the artists are so strong that this group endeavor reads like a solo. Through November 22 at Michael Warren Contemporary, 760 Santa Fe Drive, 303-667-2447, michaelwarrencontemporary.com.
Unbound: Sculpture in the Field. Since the Arvada Center sits on a very large site, exhibitions manager Collin Parson and assistant curator Kristin Bueb decided recently to use a small part of it – a seventeen-acre field just to the south of the complex – as a xeric sculpture garden. Parson and Bueb invited Cynthia Madden Leitner, of the Museum of Outdoor Arts in Englewood, to partner with the Venter in the effort. The MOA has made a specialty of placing large pieces of sculpture in various spots around metro Denver, and that technical expertise was very desirable. The group put together a list of sculptors they wanted to include, and the final roster of fifteen artists was established, with most being represented by two pieces. The participating artists, all of whom live in Colorado and work in abstraction or conceptual abstraction, are Vanessa Clarke, Emmett Culligan, John Ferguson, Erick Johnson, Andy Libertone, Nancy Lovendahl, Robert Mangold, Patrick Marold, David Mazza, Andy Miller, Charles Parson, Carl Reed, Joe Riché, Kevin Robb and Bill Vielehr. Through September 30, 2015, at the Arvada Center, 6901 Wadsworth Boulevard, 720-898-7200, arvadacenter.org. Reviewed July 10.
Urban Grotesque. The current solo at Point Gallery features work by David Menard done over the past few years. Though Menard uses photography — both his own and appropriated photos — he was trained in drawing and works digitally, having never used a darkroom. Using Photoshop, Menard scans photos and then combines them, forming singular images of imaginary scenes. He prints his enormous files at Ron Landucci's Infinite Images, attaches the prints to boards, then coats them with UV-protective resins. The results look like photo-based paintings rather than the digital prints they are. Several are dark and moody, like a pair of related works, "Gog" and "Magog," in which Menard's altered scenes of London is the shared subject. Nearby is "The Atonement," which is made up of transparent views of Denver that overlay each other, so that the tented roof of Denver International Airport runs across the top, with Jonathan Borofsky's "Dancers" standing like ghostly figures in front. A few pieces look completely abstract, like "To Have and To Have Not," which takes building fronts and turns them into a plaid pattern. Through November 29 at Point Gallery, 765 Santa Fe Drive, pointgallerydenver.com.
