Funkadelic

It’s sort of funny. LoDo’s Robischon Gallery, one of the city’s most straight-laced contemporary outlets (it sells the work of Robert Motherwell, for heaven’s sake), often shows some of the oddest and most raucous exhibits around town. That’s surely the case with the holiday offering Robert Hudson: Ceramics, Sculpture, Drawings,…

Art Beat

Through the weekend at the Spark Gallery is Elaine Ricklin & Jennifer Parisi: Recent Work, which sounds like a collaborative show but is, in fact, two solo presentations. In the front gallery, Ricklin has lined the three walls with individually framed Polaroid XS-70 photos, which are either landscapes or still-life…

Out West

More by happenstance than by design, three of Colorado’s most important cultural institutions — The Denver Art Museum, the Denver Public Library and the Colorado History Museum — are all lined up, one after another, along the south side of the Civic Center. It wasn’t always so. The DAM got…

Art Beat

Guiry’s, which just opened a new, 25,000-square-foot store in the Ballpark neighborhood near Coors Field, is celebrating a century in business this year. “At first it was a wall-cleaning business,” says Dick Guiry, president of the company and grandson of founder Joseph Guiry. “Then they got into selling mirrors and…

Opposites Attract

In the year or so that it has been open, Ron Judish Fine Arts in LoDo has established itself as a key player in the contemporary art world in Denver. Its well-thought-out shows always feature an eclectic mix of the work of top local talents and nationally celebrated artists, and…

Art Beat

You’ve got about ten days left to catch Master Drawings: 700 Years of Inspiration at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. The show, which includes approximately 150 pieces, highlights a selection of drawings from the collection of the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts. The exhibit has been intelligently installed in…

Mature Audiences

The Denver Art Museum is riding high on the success of the traveling Impressionism exhibition, which pushed overall attendance to record levels — nearly 100,000 visitors in October alone — and following its $62.5 million capital improvement bond, which was overwhelmingly approved by voters last week. The money, which will…

Art Beat

For the last few years, the Colorado Business Committee for the Arts has hosted exhibits downtown in the lobby of Republic Plaza — a feat that isn’t easy to pull off, since the lobby itself is a work of art. Designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, the lobby is in…

Venus and Mars

Bill Havu has put together a wild amusement park ride of a show called Women & Allegory at his prestigious William Havu Gallery in the Golden Triangle. The exhibit, which lasts through the weekend, features a quartet of artists who deal with both feminist and feminine imagery. The work, according…

Art Beat

It’s easy to think of Elizabeth Schlosser Fine Art in Cherry Creek as a purveyor of paintings and sculpture from the region’s past, since a typical exhibit at the boutique style gallery showcases the work of deceased artists who were active in the early to mid-twentieth century. But Schlosser also…

Un-Conventional

Voters will have a chance to decide on two proposals during Tuesday’s election that should be of great interest to the art world. The first is a no-brainer. Who would begrudge the Denver Art Museum a lousy $62.5 million — about the price of one good Van Gogh — to…

Art Beat

The Edge Gallery is featuring three interesting solo shows right now, and that doesn’t happen very often. In the front space, Carlos Frésquez continues his exploration of personal and ethnic identity in Tiempotrippin en El Meso-Moderno World. Frésquez’s longtime interest is in the three cultures in which local Hispanics live:…

Scenic Overlook

All this week, the Community College of Denver on the Auraria campus has been hosting a national conference on photography titled “Photography and the Creative Process.” Free and open to the public, the conference was organized by renowned local photographer Ron Wohlauer, who has taught photography at CCD since 1975…

Art Beat

The O’Sullivan Arts Center, located on the campus of Regis University, is an oft-overlooked exhibition venue that always has something worth seeing. Right now in the large and handsome gallery is a duet in which painter Amy Metier has been paired with sculptor Richard Stephenson. The exhibit, called See Saw,…

A Good Impression

The hippest of the hipsters on the art scene have been doing lots of pooh-poohing and naysaying about the blockbuster Impressionism: Paintings Collected by European Museums, which is now playing at the Denver Art Museum. Essentially, these cool-eratti believe that impressionism is too pedestrian for them — and that the…

Art Beat

Collide, which closes tomorrow at the Emmanuel Gallery on the Auraria campus, is an elegantly presented and intelligently put-together presentation of some Asian-American artists who work in the region. The show was organized by participants Ken Iwamasa and Polly Chang and beautifully installed by Mark Masuoka, Emmanuel’s director. In addition…

East Coast, West Coast

The Robischon Gallery has launched its fall and winter schedule with Manuel Neri, an important exhibit that focuses on the latest creations by the world-famous California artist. Neri has become a household name around here; this is the third time in recent years that Robischon has presented a solo turn…

Art Beat

Craig Miller, the curator of architecture, design and graphics at the Denver Art Museum, has a gift for putting together small yet thoughtful shows. One of three exhibits showing on the second floor is John Sorbie: Graphic Designer, a lovely exploration of this important poster designer’s career. The show coincides…

Old Times

In a way, the historically important and aesthetically compelling Vanguard Art in Colorado: 1940-1970, which just opened at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, provides a background for Colorado Abstraction: 1975-1999, the spectacular two-part exhibit now playing at the Arvada Center. Taken together, these shows provide a good big-picture look…

Art Beat

Last year, the Carol Keller Gallery opened in the main space of a converted Highland area garage at 1513 Boulder Street and leased a few rooms to the Colorado Photographic Arts Center, a 35-year old Denver institution. But last month, they switched places. To kick off the switch, Keller has…

Time Marches On

The Arvada Center is presenting the epoch-defining two-part exhibition Colorado Abstraction, 1975-1999, which fills the entire two-story facility. Last week I reviewed Part I, a breezy look at the key abstract painters and sculptors who emerged in the 1970s. This week I look at Part II, which presents the artists…

Art Beat

Printmakers Portfolio, at William Havu Gallery, is midway through a month-long run. The show is a brief look at the stylistic development over the past five years of Emilio Lobato, one of the best abstractionists around. Although there are only a few older prints in the exhibit, they’re enough to…