Breaking the Mold. In 2003, Connecticut collector Virginia Vogel Mattern donated some 300 pieces of contemporary American Indian art to the Denver Art Museum. For one of the special shows inaugurating the new Frederic C. Hamilton Building, Native Arts curator Nancy Blomberg has selected over a hundred works for the…
Despite Link’s green tunic and Peter Pan hat, he remains Nintendo’s most respected badass. In the long-awaited Twilight Princess for the Wii, the elf hero begins yet another quest to save the world with his trademark bombs and boomerangs. Minor déjá vu aside, Twilight Princess becomes nothing short of an…
Robert Wilonsky and Jordan Harper recap their top DVDs of 2006: Eraserhead (Absurda/Subversive) — Finally available on DVD, David Lynch’s debut film is as captivating and frustrating as it ever was. The print looks great in its own weird way, and the feature-length doc shows Lynch speaking more clearly about…
Consider this a warning to all parents of seven-year-old girls: The folks behind the Cheetah Girls, who plan to (sorta) rock this town tonight, have been targeting your beloved tot since before she was born — waiting oh-so-patiently to turn her into a rabid devotee of Cheetah music, DVDs and…
Jen McMillan is a woman on a mission to bring back the symbols of rebellion and authority-bucking that have been co-opted, corporatized, cleaned up and recycled into mainstream American culture — thereby completely losing the I-don’t-give-a-rat’s-ass edge that made those symbols great in the first place. That’s why she’s opened…
I have enough trouble deciphering what my girlfriend thinks about something as simple as Chinese or Mexican for dinner without delving far enough into her mind to write even one sentence from her perspective. And forget kids: I have no idea what they’re thinking. My little cousins say more insightfully…
The Scott LaBarbera era at the Oriental Theater, 4335 West 44th Avenue, got off to a rocky start. The newish co-owner endured a public falling-out with his former associates over a year ago, so the theater’s one-year Anniversary Party is more than just four days of revelry in celebration of…
Now, listen to me, ladies, if courtship’s on your mind, When it comes to pickin’ cowboys, beware of what you’ll find! They’ll make you fall in love with them if you give them half a chance, But there are certain cowboys that don’t know much ’bout romance. They’re used to…
Those with brown thumbs might think January is a tad early to plan a garden. But the scarcity of water in Denver makes forethought a crucial component of successfully growing flowers, grass, you name it. That’s why the Denver Botanic Gardens, 1005 York Street, is opening its doors for the…
An e-town taping is always a two-way street between the performers and the audience, with participatory cues and a behind-the-scenes feel that are nothing but fun. It makes you wonder why e-town doesn’t host family shows more often, tailor-made as it is to the kiddie constellation. Of course, when a…
“According to the official scorekeeper, I beat ’em all last year, stickin’ like a tick to a beast with a bellyful of bed springs for a full 45 seconds!” brags Denver City Councilman Charlie Brown, winner of the mechanical-bull-riding contest at the 2006 Concerts for Kids Country-Western Fundraiser. This year’s…
According to the Denver Center for the Performing Arts’ Jenny Schiavone, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, which begins its local run tonight, “is for anyone who struggled through adolescence.” Strictly speaking, Spelling Bee isn’t kid stuff. The six spotlighted youngsters are portrayed by adults such as Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre,…
Genocide isn’t a pretty subject for an art exhibit or anything else, but it’s one that can be faced from unexpectedly positive viewpoints. Curator Georgina Kolber proves that with dual exhibitions opening today at the Mizel Museum: The Dead Weight of Complacency, a series of educational panels exploring the nature…
Foothills Art Center curator Michael Chavez has long been a fan of Colorado artist Wes Magyar and the surrealistic bent of his work. But because Foothills doesn’t traditionally host solo shows, Chavez began to look at other local artists working in related styles. He eventually settled on twelve individuals, including…
RADAR. With its outlandish appearance, the Denver Art Museum’s Hamilton Building has overshadowed what’s on display inside. There are a few exceptions, and first among them is RADAR: Selections From the Collection of Vicki & Kent Logan, installed in the Anschutz Gallery. Put together by Dianne Vanderlip, the outgoing curator…
At face value, Alpha Dog — based on a real-life story that’s still waiting for its ending — plays like an amped-up, drugged-out episode of Dragnet. In 2000, a gang of SoCal kids kidnapped and murdered fifteen-year-old Nicholas Markowitz, a soft-spoken boy from the San Fernando Valley who dreamed of…
What is natural, these days?” a lady dressing for the evening asks her maid, who finds Madame’s violet lipstick a bit too artificial. The year is 1939, the place Paris, after the Munich Conference’s false promises of peace and on the eve of Hitler’s deadly march across Europe. The lady’s…
There’s a historic tension between science and religion — at least between science and literalistic, primitive religion — and it’s become especially virulent over the last decade or so. The schism has never made much sense: Some religious people find that scientific advances only feed their sense of wonder and…
The Big Bang. Sometimes it’s nice not to have to think too much, to just settle back and watch a couple of frenetically energetic guys working really hard to earn your good will — and your entertainment dollars. Oh, and to make you laugh. The Big Bang posits the following…
There’s been a lot of talk about the burgeoning art scene in Denver, with dozens of venues featuring the work of hundreds of artists. The current culture boom is best exemplified by the strip of galleries that line Santa Fe Drive, an area that has been almost universally hailed as…
In the last twenty years, the “Built Green” movement has gone mainstream, with big developers such as ForestCity at Stapleton promoting the environmentally friendly features being incorporated into their buildings. But a generation or two ago, only kooks or visionaries thought about such an issue. Here in Denver, we had…
Breaking the Mold. In 2003, Connecticut collector Virginia Vogel Mattern donated some 300 pieces of contemporary American Indian art to the Denver Art Museum. For one of the special shows inaugurating the new Frederic C. Hamilton Building, Native Arts curator Nancy Blomberg has selected over a hundred works for the…
