15 Colorado Artists. The Kirkland Museum is presenting a historical show that tracks the beginnings of post-war modernism in Denver using the artist group 15 Colorado Artists as an index. The story goes that the Denver Artists Guild was hostile to modernism at the time. This led to a split,…
There are three sharp-looking shows at Spark Gallery (900 Santa Fe Drive, 720-889-2200, www.sparkgallery.com) that feature abstraction, hyper-realism and animation-inspired imagery. Sue Simon: Trajectory is an elegant show in which multi-panel paintings combine linear abstractions with mathematical equations. The point is that everything in the universe is in motion, even…
15 Colorado Artists. The Kirkland Museum is presenting a historical show that tracks the beginnings of post-war modernism in Denver using the artist group 15 Colorado Artists as an index. The story goes that the Denver Artists Guild was hostile to modernism at the time. This led to a split,…
When people think of Colorado Springs these days, right-wing Christian fundamentalist politics come to mind more than art does. But for much of the twentieth century, the city at the base of Pikes Peak was the unrivaled center of the state’s art world. The best evidence of this is the…
15 Colorado Artists. The Kirkland Museum is presenting a historical show that tracks the beginnings of post-war modernism in Denver using the artist group 15 Colorado Artists as an index. The story goes that the Denver Artists Guild was hostile to modernism at the time. This led to a split,…
Earlier this year, Robin Rule made the surprise announcement that she was relocating her swank-looking Broadway gallery to a much smaller space immediately adjacent to Ice Cube in the RiNo neighborhood. A couple of weeks ago, she opened the doors to this latest iteration of the Rule Gallery (3340 Walnut…
15 Colorado Artists. The Kirkland Museum is presenting a historical show that tracks the beginnings of post-war modernism in Denver using the artist group 15 Colorado Artists as an index. The story goes that the Denver Artists Guild was hostile to modernism at the time. This led to a split,…
Abstract paintings and sculptures continue to be popular draws at Denver galleries, and there are several shows on display right now, but abstraction — which I’ll get to in a moment — is also in the news. First up in the abstract realm is Galileo’s Garden, made up of mixed-media…
In the 1920s, the Denver Art Museum became one of the first art institutions in the world to collect American Indian material not be-cause of some historic or scientific interest, but because of its undeniable aesthetic qualities. Nearly ninety years later, the DAM has one of the largest and most…
Galileo’s Garden. Husband-and-wife artists Tyler and Monica Aiello are the subjects of conjoined solos at Space Gallery. The exhibit, Galileo’s Garden, includes over three dozen pieces. Though working in entirely different mediums — Tyler in metal sculpture, Monica in mixed-media painting — they long ago forged a formal relationship by…
Last August, Denver International Airport unveiled its ambitious plans for a hotel, an RTD commuter rail station and an RTD bridge (pictured) over Peña Boulevard. All had been envisioned as a coherent, interconnected and singular group of structures by architectural superstar Santiago Calatrava (whom I wrote about on August 5,…
Back in 1963, Hal Gould, a successful commercial and fine-art photographer, began putting together photo shows in his role as exhibition director of the Colorado Photographic Arts Center. Building off that experience, in 1979 he opened Camera Obscura Gallery a block from the Denver Art Museum, at 1309 Bannock Street,…
Art created with high-tech elements — movement, sound, light — may strike us as being futuristic until we realize that it’s been around for quite a while. “Technology has been used in art for many decades, and we’ve now reached a point of looking back,” says Jill Desmond, the curator…
Blink! A young curatorial assistant at the Denver Art Museum, Jill Desmond, has stepped up to the big time by putting together an over-the-top exhibit of electronic and mechanical art titled Blink! Light, Sound and the Moving Image. Beginning on the first level of the Hamilton and taking over the…
The phrase “end of an era” has lost much of its meaning because it’s been so overused, but I can’t think of anything more appropriate to say about the impending closure of the Camera Obscura Gallery. In business since 1980, Camera Obscura was among the first galleries in the country…
The main spaces at Ice Cube Gallery are so large that two full-scale single-artist shows can be presented side by side. The current offerings are Ray Tomasso: Transitions, featuring cast-paper paintings made with strips of old blue jeans rendered into pulp, and Brian Cavanaugh: Migratory: Transplant, which examines the artist’s…
Blink! A young curatorial assistant at the Denver Art Museum, Jill Desmond, has stepped up to the big time by putting together an over-the-top exhibit of electronic and mechanical art titled Blink!: Light, Sound and the Moving Image. Beginning on the first level of the Hamilton and taking over the…
Denver photographer Mark Sink has often worn more than one hat. In addition to taking pictures, he’s built a reputation as a first-rate photo curator and ran his own exhibition venue, Gallery Sink, for many years. He also served as the interim director of MCA Denver in the ’90s, and…
Mi Linda Soledad. This large exhibit at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center zeroes in on the career of one of Colorado’s most important abstract painters, Emilio Lobato. The show’s title, which means “My Beautiful Solitude,” refers both to Lobato’s life growing up in the San Luis Valley and to…
For most of the history of settled humanity, there have been two forms of visual art: painting and sculpture. But in the twentieth century, new art genres were born involving mechanical features that spun or lit up. The first of these were created by the Italian Futurists right before WWI…
Emilio Lobato and Sangeeta Reddy. Mixed-media artist and painter Emilio Lobato is surely near the top of anyone’s list of abstract artists in the region. His work relates well to that of the late Dale Chisman, as both artists studied with Mary Chenoweth at Colorado College. His latest creations, many…
Painting inspired by graffiti is a style that was established in the ’80s by the likes of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring and has since become an old standard in contemporary art. Interestingly, over the past few years, a new generation of artists has reinvigorated the approach (think Banksy), and…
