A love letter to Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall

For many of us, our first contact with Boulder was the Pearl Street Mall. Whether we were in town to visit a friend or sibling at the University of Colorado, or maybe the school itself, the mall was the ultimate Boulder tourist attraction. And it still is — 35 years…

Vote in the 2012 Denver #WebAwards

It’s time for the 2012 edition of Westword’s Denver Web Awards, our annual celebration of Denver’s greatest digital minds. This time, we’re introducing new categories to recognize the area’s creative and forward-thinking app developers, but we’ve made sure to include a few favorites, like Best Shameless Self-Promoter and Most Viral…

The Bogeyman Art Show tells tales tonight at the MacSpa

As a curator, artist Eric Matelski likes to have fun. And he likes to put affordable art up on the wall and plan a party around it. Add to that a seasonal tie-in, and you’ve got the second annual Bogeyman Art Show, a group exhibit that’s both fun and a…

Reader: Does this Saran Wrap make my butt look big?

Governor John Hickenlooper has declared this first week of October “Colorado Fashion Week,” but judging from the response to one photo in our slide show of Colorado-created fashion, one designer needs to go back to the drawing board…or the kitchen cupboard… See also: – Colorado Fashion Week: Behind the Scenes…

Three abstract shows mark a strong start to the fall season

September in Denver means that the 2012-2013 art season is fully under way, and there is a lot to recommend, including a pair of solos featuring paintings by two local abstract artists and a group show, also featuring abstracts, with most of the included artists likewise being local. See also:…

Now Showing

Clyfford Still. For the opening of the Clyfford Still Museum, director Dean Sobel has installed a career survey of the great artist that starts with the artist’s realist self-portrait and features his remarkable post-impressionist works from the 1920s. Next are Still’s works from the ’30s, with some odd takes on…

Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie puts imagination back into animation

Ever since Mars Attacks!, Tim Burton has mostly been in the adaptation business, rendering dark and be-curlicued Sleepy Hollows, Alice in Wonderlands, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factorys. With Frankenweenie, he adapts his own work — the first animated short he ever produced for a major film studio, and the…

17 Girls offers style without much substance

17 Girls (17 Filles), set in the small, depressed French seaside town of Lorient, makes a big deal about having been inspired by a true story that took place in the small, depressed American seaside town of Gloucester, Massachusetts, in 2008: Eighteen high-school girls all turned up pregnant at the…

The Denver Center works to build August Wilson’s Fences

The sixth play in August Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle, Fences revolves around a deeply flawed protagonist, Troy Maxson. The year is 1957, and Maxson is a garbage collector; fairly early in the play, he becomes the company’s first black driver, only to complain later about the isolation of that position. Maxson…

From the Archives: Denver’s 16th Street a century ago

Although 16th Street hasn’t always been a pedestrian mall, for at least the last hundred years of the city’s history it has been a Denver destination, a favorite for parade routes and other special events as well as a focal point for much of this city’s day-to-day business. These pictures,…

Luminous Thread Productions brings dreampunk theater to Denver

Mixing steampunk with the surreal and combining opera, theater, dance and circus arts, Luminous Thread Productions wants to give Denver a kind of show that the city has never seen before. That’s what Mary Lin and Ben Sargent had in mind when they began dreaming up their unique production company…

Reader: Big Blue Bear and the dancing stick figures should go!

Just in time for Denver’s closeup in the international press, “I See What You Mean,” aka the Big Blue Bear, has gotten a facelift. But by simply sprucing up the sculpture outside of the Colorado Convention Center, Denver missed a bet. So last week, we offered up several more meaningful…

Ten best places to watch the presidential debate tonight

Some sports fans and barflies are going to be very unhappy tonight. That’s when many of their favorite bars will switch channels from whatever game is on to the first of the three presidential debates, which will be happening right here, at the University of Denver. Those tickets are impossible…