Visual Arts

Looking for free and cheap things to do this weekend? We’ve got you covered.

Think you can get through the next few weeks without hitting the mall or setting foot inside a big box store? It isn’t necessary to empty your pockets soullessly on plastic junk and electronics just to make that space under the ChristmaHanuKwanzaa bush look as good as the one over at the Joneses. You’ve got this, and we’re here to help.

Pirate Contemporary Art, the city’s flagship artists’ cooperative, found a new home outside of Denver, in Lakewood. These are the wages of gentrification: The city’s alternative art infrastructure is being off-shored to the inner suburbs.

Group and small-works shows abound at co-ops, studio enclaves and commercial galleries, too, making December an opportunity to scope out the breadth of Denver’s many-faceted art scene. Have a holiday-season lark and get to know every kind of artist better at these ten events.

It’s not too early to start thinking about the biggest arty party of 2018. Artopia, Westword’s annual celebration of art, culture and fashion, will be livelier than ever next year, on a new night, in a new location and with a new emphasis on art created before your eyes.

With all the hurly burly of construction in the Golden Triangle (including the dismantling of “Lao Tzu” outside the Denver Art Museum), it’s a relief to see the new shows at the nearby Goodwin Fine Art and the new display by Linda Herritt at Rule on Santa Fe Drive.

A year and a few days after the Ghost Ship fire burned down an Oakland warehouse, killing 36 people at a party, Denver Arts & Venues announced it would be offering up $300,000 in need-based grants that groups that are a part of the Safe Occupancy Program for building modifications and safety compliance can apply for.

Usama Alshaibi aims for Boy From War to be a decidedly American autobiography about his experience growing up in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, at the start of the Iraq-Iran War, fleeing with his family and coming-of-age in Iowa City’s punk rock scene.

It’s the dawn of a new week in Denver, which means that there are seven days of entertainment awaiting us…and many of the events are free. Here are the five best.

Denver’s Union Station will be turned into a human sculpture court for the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, December 3, as part of On Display Global.

While late autumn has been disconcertingly light on snowfall, flurries of delight await locals eager to see movies, concerts, and theatrical performances happening all over the city this weekend.

When First Friday and December collide, expect to get some holiday shopping done for your artiest gift list as you graze the galleries. But you’ll still find more than small, affordable works in the mix, including big experiments and deep musings.

Artists will bring light to the once dark and uninviting 38th Street underpass, starting November 30, when the RiNo Arts District will celebrate the completion of a two year transformation of the space.

Spark Gallery, Denver’s oldest artists’ co-op, is hosting three solos that work well together.

Mayor Michael Hancock honored the recipients of the 2017 Mayor’s Awards for Excellence in Arts and Culture at a ceremony at the McNichols Building on Monday, November 27.

You don’t need to check in to check out the art at the new Moxy hotel in Cherry Creek.

Though the remaining days of November are dwindling faster than Thanksgiving leftovers, there are still fresh delights to finish off the month before the onslaught of December events begins….and you won’t need to pay a dime. Here are the five best free events in Denver through December 2, 2017.

Looking for free things to do this weekend? Here’s our guide.

Sculptors Charles Parson and Collin Parson are father and son, and they prove that art is relative at Counterpoints: Charles Parson + Collin Parson at the Museum of Outdoor Arts.

Broke Denverites can find plenty of things to do on the cheap from November 16 to 19. Here are ten of the best events.

Chris Coleman, artistic director for Portland Center Stage for the past seventeen years, has been hired to lead the Denver Center for the Performing Arts Theatre Company.

Identical twin brothers whose creative paths converge like voices in perfect harmony, Charly Fasano and Vincent Cheap Fasano delve, together and apart, into a multidisciplinary palette of fine art, film, poetry, spoken word and music with Beat roots, filtered by a punk attitude and updated for the twenty-first century.