When I woke up on the morning of March 3 and prepared to attend the unveiling of a design for a new downtown museum dedicated to abstract-expressionist genius Clyfford Still, my heart filled with dread. I really didn’t want to see it, and had even less interest in meeting its…
With all the excitement in this country about Chinese contemporary art, the fact that China is a police state is often forgotten. Leave it to the Chinese to remind us with some timely events that reveal the true conditions under which artists live and work there. A couple of weeks…
George Carlson. Put together by curator Ann Daley, who has shaped and defined the Western collection at the Denver Art Museum, George Carlson: Heart of the West deals with the career of an accomplished neo-traditional artist who looks to the century-old Impressionist style for inspiration. The Carlson exhibit includes nearly…
“It’s going to be really interesting,” says Jillian Crandall, director of marketing and public relations for the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra. “The ballet style from Lemon Sponge Cake is obviously contemporary, not storybook ballet. It’s a high-class, New-York style event, if you will.” She’s talking about the BPO’s latest foray into…
Forget everything you thought you knew about quilts. Even Grandma’s most extreme quilting patterns never hinted at the possibilities realized in the work on display at Don’t Fence Me In: Contemporary Quilting, on view today through May 18 at the Longmont Museum and Cultural Center, 400 Quail Road in Longmont…
The glass ceiling in hip-hop remains to be broken. Back in the day, artists such as Queen Latifah and MC Lyte rocked the mike as hip-hop spread from the underground to the mainstream, and Denverite Day Acoli grew up with the music as other artists like Lauryn Hill represented for…
The future of art is in the hands of dorks. More accurately, in the hands of Dorkbot — an international organization of hackers, artists, builders, modders and makers — whose motto is “people doing strange things with electricity.” “I’ve always been into experimental electronic art,” explains Jane Crayton, founder of…
Take a multimedia tour through the jagged world of the deeply insane, exploring the aftermath of a broken mind’s civil war. In these twisted worlds, a jilted recluse keeps her wedding-day house untouched for thirty years — in case her fiancé finally shows up — and mad King George III…
Even the most accomplished guitarists do a double take when they hear Pat Donohue on A Prairie Home Companion, where the versatile finger-style picker has masterfully performed in the shadow of host Garrison Keillor for at least a decade. Donohue can finesse anything acoustic — jazz, blues, folk, you name…
Anybody can take a tour and be told what to think about a work of art. Alison Croney at the Museum of Contemporary Art would rather get adults — and their kids — thinking for themselves about what they see. Enter Smart Brunch Sundays. Every other week, Croney leads parents…
These days, most folks who attend standup gigs featuring British transplant John Oliver, who arrives for a two-night run today, know what to expect from his contributions to The Daily Show — and that’s lucky for him, since those who come in cold aren’t always as receptive. “You have to…
“Sassy, strong and relevant” is how the Urban Bush Women describe themselves. Since 1984, this New York City ensemble has sought to bring the untold and under-told histories and stories of the disenfranchised to light through dance. Their latest collaboration — in which they join the men of Compagnie Jant-Bi,…
“There’s an untold story about this guy who was a muse for several different social movements, and he was born and bred in Denver,” says KBDI Channel 12’s Heather Dalton. She’s talking, of course, about Neal Cassady, aka the notorious Dean Moriarty from Jack Kerouac’s Beat bible On the Road…
Zen master, artist and author John Daido Loori has a point to make. At a reception, film screening and gallery talk titled “Art and Environmental Activism” — which takes place tonight in conjunction with Loori’s fine-art photography exhibit, The Tao of Water — the artist says he’s going “to try…
The organizers of this year’s Bud Light Spring Jam in Aspen/Snowmass are pulling out all the stops. The eighth annual snowfest will extend over three weekends, continuing each Friday, Saturday and Sunday through April 6. Brand-spankin’-new this year is the Gretchen Bleiler Invitational, bringing together the world’s top female snowboarders…
When choosing this year’s MasterMinds — five arts groups that are changing the cultural landscape of Denver — Creative Music Works was a no-brainer. And that was before we knew that CMW — an unsung hero of the local scene that has been bringing great, far-from-mainstream acts to town for…
When George W. Bush was elected president, he promised to work with Republicans and Democrats alike. But former Colorado senator Gary Hart’s efforts to reach across the aisle were rebuffed, and he admits that he feels “silly, because it now turns out that they didn’t have even a thin idea…
Yup. It’s true. Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words, huh? Now if you’ll excuse me, I suddenly feel some pressure to go do about a bazillion crunches. — Steven J. Burge…
Here begins the saga of the pajamas letter. One evening several weeks ago, I stopped by the Wells Fargo branch at 17th Avenue and Broadway to deposit the considerable amount of money I regularly make as a gainfully employed writer. Unfortunately, the deposit-envelope receptacle next to the machine appeared to…
Move over, Brangelina! Peace, out, Zac and Vanessa! Denver’s got its own version of the Entertainment Power Couple in the form of this delicious duo now appearing in Conundrum Production’s Contrived Ending. Jamie Ann Romero stars alongside her real-life love interest, Matt Mueller, in this Breakfast Club-inspired coming-of-age story by…
This year, Converse celebrates its hundredth anniversary — and it’s launching the Century footwear collection to commemorate the occasion. There is plenty to celebrate, too, since Converse shoes have been a staple in the wardrobes of fashion icons from James Dean to Kurt Cobain. Converse first appeared on my style…
Was Dr. Seuss, né Theodor Seuss Geisel, oblivious to his own genius? The allegory of his charming Horton Hears a Who! remains fluid today, and like its crafty rhymes, ebbs and flows with the times. The conviction of an innocent pachyderm known as Horton to stand up against tyranny and…
