In the past, administrators at the Denver Art Museum have had a bad habit regarding the scheduling of temporary exhibitions. They’ve lined them up one at a time and then shuttered the rooms — usually the first-floor Stanton and Hamilton galleries — in the downtime between shows. Sometimes this state…
Every once in a while, a show at one of the city’s alternative spaces is as good as — or better than — any exhibit in a prestigious gallery or museum. Chain Reaction: new works by Gail Wagner, at the Edge Gallery through Sunday, October 6, is just such a…
Capturing the human form has a very long tradition in the visual arts, going back over 12,000 years. And despite the rise of abstraction and its progeny a century ago, artists are still drawn to the figure as a subject redolent with possibilities. Here in Denver, a number of galleries…
About thirty years ago, serious fine-art photographers began taking scenic shots that incorporated not only the magnificent landscape — the focus of their predecessors — but also glimpses of development’s litter. By now these poignant dichotomies, once so groundbreaking, are a standard of contemporary landscape photography, particularly here in the…
Like that of the academic world, national television and professional football, the art world’s season starts in the fall. Although a few pre-season openers were unveiled in Denver over Labor Day weekend, most of the 2001-2002 entries were set to open a week or two later. I don’t need to…
Lisa Spivak, director of the Phillip J. Steele Gallery (6875 East Evans Avenue, 303-753-6046), has long made an art form out of getting the most from the least. You see, until a month or so ago, the Steele was little more than a corner of the lobby in the design…
The modern and contemporary department at the Denver Art Museum has essentially been on a forced retreat for the last year or so. Pushed out of the spacious Stanton rooms on the first floor in order to make room for various traveling blockbusters, the department has had to deal with…
There are four interesting shows going on right now at Edge Gallery, 3658 Navajo Street, 303-477-7173, and each is utterly distinct from the others. In the front space is I am not the same person that I was before, featuring a group of recent abstract paintings by Edgester Mark Brasuell…
When I first got word of Soon Come: The Art of Contemporary Jamaica, a traveling group show now at Metro State’s Center for the Visual Arts in LoDo, I thought to myself: “Soon Come? Ho hum.” Rum’s what I think of when I think of Jamaica, not credible contemporary art…
Preservationists statewide took an interest this past summer in the old Cragmor Sanitorium (seen above in its original condition) in Colorado Springs. And who could blame them? Originally built as a luxurious treatment facility for those who suffered from tuberculosis, the 1914 Spanish Colonial-style building is an important landmark. Designed…
After moving three times in only two years, Hyland Mather and Malia Tata appear to have finally found a promising spot for their Andenken Gallery and Design, which combines fine-art sales with a graphics studio. Andenken originally opened in the Raven’s Nest studio complex. But despite a spectacular gallery space…
With blockbusters sweeping in and out of the main-floor galleries at the Denver Art Museum (100 West 14th Avenue Parkway, 720-865-5000), it’s easy to forget that there are many fine smaller shows upstairs (see review, previous page). A compelling example can be found on the fifth floor, which is devoted…
With a few cool evenings in the last couple of weeks, there’s no denying that fall’s on the way. And what better season to check out a couple of shows devoted to that coziest of all art forms — the quilt. The Colorado History Museum is presenting Quiltspeak: Stories in…
It’s hard to know what to call the Mizel Arts Center (350 South Dahlia Street, 303-399-2660). Its real name is the Mizel Family Cultural Arts Center, but the shorter Mizel Arts Center has been a convention for years. Confusing the issue is that the institution has been merged with the…
Last fall, a national search was conducted to find a replacement for Cydney Payton, the respected former director of the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art who has taken over at Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art. In January, BMoCA’s board of trustees announced its selection, Ken Bloom. It’s taken a few…
A couple of months ago, the Denver Art Museum and the city’s office of planning unveiled the latest model for a new addition to the museum. The wing, which is being designed by Berlin-based architect Daniel Libeskind, along with Denver’s Davis Partnership, is to be built adjacent to the existing…
The Edge Gallery (3658 Navajo Street, 303-477-7173) is currently presenting three quirky solos. In the front space is I Need It ‘Cause I Want It, a sculpture show made up of recent pieces by Jill Nasman. All the pieces concern the consumer culture. In “Candy” (seen above), Nasman has built…
Through August 25 at the Museo de las Américas, 861-865 Santa Fe Drive,
When Cydney Payton announced last summer that she was resigning as director of the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, groans of despair were heard all along the Front Range. Even worse was that she had no plans to continue working in the art world. This circumstance represented a genuine tragedy,…
Jeanie King’s Fresh Art Gallery (208 South Broadway, 720-570-2255) is pretty crowded right now, filled to the max with The Colorists, a show featuring abstract paintings and sculptures by a quartet of Denver artists. The floors of the two small rooms that make up Fresh Art are littered with sculptures,…
Photography is unavoidably linked to the summer, because nearly everyone takes a camera along on vacation. This point was brought home to me last week when, stopped at the light at Colfax Avenue and Lincoln Street, I saw a group of Buddhist monks in traditional robes taking snapshots of one…
In the park informally known as the Charles Heartling Sculpture Park, located northwest of the intersection of Ninth Street and Canyon Boulevard in Boulder, well-known sculptor Bill Vielehr is the subject of an outdoor exhibition titled 3-D Drawings (Search for the Mark). The exhibit, which is visible from the street,…
