It’s full speed ahead for the Denver Art Museum’s Frederic C. Hamilton Building (see review). With the structure to be completed in less than a year, the DAM recently announced the acquisition of three monumental outdoor sculptures that will adorn the grounds. “Big Sweep” (maquette, right) is a gigantic 35-foot-tall…
Many people — if not most — think of art and art writing as subjective enterprises. It’s all a matter of taste; one person’s trash is another’s treasure. This thinking is partially right — but mostly wrong. Like it or not, art is part of the objective reality that exists…
The William Havu Gallery (1040 Cherokee Street, 303-893-2360) is hosting a great pair of solos for the holidays: Mark Dickson and Michael Clapper. The shows have been installed on the first floor, with Dickson’s classic modernist paintings hung on the walls and Clapper’s equally classic modernist sculptures displayed on the…
As the 21st century gets under way, it seems more and more apparent that the quintessential art form of the era is photography — straightforward shots of exterior reality, photo-based methods (such as films, projections and videos) or the more conventional application of photographic technology in prints and paintings. I…
In the east half of Spark Gallery (900 Santa Fe Drive, 720-889-2200) is Peter Illig’s DIALOGUE: 21. Over the past decade, Illig has made a reputation creating contemporary representational paintings and drawings. Like other realists, he attempts to impart something new into the age-old tradition. In his case, he makes…
According to Museum of Contemporary Art director Cydney Payton, her current show, TRUSS THRUST: THE ARTIFICE OF SPACE, is the first large exhibit in the area dedicated exclusively to video art. I think she’s right, because while there have been any number of videos in group shows or solos, I…
Things are really taking shape over at 15th and Delgany streets in the Platte Valley, where a multi-family development of lofts and townhouses designed by Yong Cho and Catherine Mercer of Studio Completiva are well under way. Both of these projects are associated with the not-yet-started Museum of Contemporary Art…
The Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art is a unique aesthetic resource that’s filled to the rafters with interesting things to see. The Kirkland is a collecting institution; its impressive holdings, in a variety of aesthetic categories, are permanently displayed in a series of large rooms on two floors…
Twenty-something artist Jenny Morgan is surely one of the most serious and ambitious young painters around. She’s practically right out of school, having graduated only a couple of years ago from the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design. There she was a protegée of Irene Delka McCray, and, like…
Andy Warhol was one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century, which is really saying something, considering the cavalcade of talent that came down the pike between 1900 and 1999. Warhol’s contributions, both aesthetically and — even more so — conceptually, inspired and anticipated the current era in contemporary…
Though I’ve been there a zillion times, the majestic Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center never ceases to impress me. The 1936 building, by New Mexico’s John Gaw Meem, is done in cast concrete trimmed out in aluminum and shiny black aggregate and combines the attributes of traditional pueblo style with…
Construction workers are finishing up one of the first high-rises to be built downtown in about twenty years. It’s the new Hyatt Denver Convention Center Hotel, at 14th and California streets. For a decade now, the severe under-performance of the Colorado Convention Center has been laid at the feet of…
In what was shocking news for the city’s community of fine-art photographers, Gary Lynch died suddenly on October 24. To all appearances, the tall and robust Lynch was hale and hearty, but he had, in fact, been dealing with several health-related problems over the past few years. Born in Denver…
The Colorado Photographic Arts Center recently made the surprise announcement that it is closing when the current show, Layers: Contemporary Russian Photography, comes down next week. Ironically, the show had been billed as the center’s grand reopening. Before I get into CPAC’s future, I’d like to talk about Layers, a…
I was surprised when I heard that Roland Bernier joined the co-op Spark Gallery (900 Santa Fe Drive, 720-889-2200). After all, Bernier is an acknowledged master of contemporary art in Denver. He’s had a solo at the Denver Art Museum, for heaven’s sake! But there is an explanation: The key…
I’m not a big fan of collaborative works. Art is such an individualistic thing, it repels cooperation. Almost every piece I’ve seen of this type has failed to come together. But having said this, I’ve got to point out that JACK BALAS and WES HEMPEL at Robischon Gallery has a…
Artist (and Westword contributor) Patti Cramer is something of a Denver icon. She’s been the subject of innumerable solos, and her work is in many collections in the region. Cramer first emerged on the local scene back in the 1980s as part of a generation of neo-expressionists — which also…
Sadly, the last of the exhibits at Studio Aiello are beginning to come on line, with December being the announced end date for the commercial-gallery portion of the art complex. Located at the north end of the upper Ballpark neighborhood, Studio Aiello was a fantasy made real by the artistic…
The Wilson Adams Gallery (1307 Bannock Street, 303-825-0950) opened this past summer in the same quaint little townhouse that used to be occupied by the Emil Nelson Gallery. The current show at the new place, Bottle in the Smoke: Photographs by Jonathan Bayer, is the kind of thing that could…
Denver artist Julie Puma is on the cusp between being an emerging artist and an established one. With her installation Letters to Stanley in the Balcony Gallery at the Mizel Center for Arts and Culture, she moves one step closer to the latter. The show has been very well received…
Space Gallery (765 Santa Fe Drive, 303-623-1448) is one of a trio of connected art spaces; the other two are DEN Gallery (757 1/2 Santa Fe Drive, 303-507-6100), which is accessed through a passageway, and, up that dramatic staircase, KOUBOU a Deux (757 1/2 Santa Fe Drive, 720-203-1944). The three…
In January 2003, Carol Dickinson, then director of Foothills Art Center in Golden, went to that institution’s board of directors with an idea for a contemporary sculpture garden to commemorate her and her husband Don’s commitment to the center. After a decade of service, Dickinson was contemplating her retirement and…
