Which pop culture nurse will be helping you today? (Infographic)

There’s something about the nurse in popular culture — and while hospital-based programming has fallen from popularity in recent years, the image of the workday nurse in all its forms has been one that anyone who’s spent time in the ER or recovery room knows, whether via a hazy, drug-induced…

Eight great shows make up the brilliant Marvelous Mud at DAM

If you haven’t yet seen Marvelous Mud, the homegrown, summer-long blockbuster at the Denver Art Museum, you might think it’s a single show. But it’s actually eight different exhibits, a series of workshops, lectures by artists and curators, various special events, and even a symposium. For the DAM, it’s an…

Christo’s “Over the River” is coming to a head

Three weeks and change after Colorado State Parks issued its long-awaited approval of the artist Christo’s proposed “Over the River” (not to mention several more years of infighting and bureaucratic hoop-jumping), the project, which would suspend some 5.9 miles of fabric panels over a stretch of the Arkansas River between…

More weird, tiny sculptures appear near the Westword office

Strange, intricate art projects have a way of randomly popping up around the Westword office, but usually they come with some kind of semi-frightening note with a phone number, or at least an indication of their ownership — like terrorist groups always admit when they bomb stuff. Except we like…

Bastille Day: Five reasons to love the French

With DSK (Dominique Strauss-Kahn) and his did-he-didn’t-he-rape-a-New-York-hotel-maid story all over both sides of the Atlantic, it’s not a great time to be French. The guy once seen as a top contender in 2012 presidential election pool has now become a poster-child for what Americans think is wrong with the French…

At Edge, there’s more to representational art than meets the eye

Broadly speaking, realist work with a conceptual component has been around a long time, but it wasn’t until the 1980s and ’90s that it really took hold, arguably becoming the stylistic choice for contemporary artists during that time. Now the idea is well established, and there’s no shortage of it…

Group shows are a staple of the summer arts season

From my point of view, solo shows, and retrospectives in particular, occupy the top place in the hierarchy of art exhibitions. But group shows organized around a theme are a close second, and they are a staple of the summer season. At the moment, there is an astounding array of…

Photos: Tattoo artists get decked out for Youth on Record

Tonight, First Friday attendees can take a break, grab a drink and a doughnut and raise money for Youth on Record, a non-profit that provides music classes for young people in treatment facilities, at Tattooers on Deck, a silent auction bidding off custom-painted skateboard decks from several tattoo artists, including…

Jack Was Here: Showing you the places Jack Kerouac once was

Jack Kerouac was here. He came here and wrote about it in On the Road, his most enduring work, and fell in love with Denver to the extent that, at one point, he actually bought a house in Lakewood. Yes, Kerouac was indeed here, but one thing that will not…

Hendrix and the asteroid movie boom of the late ’90s: Michael Fairchild explains the connection

While we were researching asteroid movies for Monday’s honorary tribute to Earth’s near collision with an oncoming asteroid, one thing was pretty apparent: In the late ’90s there were a relative shit-ton of asteroid/meteorite/comet/basic space-junk-getting-hurled-at-Earth movies. Turns out, Michael Fairchild, author of Rock Prophesy, Hendrix researcher for the Experience Music…

John Haeseler Revisited is small but well worth a look

When an artist does work that is ahead of his or her time, it usually means the work is under-appreciated or even unnoticed. To some extent, that’s what happened to John Haeseler, who, beginning in the 1970s, created pieces that responded to both dada and pop art while addressing social…