I’m a big fan of public art, and Denver has commissioned some standout pieces over the years that really spiff up the city. But sometimes things go awry when politics and civic bureaucracy meet the art world. While some of the people who serve on selection committees may have artistic…
Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim are enfants terrible whose rhythm, aesthetic and sensibilities have informed everything from cinema to sketch comedy and deodorant advertising in the years since Tom Goes to the Mayor debuted on Adult Swim nearly a decade ago. Gallows humor abounds in their new series Bedtime Stories, a hilariously macabre horror-comedy anthology which makes its Adult Swim debut on September 18. The show is a huge step forward for the duo, who’ve mounted their second national live tour in preparation for the premiere. What sets this tour apart from their last is the inclusion of Dr. Steve Brule on the lineup. Played by character actor John C. Reilly, who relishes each awkward syllable in the role of a profoundly unsettling physician with dubious advice, Brule first appeared in interstitial segments on Awesome Show and then spun off into his own series, Check it out with Dr. Steve Brule. Westword caught up with Heidecker before his Paramount theater show for a brief phone interview.
The Denver Art Museum’s Gio Ponti tower — now ignobly dubbed the North Building — was completed in 1971. It was less than two years later that a young Asian-art scholar, Ronald Otsuka, was hired to shepherd the Asian-art department there. This December, Otsuka, the Joseph de Heer Curator of…
When Front Range communities washed away in last year’s torrential rains and subsequent floods, some folks who experienced the disaster firsthand did so with cameras in hand, documenting the stark power of nature as rivers jumped their banks to wreak havoc. A year later, the Dairy Center for the Arts…
Michael Burnett, director of Space Gallery, has a taste for neo-modernism — that post-postmodern style that’s been coming on strong for the last decade. You can see it in his neo-modernist building, which opened this past summer (and which, by the way, has become the place to have your cannabis-friendly…
You can find art all over town — not just on gallery walls. In this series, we’ll be looking at some of the local artists who serve up their work in coffeehouses and other non-gallery businesses around town. Blake Adams wants to democratize the viewing, understanding and appreciation of art…
Fall is unofficially here, and with it comes a busy First Friday with an eclectic slate of new shows, including everything from an exhibit of fresh work from a 91-year-old legend to a contemporary three-artist tribute to the beauty of the prairie West. Keep reading for more details about these…
Sharon Feder has been painting for as long as she can remember. Along with studying painting under the mentorship of Colorado modernists like Ed Marecak and Mark Zamantakis, Feder also has had decades of technical experience as a set designer, muralist and sign painter. Combined with her passion for urban…
When you walk into the Black Book Gallery for the opening of Oh, The Places You Will Go! on Friday night, the lights will be turned off and the only thing you will see are the fantastical light-boxes of husband-wife duo Hari and Deepti. See also: Filmmaker Guy Maddin on…
As the daughter of a U.S. Air Force chaplain, Heather Bingham got to see a little bit of the world as a child: she was born in Turkey and spent several years on the island of Crete before her family moved back to Colorado Springs. And it was during her…
The exhibit Testing Grounds, which runs through this weekend only at Robischon Gallery, brings together artists who look to nature, especially the Western landscape, as sources for their disparate approaches. As usual at Robischon, there’s enough room to allow the artists to essentially be given solos, so that the work…
Art naturally evolved from representation (pictures of things) toward abstraction, argued modernist art critic Clement Greenberg and his fellow formalists. Portraiture and landscape painting be damned: In pure art, paintings do nothing but express their essence as painting. But in the 1960s, painting about painting fell out of style and…
“National Velvet”: love it or leave it. Denver Public Art brought together art fans, everyday critics and passersby last week for the Big Red Street Fair, a happy-hour celebration of one of Denver’s more controversial works of public art. Artist John McEnroe’s bright-red light-up sausage-elisk was the focal point of…
You can find art all over town — not just on gallery walls. In this series, we’ll be looking at some of the local artists who serve up their work in coffeehouses and other non-gallery businesses around town. Back when she was an art student at Colorado State University, Becky…
Night Job is a collective show featuring artists who represent a young, working-class, art class perspective united by a sensibility that combines urban grit, an ineffable dream-like quality and an almost haunted yearning for connection with the essence of life. The work also embodies a blend of seeming thematic opposites…
The art at Union Station has been one of the surprise hits of the $54 million renovation project. The building holds more than 600 pieces of art, a collection so extensive that the Crawford Hotel, which fills the upper three floors, has both an electronic and a published guide to…
Michael Paglia isn’t a big fan of the City & County of Denver when it comes to architectural and artistic decisions. After all, he writes, officials there have fumbled everything from I.M. Pei’s Zeckendorf Plaza, which was demolished in 1996, to the proposed destruction of Civic Center Park. Now the…
I’ve never been a big fan of the City & County of Denver when it comes to architectural and artistic decisions. They’ve repeatedly dropped the ball on everything from I.M. Pei’s Zeckendorf Plaza, which was demolished in 1996, to the proposed destruction of Civic Center Park’s beauty in 2006, to…
Part of a crop of new galleries that have been sprouting up like mushrooms around town in the past few months, Michael Warren Contemporary occupies the storied Santa Fe Drive space that formerly housed the van Straaten Gallery, and before that, the Sandy Carson Gallery. The current exhibit, Introductions II,…
In rapidly changing neighborhoods, gentrification can lead to a lack of community unity. But small, physical projects can help give a sense of place — which is why Denver created the P.S. You Are Here grant program. And yesterday, city officials went to Whittier, one of those rapidly changing neighborhoods,…
“I’m really not known at all in the art tribe,” says Keith “Scramble” Campbell. “I’m more known in the music tribe, and I take my art like a musician does: live and on the road.” Often referred to as the “guy painting at Red Rocks,” Campbell has done more than…
Summer’s nearly over, as kids go back to school and vacations wrap up. This weekend, you can wander through a last summer festival before the fall grind commences, see what’s new on the contemporary scene or catch up with the co-ops. It’s all good. Here are some suggestions: See also:…
