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Engage in word and art games, explore cultures, appreciate murals, and visit artist studios and Lakewood co-ops: These are just a few of the ways you can celebrate culture around town. Here’s our selection of twelve ways to support your local artists and art venues this weekend:
EXPANDNude vs. Naked
Figuratively Speaking
Art Gym, 1460 Leyden Street
October 10 through November 1
Opening Reception: Thursday, October 10, 5 to 8 p.m.
Synonyms aren’t always foolproof: They can share subtle variations on a theme. Curators Lori Hellstrom and Elke McGuire found they diverged on the exactitudes of the terms “nude” and “naked,” thereby setting in motion the five-person exhibition Nude vs. Naked, opening on October 10 in the main gallery at the Art Gym. Michael Dowling, Brenda LaBier, Wendi Schneider, Noah Sodano and Ouida Touchon all created art illustrating their own definitions. And in the Common Space members’ gallery, Peter Stevinson and Louis Trujillo explore gender politics from an empathetic perspective.
Collect This! Secret Love Collective Game Show
Center for Visual Art, 965 Santa Fe Drive
Thursday, October 10, 6:30 to 8 p.m.
Free, RSVP at eventbrite.com
The members of Denver’s Secret Love Collective find the loveliest ways of expressing their queer values of love and acceptance while making everyone feel at home, regardless of gender. In conjunction with the CVA’s ongoing Collectivism show, which closes on October 19, the group will host a public game show that involves costumes, puppets and a lot of artful imagination. Be who you are for a night, free of social restraints. RSVP in advance for the free event.
Dionne Lee and Sofía Córdova, Green Gra$$
Lane Meyer Projects, 2528 Walnut Street
October 11 through November 12
Opening reception: Friday, October 11, 6 p.m. until late
More linguistic distinctions come into play at Lane Meyer Projects, where artists Sofía Córdova and Dionne Lee contrast green dollars and green growing things in an installation that showcases the encroachment of capitalism on the natural world. Green Gra$$, curated by Tatiana Mateus, blends Lee’s found images and Córdova’s dreams of a dystopian future to make its point.
Lim Ok-sang
Art Students League of Denver, 200 Grant Street
October 11 through November 29
Opening Reception: Friday, October 11, 5:30 to 8 p.m.
Workshop: Painting with Soil — Self Portrait, Saturday and Sunday, October 12 and 13, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Workshop fee: $300
Dynamic Korean artist Lim Ok-sang conflates art and politics in his hands-on works, using diverse and natural materials, from steel sheets and ink to site-specific dirt, to powerfully express his views. Already included in the current exhibition, counterART: Aesthetics of South Korean Activism, the artist gets a show of his own at ASLD, curated by Denver sculptor Sammy Lee. Are you free for the weekend? Get your hands dirty when Lim Ok-sang facilitates a self-portrait workshop using the aforementioned soil as a medium.
Selections from: Voices From the Drum: An Osage Collection
Museum of Anthropology, Sturm Hall, University of Denver, 2000 East Asbury Avenue
October 11 through October 25
Opening Reception: Friday, October 11, 5 to 7 p.m.
Free, $5 suggested donation
In conjunction with the sixteenth annual Indigenous Film & Arts Festival, DU’s Museum of Anthropology will offer a preview of a major exhibition of handcrafted native drums by master drum-maker Rock Pipestem that opens in 2020 at the Osage Nation Museum in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. The imagery on each drum is drenched in Osage tradition and lore; Pipestem and fellow artisans Addie Roanhorse and Yatika Fields will elaborate in a talk at the reception.
La Frontera de Cristal
Colorado Photographic Arts Center, 1070 Bannock Street
October 11 through November 23
Opening Reception: Friday, October 11, 6 to 9 p.m.
