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Best Parting Shot by a Curator

At the Mirror

Courtesy Denver Art Museum

In 1973, budding curator Ron Otsuka took the helm of the Denver Art Museum's Asian Art department and immediately began working, through the solicitation of gifts, to bolster those parts of the collection that were strong and to shore up the weaker parts. Otsuka retired at the end of last year, but during his tenure, he brought the level of the collection way up. For his swan song, Otsuka organized At the Mirror: Reflections of Japan in 20th Century Prints, and nearly every one of the seventy prints included in the show was one that had come in during Otsuka's time at the museum. Japanese art was an important influence on modernism in the West, but in At the Mirror, Otsuka presented the opposite view, which was how Western modernism impacted Japan. It was a worthy farewell, as it revealed both his first-rate scholarship and his interest in plowing fresh curatorial ground.

Best Highbrow/Lowbrow Mash-Up

Matt O'Neill

In many ways, Matt O'Neill is Denver's original pop surrealist (not to mention perennial art bad boy), having played with the now-hip sensibility since way before it was cool. In honor of his notable place in that scene, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center director Blake Milteer, along with curator Joy Armstrong, mounted Matt O'Neill: Thrift Store Sublime. The show sampled O'Neill's well-known works, including his creepy hybrids of yearbook photos and Picasso portraits. There was also a wall covered in small, complex sendups of cocktail-napkin doodles done in India ink masquerading as ballpoint. Particularly compelling were O'Neill's parodies of abstractions done in dusty retro shades, one of which, "Town Without Pity," was subsequently donated by the artist to the CSFAC's permanent collection. It's currently on display on the center's main level.

Best Indoor Display of Outside Art

Outside in 303

Marco Briones

Driving or walking around Denver, it's hard not to notice that the Latino graffiti scene is strong — as it has been for decades. Less well known is that some street kids with spray cans turn into artists. This was the inspiration for Outside in 303 at the Museo de las Americas. To mount the mini-blockbuster, museum director Maruca Salazar enlisted the help of Denver Art Museum curator Gwen Chanzit, and together they chose seven artists, highlighted by the mentor of the group, Jack Avila, who came up with a spectacular mural. Avila was joined by Josiah Lopez, Victoriano Rivera, Javier Fidelis Flores, Gabriel Salazar, Josh Rogers (aka Kans 89) and Mario Zoots, who is one of Denver's hottest emerging artists.

Best Display of Abstraction's Feminist Side

Harmony Hammond

Courtesy RedLine Contemporary Art Center

In the early years of feminist art, abstraction was seen as being part of the patriarchy and was therefore rejected by many women. The trouble with that idea was that in reality, many women were creating abstracts, including the lesbian feminist activist and artist who was the subject of Harmony Hammond: Becoming/Unbecoming Monochrome. This magisterial show was clearly the high point of a year's worth of exhibits on the theme of women in the arts at RedLine. Put together by guest curator and queer theorist Tirza True Latimer, the show focused on work Hammond had done in the '70s based on American Indian baskets, as well as related — and stunning — recent paintings, many of them the size of billboards. In the language of the movement, Hammond liberated abstraction from its domination by men.

Best Display of Abstraction's Feminine Side

Directions in Abstraction

Mark Brasuell was a member of Edge for more than two decades before defecting last year to rival co-op Spark. Before he decamped, however, he gave over his Edge solo slot to a group show that he curated. It included four of Colorado's most noteworthy abstract artists, all of whom happen to be women: Sue Simon, known for her science-based abstractions, which often include formulas and equations; Terry Maker, who embraces the use of unusual materials, in this case sawed stacks of painted canvas; Ania Gola-Kumor, a painter working in an abstract-expressionist vocabulary; and Virginia Maitland, a master of color-field abstraction. It's interesting that Brasuell would select these particular artists, as their varied approaches are admittedly distinct — but he established the roster based solely on his admiration of and respect for each.

Best Display of Abstraction's Feminine Side

Directions in Abstraction

Mark Brasuell was a member of Edge for more than two decades before defecting last year to rival co-op Spark. Before he decamped, however, he gave over his Edge solo slot to a group show that he curated. It included four of Colorado's most noteworthy abstract artists, all of whom happen to be women: Sue Simon, known for her science-based abstractions, which often include formulas and equations; Terry Maker, who embraces the use of unusual materials, in this case sawed stacks of painted canvas; Ania Gola-Kumor, a painter working in an abstract-expressionist vocabulary; and Virginia Maitland, a master of color-field abstraction. It's interesting that Brasuell would select these particular artists, as their varied approaches are admittedly distinct — but he established the roster based solely on his admiration of and respect for each.

Best Magic-Realist Show

Frank Sampson

Frank Sampson: New Paintings highlighted recent efforts by the well-known eighty-something Boulder artist, who, despite the rise of abstraction and conceptualism, has devoted his entire output to figurative painting. But his approach to his depictions of people, animals and birds has been anything but traditional, instead falling into the magic-realist camp. Sampson has created an oddball body of work that's one part storybook and one part dream — with some of those dreams being nightmares. There are weird hybrids of animals with human qualities, and frequent appearances by scary-looking jesters and clowns. Set in Old Masterish surroundings, these characters are either whimsical and childlike or ominous and threatening. It might not be possible to teach an old painter new tricks, but it's also impossible to keep one like Sampson down.

Best Contemporary Representational Show

David Menard

The new Point Gallery, the brainchild of co-directors Frank Martinez and Michael Vacchiano, specializes in contemporary representational art. And that was the subject of David Menard: Urban Grotesque. To create his pieces, the artist began by scanning photos — both his and those of others — and then used Photoshop to combine different images into single ones. The resulting computer files, which were titanic in size, were printed, then attached to boards and sealed in resin. The results were prints that read like paintings, with Menard being particularly adept at capturing atmospheric effects. Most strikingly, he used photos to push representational imagery to its abstract breaking point.

Best Sculpture Show — Solo

Michael Brohman

One of Denver's most outrageous sculptors was the author of a surprisingly somber show, Michael Brohman: Horizons. The standout, "Borders," was made of salvaged twelve-foot-long boards that Brohman stacked up in order to reveal the ghosts of lines from the lathe strips that were once attached to them, and from the joints between the boards, which also formed lines. These stripes represent prison uniforms and even bars to Brohman. On top of the stack, Brohman installed a monumental bronze element that comprised scores of simple armless human figures that face the viewer but seem to be held in place as though behind a fence. The piece is meant to refer to imprisonment and evoke the Holocaust, the deportation of immigrant children across the southern border, and other events in history. With this show, Brohman has taken a new, more contemplative tack.

Best Sculpture Show — Group

Unbound: Sculpture in the Fields

The Arvada Center

The Arvada Center's Collin Parson and Kristen Bueb have put together one great exhibit after another, but their finest effort to date has been the combination of shows that included Unbound: Sculpture in the Fields, for which they tapped the expertise of Cynthia Madden Leitner of the Museum of Outdoor Art. Not only is it a cogent survey of some of the top abstract and conceptual sculptors active in Colorado, but it also marks the artistic activation of a formerly empty lot next to the center — which appears to be the perfect space for giant sculptures. The works will remain there through September.

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