The Ten Best New Street-Art Murals of 2016 — So Far

Murals have been blooming like Denver’s cherry blossom trees this spring. No sooner had we settled on our award-winning mural in the Best of Denver 2016 than amazing street art started popping up around town. Here are the ten best new street-art murals of 2016 (so far)…  10. Dread Horseshoe Lounge 414…

Three Things to Do for Free in Denver, May 9-12

The weekends have been kind of wet around here lately, so let’s live it up during the week. This week brings embarrassment, art discussions and an intimate evening with a local comic. Check out the Westword calendar for even more to do, and don’t forget about free day at the…

Reader: Enough of This Crap in Denver’s Public Arts Program!

Denver is proud of its public art program, and new pieces are being added all the time, including along RTD’s A-Line from Union Station to Denver International Airport. But the program definitely has its critics, including Georgia Amar, co-founder of Denver’s Art District on Santa Fe, who shared this assessment with…

Follow the Okee Dokee Brothers for a Family-Fun Colorado Adventure

The Grammy award-winning Okee Dokee Brothers, a family folk duo with Colorado roots, release their debut picture book through Sterling Publishing on May 17. Can You Canoe? is named for the acoustic adventure album that launched the Okee Dokee Brothers’ career in 2012; the book takes readers on a cross-country…

A Netflix Doc Digs at the Truth Behind the Foxcatcher Killing

If you thought the billionaire played by Steve Carell in Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher was eerie, please allow me to introduce you to the real John du Pont. A dangerous concoction of lonely and paranoid, du Pont was blessed with money and mobility and cursed with the kind of childhood that…

Prince’s Music Comes Back to Life In Spike Lee’s Girl 6

It’s been two weeks (or a little over eleven hours and fourteen days as “Nothing Compares 2 U” lovingly time stamps) since we lost our sweet Prince, and many of us have worn out our DVDs and VHS copies of Purple Rain. That film, though based on Prince’s life, was written…

Doug Benson on Getting High, Mother’s Day and Barack Obama

Doug Benson, comedy’s stoner laureate, defies the facile stereotype that weed makes you slothful and unmotivated. Despite being a habitual wake and baker, Benson currently runs two live podcasts, spends a healthy percentage of every year working the road, has starred in three documentaries and released an album and live…

Review: Solos Inspired by Chemistry, Junk and Geometry at Spark

More than any other Denver co-op, Spark Gallery has held onto its members, some for decades. So it’s no surprise to find the two main rooms occupied by a pair of artists who are longtime members and veterans of the alternative scene: In the west gallery, there’s Sue Simon’s Anxiety, and…

Den-Ex Film Fest Celebrates Denver’s Experimental Fringe Saturday

Denver’s a pretty great film town, but that doesn’t mean that all of cinema’s many niches and genres are equally well represented. You can always catch a blockbuster film at any neighborhood multiplex, and plenty of arthouse, indie and repertory fare is available around town. But the weird stuff is…

Ru Johnson on #BlackSpring and May Babies, Popping Up May 7

“Are you the woman in the photo sitting in the chair? I keep seeing these posters everywhere…” This Tweet from April 29 is buried in Ru Johnson’s Twitter feed by now, but it’s something the Denver writer and creative consultant has been hearing a lot in recent weeks. The now “buzzworthy”…

Art With Robots Is Still Art — Sometimes Great Art

I like robots. That’s probably no surprise, if you’ve read this column once or twice. I like art, too. That might be a surprise, I suppose. But even if you were a little surprised at that, I bet your surprise would quickly evaporate when I told you the art I…

The Ten Best Comedy Events in Denver in May

As spring begins in earnest and Denverites bask in the long-awaited sunshine, our city’s parks and a variety of outdoor activities tend to outshine cultural pursuits. While little can compare to the allure of the natural beauty blooming us, the comedy calendar this May is pollinated with a series of…