CPAC takes on the current border situation for La Frontera de Cristal, inspired by the 1995 novel of the same name by author Carlos Fuentes, who weaves together complicated stories from both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. Three photographers — Griselda San Martin, Tom Kiefer and Elliot Ross — offer varying points of view: San Martin documents Friendship Park, where families meet to communicate from both sides of the barrier that separates them; Kiefer photographs collections of personal items confiscated by the Border Patrol at an Arizona customs facility; and Ross captures the fleeting lives of border dwellers with writer Genevieve Allison, resulting in the book American Backyard. It’s a documentarians' free-for-all that goes straight to the heart.
Blake Chamness and Mary Elizabeth Cianciolo, There Is Only Now
The Portrait Show
Next Gallery, Pasternack’s Art Hub, 6851 West Colfax Avenue, Unit B, Lakewood
October 11 through November 17
Opening Reception: Friday, October 11, 6 to 10 p.m.
Multidisciplinary artist Blake Chamness and painter Mary Elizabeth Cianciolo, both gallery members, collaborate on a show about disappearing nature and wildlife. Also debuting: a member group show of portraits. Pasternack’s will be hopping on Friday, with incoming co-op Edge Gallery hosting a reception and lights-out evening for member Stephen Shugart’s show of glowy light sculptures.
Kathie Olivas and Brandt Peters, Snake Oil
Sally Centigrade Art Gallery, Belmar, 445 South Saulsbury Street
Opening Reception: Saturday, October 12, 5 to 9:30 p.m.
The folks at Sally Centrigrade are beside themselves at the prospect of unveiling Snake Oil, featuring art couple Kathie Olivas and Brandt Peters and their pop-surreal portfolio, some of it collaborative under the moniker of Circus Posterus. The show, a collector's paradise, features a continuing series of mixed-media paintings and collectible vinyl toys inspired by the sideshow world of curative elixirs and faith healers.
EXPANDFifth Annual Glens Art Walk
Glen Creighton Neighborhood, Lakewood
Saturday, October 12, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The artists of Lakewood’s quaint Glen Creighton neighborhood open their studios to the public for the fifth year in a row for art-viewing and pre-holiday shopping from a selection of jewelry, metal sculpture, painting, photography, encaustic, pottery, silk painting, fine violins, local honey and beeswax, and other surprises. Find a map and complete studio rundown at the website.
EXPANDThe Broadmoor Art Academy and Its Legacy, 1919-1970
Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College, 30 West Dale Street, Colorado Springs
October 12 through January 12
Opening and BAA 100th Anniversary Celebration: Saturday, October 12, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
The Broadmoor Art Academy opened exactly 100 years ago on the spot where CSFAC now stands, beginning a chapter in regional art history that produced dozens of early-twentieth-century masters of genres ranging from impressionism to social realism — and everything in between. The extensive collection of more than 100 works were loaned by collections across the nation for a complete overview of the academy’s artist milieu. A centennial celebration opens the show on Saturday.
EXPANDIndigenous People’s Day Mural Dedication
Dairy Arts Center, 2590 Walnut Street, Boulder
Saturday, October 12, 10 to 11 a.m.
Through an effort by Street Wise and the City of Boulder, muralist and activist LMNOPI was allowed to honor missing and murdered indigenous women with a wall image at the Dairy Arts Center of local artist, dancer and actress Sarah Ortegon, superimposed over a topographical map of the Wind River Indian Reservation. In addition to coinciding with Indigenous People’s Day, the mural serves as a preview for upcoming collaborational events hosted by the Dairy with various indigenous communities and artists.
(This event has been postponed, and will be rescheduled)
Between Us Alleyways Project: Lares Feliciano, To the Moon
Colorado State Bank Building, 1600 Broadway
Mural Dedication: Sunday, October 13, 6 to 7:30 p.m.
The 2019 Between Us Alleyways Project, a mural-making collaboration between the Downtown Denver Partnership and the Downtown Denver BID, continues rolling along with the unveiling of a new wall painting by Denver artist Lares Feliciano. The digital collage To the Moon, which marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, pays homage with a dreamy sense of wonder. To go along with the theme, floral and/or galaxy-inspired attire is encouraged.
Interested in having your event appear in this calendar? Send information to editorial@westword.com. For more events this weekend, go to this week’s 21 Best Things to Do in Denver.
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