Emotional Distance, the superb photo show at Gallery Sink (2301 West 30th Street, 303-455-0185) combines the work of some of Colorado’s best-known artists with examples by well-known photographers from around the country. In the front space, exhibit organizer Mark Sink has installed a group of wonderful landscape photos by Boulder…

The Denver Art Museum has long been on the cutting edge of exhibition design. Unfortunately, that’s not always a good thing, as is evident right now at the DAM and other major museums around the world, where marketing and demographics are displacing connoisseurship and art history as key components in…

The idiosyncratic sculptures in Tom Nussbaum, which has been installed in the pair of spaces just inside the front door of the Robischon Gallery (1740 Wazee Street, 303-298-7788), are downright strange.Take, for example, “Head I Man” (left), an acrylic on resin of a bland-looking man holding up a giant, equally…

Edgar Britton was Colorado’s most significant and successful sculptor of the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s. He was to modernist sculpture what the late Vance Kirkland was to modernist painting. But unlike Kirkland, whose fame has grown since his death, Britton, who died in 1982, is known only to a smallish…

The William Havu Gallery (1040 Cherokee Street, 303-893-2360) is so jam-packed with art right now that you can’t help but experience sensory overload. On the first floor are exhibits devoted to Emilio Lobato (see art column), Gregory Gioiosa, Mark Lunning and Jerry Wingren. Upstairs is the small and kooky Lauri…

Since the first of the year, Denver has seen a number of heavy-duty exhibits devoted to abstraction: There was the gorgeous Jeff Wenzel show at Ron Judish, the sublime Jeffrey Keith solo at Rule and the historic Robert Motherwell and Richard Serra exhibits seen together at Robischon. Now it’s time…

The poetically named Raven’s Nest studio (1425 West 13th Avenue, 303-623-1425), whose director has the even more poetic name of Glissen Rhode, is one of Denver’s hidden treasures. The trouble is that this rehabbed, turn-of-the-century train depot with its cute little tower is rarely open to the public. However, on…

Last week I described some of the hideous proposals being put forward at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center as part of its five-year expansion plan. The plans were suggested by the Minneapolis-based architectural firm of Hammel, Green and Abramson (is there such a thing as architectural malpractice?) and approved…

The small but smart-looking Fresh Art Gallery (208 South Broadway, 720-570-2255) is currently presenting encaustic evolution, which officially includes four artists and unofficially includes another five, all of whom use encaustic to create their paintings and sculptures. The gang of four is made up of Andrew Speer, Rachel Urioste, John…

The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center is one of the finest early-modern buildings in the country, which means it’s the rarest kind of treasure in Colorado’s bleak architectural environment. Only such monuments as the prehistoric ruins at Mesa Verde and the 1960s Air Force Academy Chapel, by Walter Netsch of…

For some reason, the little room off the entry at Pirate (3659 Navajo Street, 303-458-6058) always seems to be hosting an exhibit worth seeing. The space, dubbed ILK @ Pirate to distinguish it as a separate, alternative space, is currently showing higgled ripples, featuring the mostly three-dimensional work of young…

Lewis Sharp, director of the Denver Art Museum, was in his typical ebullient mood when he addressed an assembled group of the media recently. The occasion was the unveiling of the model for the new wing being designed by Daniel Libeskind, the Berlin-based American architect who’s one of the hottest…

Installed below street level along the greenbelt east of Broadway in Englewood is a hidden attraction: the Dry Creek Sculpture Garden. It may be entered at various points, but the easiest route is to take one of the pedestrian ramps on Hampden Avenue that lead down to a walkway running…

There’s no question that oil paints were used to create the paintings in Jeffrey Keith: Recent Work. Invisible plumes of airborne linseed oil immediately engulf anyone who enters the Rule Gallery, where the show is on display. It’s not a light aroma that simply wafts through the room — it’s…

The Colorado Photographic Arts Center (1513 Boulder St., 303-455-8999) is featuring the recent work of Karen Kirkpatrick, Michael Butts and Glenn Cuerden, last year’s recipients of CPAC awards. Part of the prize for that honor was this exhibit, which has been rather bluntly titled Members Awards 2000. The show begins…

Until last year, Artyard, the grand dame of the local sculpture world, was the place to see rotating exhibits of monumental outdoor pieces by a number of noteworthy sculptors. They were displayed in a large lot on South Pearl Street, just a few doors down from the gallery proper. But…

It could be said that the ILK @ Pirate space (3659 Navajo Street, 303-458-6058) is a hole in the wall within a hole in the wall — or to put it more elegantly, an alternative space within an alternative space. Despite the limitations of a small, dingy room, more often…

There’s only a couple of weeks left to catch the current attractions at the Robischon Gallery: three superlative solos, each devoted to an internationally famous artist. In the pair of spaces bracketing the front doors is Robert Motherwell: Early Drawings, 1963-1976; in the pair of spaces beyond, there’s the smaller…

There’s a great show being presented right now at the slightly off-the-beaten-path O’Sullivan Arts Center at Regis University (3333 Regis Boulevard, 303-458-3576) — but, then again, there usually is. The current attraction is Dickson: Oils — Monotypes, which presents an in-depth look at well-known Denver artist Mark Dickson’s most recent…

You can always expect to see some of the best and most interesting contemporary art by local, national and international artists at Ron Judish Fine Arts, because director Ron Judish is relentlessly searching for new material — and he often finds it right in our own backyard. But the three…

The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center (30 West Dale Street, Colorado Springs, 1-719-634-5581) is a quintessential artifact of the 1930s. Designed by John Gaw Meem, it is adorned with gorgeous murals and bejeweled with exquisite metalwork. It is one of the finest early-modern buildings, not just in this time zone,…

By clearly dividing his gallery into three distinct areas and installing the work of a different artist in each one, Bill Havu has finally come up with a successful scheme for laying out shows in his beautiful, custom-built space in the Golden Triangle. True, it’s only slightly different from what…