Visual Arts

Free and cheap things to do in Denver this weekend.

January is traditionally a time to take a fresh look at Denver’s co-op galleries, where open shows and member shows — and just about any kind of show — all cast an eye on the power of community among artists struggling for a foothold. But that’s not all on the horizon for the first First Friday of 2018.

Landon Ricker clashes with the cozy brick and wood decor and upscale clientele at Acorn, an artisanal restaurant in the Source.

Spend all your money on holiday gifts and festivities? Denver is overflowing with free entertainment options during the first week of January 2018.

Arts lovers: It’s up to us whether this city’s arts scene thrives or dies.

Hamilton, the Broadway hip-hop musical about founding father Alexander Hamilton, is coming to Denver February 27 to April 1. Tickets will go on sale Monday, January 22, at 10 a.m..

New Year’s weekend is here, and Denver is ripe with free and cheap events from December 28 to 31.

A new exhibit at NXT STG Collaborative Gallery brings viewers behind the scenes of Opera Colorado’s La Bohème.

The six days between Boxing Day and New Year’s Eve tend to be a bit of a lull, typically occupied by sluggish post-holiday travel, a grudging return to work or, for some lucky Denver residents, a few extra idle days to spend with family…or attending a great free event around…

Looking back on the ten biggest arts and culture stories in Denver in 2017.

Summit Middle School students created an art installation dubbed “Wire You Polluting?” – a look at ocean ecology.

Denver artist Nick Scotella’s heading to Atlanta for Bassnectar’s Annual New Year’s Eve celebration as one of only eighteen artists selected by Lorin Ashton’s team to participate in the event.

Over the past few years, women artists have finally been given their due. The Denver Art Museum has been a leader in the effort to right this wrong: Last year it presented Women of Abstract Expressionism, which rewrote the history of American art in the 1950s, and now it’s hosting the blockbuster Her Paris: Women Artists in the Age of Impressionism.

Colorado Symphony will be performing the live score of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the fourth film in the series, at Boettcher Concert Hall in July 2018.

Save your money for presents; here are five great free events in Denver December 18 through December 22, 2017.

SupaStore, British artist Sarah Staton’s response to the overarching rise of online commerce in the new millennium and how retail is losing its human touch, has come to Denver, in the guise of SupaStore Human—We are the Product, a singular iteration of Staton’s artist road show.

Take in some art before the year is over at these shows and more.

Denver artist Tom Ward’s been busy painting a new mural at Tommy’s Thai on Colfax Avenue.

The current offering at William Havu Gallery, Transmutations, brings together three abstractionists — a sculptor, a painter, and an artist who uses smoke on paper to create drawings — for solo shows that masquerade as a group effort. Occupying the floor space are sculptures by well-known Denver artist Michael Clapper,…

For all the transplants — as well as longtime Denverites who’ve forgotten their civics lessons or skipped them altogether — History Colorado is now providing a primer with Zoom In: The Centennial State in 100 Objects, an exhibit that draws from its collection to offer a true object lesson in Colorado history.

Being inclusive of non-Christians at Christmas time is a perilous task, but Cleo Parker Robinson Dance pulls it off in Granny Dances to a Holiday Drum.

Rick Griffith, the design maven and letterpress wizard of MATTER Studio, has a whole different way of approaching commerce as a community-based social action. In his world, every person — rich or poor, black or white, unschooled or highly overeducated — is a cog in the wheel of fair and equal commerce, and no one gets left out.