Find the counterculture at MCA Denver’s West of Center

Though not part of an ambitious series of events like Pacific Standard Time, our own MCA Denver is participating in the same zeitgeist anyway, with West of Center: Art and the Counterculture Experiment in America, 1965-1977. The show, organized by director Adam Lerner and his wife and co-curator, Elissa Auther,…

Take a director’s walk-through of Street Cred at the Longmont Museum

Graffiti-art aficionados will agree — Street Cred, the exhibition now at the Longmont Museum, earns its title. Direct from new Longmont director Wes Jessup’s former workplace, the Pasadena Museum of California Art, it offers an in-the-moment overview of California graffiti writers, as well as a local showcase tailored in-house by…

Show and Tell is ho-ho-home for the holidays

The Westword office is closed until Tuesday, December 27, and this blog will be taking a break until then — although Show and Tell writers are definitely out and about, experiencing everything this city has to offer. We suggest you do the same; there are hundreds of activities featured in…

Fifteen best Denver ART moments in 2011

Bicycle vs. Homing Pigeon vs. Moped from Village Voice Media on Vimeo.We’ve been rolling off lists this week like there’s no tomorrow, and maybe there isn’t, considering that pesky 2012 Mayan prophecy and all that. Earlier this week, Jef Otte presented his 10 best moments in Denver arts list, riffing…

West of Center is more a cultural documentary than an art show

The art of the West’s introduction to the world came in the 1970s, when paintings and photos from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries suddenly became highly sought after in the marketplace. By now, this kind of emblematic Western work — stunning landscapes, charming scenes of cowboys and Indians…

Crappy Christmas crafting at MCA over the weekend (PHOTOS)

The Cheap Christmas Crapfare at the Museum of Contemporary Art was a festival of joyful hipsters, free eggnog — and the finest paper plate wreaths in the city. Part of MCA Denver’s “Black Sheep Fridays,” Friday evening’s crappy craft-making party was lively, and there was plenty of crap to keep…

The Denver Flash Mob goes on, minus one con artist

Update, 12:30 p.m. Monday: Watch the video of Sunday’s flash mob at FlatIron Crossing below and see photos from the “Party Rock Anthem” flash mob. Eric Rosenberg calls it the “Rick Saga” on his blog, where the Denver Flash Mob co-founder writes about con-man Rick Strandloff, aka Rick Duncan, the…

Fancy Tiger and Buffalo Exchange move in together on Broadway

The lights are very bright on Broadway, and 2012 is shaping up to be the year that SoBo, with its growing lineup of independent shops and boutiques, second-hand emporiums and quirky dining spots, becomes a solid destination. The biggest news on the hip and funky stretch of Broadway between First…

Denver County Fair announces dates, changes for 2012

It’s not too early to make plans for the second annual Denver County Fair — which has been moved to the second weekend in August, starting on Friday, August 10 and running through Sunday, August 12, with extended hours. “We won’t be up against the Dragon Boat Festival, the last…

Catherine Robles Shaw captures the fine art of Tebowing

Nederland santera Catherine Robles Shaw usually sticks to the basics when creating her lovely retablos — plaques depicting the saints that are hand-carved and painted in a folk style that’s been handed down over hundreds of years in northern New Mexico and Colorado’s San Luis Valley. Contemporizing the old art…

Alfie gives Boulder something to crow about

Denver has Sun Spot, a giant dog sculpture created out of dog tags outside the new municipal animal shelter. Now Boulder has Alfie, a huge rooster made out of more than 3,000 pieces of old farm equipment by longtime local artist Robert Bellows. The sculpture was dedicated this past weekend…

Artbeat: There’s lots on view this holiday season at Robischon

Though the Robischon Gallery (1740 Wazee Street, 303-298-7788, www.robischongallery.com) is a commercial enterprise, it’s indistinguishable from a tidy downtown museum in appearance and atmosphere. This has to do both with the relentless high quality of the offerings there and the venue’s enormous size. As you can imagine, that means there’s…

Make it Matter: Get well-designed goods at Matter Studio’s annual sale

The inimitable Westword cover boy Rick Griffith and his ink-spattered crew at Matter Studio normally toil with their sleeves rolled in a letterpress world that bridges classic craftsmanship and modern design, hand-running hip posters and other printed matter on the old-fashioned machinery of another time. But once a year, they…

Gene Sobczak returns to head the Colorado Symphony Orchestra

Gene Sobczak, who was a VP and marketing guru for the Colorado Symphony Orchestra when he left in 2007 to head the Arvada Center, will soon be making beautiful music with the CSO again: The symphony board has appointed him to replace interim director Jim Copenhaver, who returned this fall…