Hugh Grant, founder and director of the Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art on Capitol Hill, has been a kind of Santa Claus for Denver, bestowing gifts of support and exhibits on the art community. A few years ago, when the Kirkland was just getting off the ground, the…
For me, the real meaning of the holidays involves Burl Ives retelling the story of the foggy night that Rudolph led Santa’s sleigh, and Brenda Lee rocking around the Christmas tree — not to mention taking a moment to listen to Vince Guaraldi back up Charlie Brown, Lucy, Snoopy and…
Simon Zalkind, director of the Singer Gallery at the Mizel Center for Arts and Culture, is best known for group shows based on some kind of theme, which are often plugged into other events, such as lectures, plays or films, that share the same topic. But lately he’s come across…
The smart-looking P Design Gallery (2590 Walnut Street, 720-259-2516) is dedicated to presenting design in an exhibition format with a decidedly fine-art flavor. The current exhibit is DoubleButter Boontje, a duet of shows featuring a trio of artists. The DoubleButter part of the title refers to the collaborative effort of…
I’m sure you’ve all heard more than enough about the Denver Art Museum’s Frederic C. Hamilton Building. That’s too bad, because there’s even more to say about it in light of the show that just opened at Sandy Carson Gallery. Daniel Libeskind: Inspiration, Process and Place is filled with drawings,…
In the past few weeks, there’s been a plethora of news relevant to Denver’s art and architecture scenes. Denver’s Creative Spaces Task Force, which is dominated not by artists but by city employees, was launched last January with much fanfare. I wasn’t too excited, because I knew from past experience…
A funny thing happened to photography on the way to the 21st century: It went from being degraded as an inferior way to convey aesthetic concepts to one of the most significant aspects of contemporary visual culture. The medium provides the foundation not only for a wide array of photo-based…
A lot of people make Denver what it is, but few have changed the face of the city the way architect Cabell Childress did (“Mind Over Matter,” August 5, 2004). Born in Virginia in 1932, Childress earned a degree in architectural engineering at Georgia Tech in 1954. After graduation he…
With all the excitement — and criticism — caused by the unveiling of Daniel Libeskind’s Frederic C. Hamilton Building, the inaugural exhibits installed inside have gotten lost in the crossfire. Now that the smoke is beginning to clear and it’s Thanksgiving week, I thought it would be a good time…
A couple of years ago, Lauri Lynnxe Murphy opened a funky gallery dedicated to showcasing artists who were doing experimental work. This gallery is called Capsule (554 Santa Fe Drive, 303-623-3460), and it was the immediate successor to Murphy’s boutique, Pod. But, as they say, all good things must come…
A generation ago, when you said “contemporary art,” it was assumed you were talking about creations from New York City, south of 54th Street — even if you were referring to internationally important material. In the 1980s, everything started to change. First there were the artists from Italy and Germany,…
There’s a charming little group show at Sandra Phillips Gallery (744 Santa Fe Drive, 303-573-5969) with the grammatically challenged title of CONVERSATIONS REFLECTIONS. (Shouldn’t that be CONVERSATIONAL REFLECTIONS or CONVERSATIONS REFLECTED or even CONVERSATIONS /REFLECTIONS?) Anyway, unlike the plodding gait of the title, the show itself flows beautifully, with the…
Fine-art videos have been playing a larger role in the contemporary realm in recent years, but I have a hard time understanding why. And a significant group exhibit with the clever title What Sound Does a Color Make? , on view through the weekend at the Center for Visual Art,…
John Matlack: Bridges, Fishes, and Boats
Of the various alternative spaces in Denver, Spark Gallery (900 Santa Fe Drive, 720-889-2200) has more than its share of established artists as members. Surely this explains why Spark is a flagship of the Santa Fe Arts District. It is one of only a handful of places along the row…
Mayor John Hickenlooper’s predecessors made that whole mayoral-legacy business look like a snap. Federico Peña can be credited with many important things, including shoving the idea of a lower-downtown historic district down the throats of property owners, thus saving the neighborhood from being scraped for surface parking. And he became…
Now that famous New Yorker Steven Holl is no longer involved with designing the courthouse portion of the Justice Center complex (see review, page 44), all the talk is about whether or not the local architectural firm klipp is up to the job. So it’s perhaps relevant to look at…
This past summer, Cydney Payton, director of Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art, put together a mini-blockbuster, Decades of Influence: Colorado 1985-Present. In that exhibit — which was displayed not only in the MCA’s own facility, but also extended to Metro State’s Center for Visual Art, to the Carol Keller Project…
The new P Design Gallery (2590 Walnut Street, 720-259-2516) adds something new to the art scene in town: a place where design is presented not only as home furnishings, but as serious contemporary art. P is partly a furniture boutique showcasing cutting-edge design and partly a proper exhibition space, where…
From the moment Daniel Libeskind was tapped to design a freestanding addition to the Denver Art Museum, people began to question whether a building designed by a deconstructionist could possibly function as an art museum. There was even more skepticism when Libeskind’s model for a crystalline concoction of up-ended boxes…
Every other year, the University of Denver’s School of Art and Art History teaches a very interesting class called the Marsico Curatorial Practicum. It’s an outgrowth of the special relationship DU has with Vail mega-collectors Vicki and Kent Logan, who open their collection to the school and allow art students…
The daring Frederic C. Hamilton Building created for the Denver Art Museum by Daniel Libeskind and the Davis Partnership became an instant Mile High landmark when it opened last week. The same thing happened 35 years ago when what is now called the North Building, by Gio Ponti and James…
The often overlooked Emmanuel Gallery (Auraria campus, 303-556-8337) is currently hosting an important show called Treasures Revealed: The Art of Hungary, 1890-1955. To give you an idea of the significance of this particular exhibit, not only did the Hungarian ambassador come out from Washington, D.C., for the preview, but so…
