Great Walls

After a century of international irrelevance, Chinese painting and sculpture have stepped out big time in the past decade, storming into the international contemporary art scene. Reflecting this renaissance, the National Museum of China in Beijing mounted an exhibit in 2007 exploring the connections between Chinese and American art. That…

That’s Italian

You don’t have to know much about history to have heard of the Italian Renaissance — you know, the time after the aptly named Dark Ages when Europe got back on a civilization kick. In Cities of Splendor: A Journey Through Renaissance Italy, opening at noon today at the Denver…

Picture Perfect

Beginning today and running through July 24, Norman Rockwell and the American Family, a collection of reproductions of the illustrator’s images, will be on display at the Aurora History Museum. In keeping with the 1950s and 1960s theme, the museum will show its own artifacts from the period, with costume…

Reflecting On People

Los Angeles-based artist Allie Pohl says she sees her job as a way to hold up a mirror to society. Tonight she’ll be doing just that with her new solo exhibition, Mirror, Mirror. The project is a result of months of studying online dating. From her research, which included visiting…

Fringe Benefits

Are you still not sure about opera? Sure, it’s long. It’s melodramatic. It’s loud, sometimes ear-shatteringly so. And it’s seriously old-school, dude. It’s like a blue-hair fantasy camp. Think again. The Central City Opera, which will present the classic Carmen, Handel’s sword and sorcery epic Amadigi di Gaula and a…

Shine a Light

The artists represented in the two solos opening tonight at Ice Cube Gallery create their own distinctive work, but they share an interest in the same topic: light. In the north half of the gallery is Sophia Dixon Dillo: Light and Line, while in the south half is Sara Goldenberg…

Flash Mob

Because of conceptual art — and because of the transition of photo-related and photo-based imagery from film to digital — photography seems like it’s the master medium of contemporary art. In The Anxiety of Photography, at the Aspen Art Museum, associate curator Matthew Thompson added his own take on the…

Brothers up in Arms

The term “brotherly love” may be an Aristotelian cliché, but in practice, brotherly love is a little more complicated. At least it is in On an Average Day, in which estranged brothers Jack and Robert try to reconcile their weird history in their decrepit childhood home while trying to solve…

Reel Meets Real

For the past three years, Georgina Kolber has curated an outdoor Israeli film festival on the lawn of the Mizel Museum, with mostly older films. But this year, Kolber wanted the series to be a little more significant and reach a wider audience. So the Mizel partnered with the Denver…

All’s Fair in Cheesecake

While the titular cheesecake of Masque the Musical: A Cheesecake Love Story never gets made love to in a literal sense (in fact, it’s not even a central concern), it does represent, in a way, the musical’s spirit: It’s a small moment in which main characters Brent and Alicia bond…

Running And Rolling

In the likely case that you’re having a tough time coming up with the skrill for a trip to the famed Running of the Bulls in Pamplona — which takes place today — consider the next-best local alternative: getting pummeled by Rocky Mountain Rollergirls with Wiffle ball bats. The Highland…

A Charter to Barter

There are wife swaps, country manor and city house swaps, swap meets, and now food swaps, courtesy of the Mile High Swappers, a whole enchilada of like-minded foodniks, beer brewers and grape gurus who convene monthly to trade homemade, homegrown or home-brewed treats and libations. “It’s really fun, incredibly easy,…

Keeping It Real

In the 21st century, we’ve seen it all. We’ve peered into the lives of Hulk Hogan and Ozzy Osbourne, the over-fertile Gosselins and the Octomom, the Kardashians and Snoop Dogg. But back in 1973, when reality television was still called cinéma vérité, the PBS documentary An American Family — a…

Weaving Dreams

Boulder poet and Naropa faculty member Anne Waldman has completed an epic project 25 years in the making. Its title, The Iovis Trilogy: Colors in the Mechanism of Concealment, signifies many things, but Iovis in particular was taken from a line in Virgil’s epic poem, “The Aeneid.” “That was part…

Girls Gone Wild

The Girls Riders Organization makes a stop at the Denver Skatepark today as part of the nonprofit’s nationwide action sports tour. The day full of grinds, kickflips and Ollies will focus on getting girls active in skateboarding, roller derby and BMX riding. GRO will provide coaching and lessons in basic…

Lean Zine Machine

Kelly Shortandqueer, co-founder of the Denver Zine Library, says that people often come into the library and ask how to make a zine. The Community Zine Workshop Series aims to answer that question in five Sunday sessions from July through September, after which aspiring zinesters will emerge with their own…

Naked Glory

“Burlesque isn’t just about stripping; it’s about the art of it, the tease, the glitter and glamour of getting your clothes off with style,” says Lola Spitfire, one of the producers of the second annual Colorado Burlesque Festival, which starts shaking its naughty bits tonight at 8 p.m. with a…