Pop culture is important. We spend our time and money on it, litter our speech with quotes from it, and our lives are shaped by it. That’s the premise of These Things Matter, a new podcast created by local comedian Kevin O’Brien and Taylor Gonda. Of course, for all the…
We all know him as the witty hybrid of Johnny Carson and George Carlin; the anti-religion, anti-South, pro-drug, pro-leather suit godfather of televised political satire. But did you know that there was once a whole decade where Bill Maher was as cool and relevant as Tim Allen at a Sleigh…
Copper Mountain’s axe-centric Guitar Town music festival turns five this year when it returns to the resort two weeks from today. It’ll also mark the fourth year for the fest’s Art Guitar Silent Auction, which features twenty cast-away instruments donated by the Guitar Center and brought back to life by…
Wes Magyar Michael Paglia writes on page 35 of this week’s Westword, and online at “Faces, Places & Spaces,” that even if Faces, Places & Spaces, Collin Parson’s first effort as exhibition manager, isn’t up to the lofty standard of the Robert Mangold retrospective earlier this year — and it…
Plus Gallery’s Ivar Zeile was all ready to take a break in August, but instead, chance brought together a special end-of-summer show at Plus. Merge is something of an anomaly for the gallery: an exhibition of small, affordable works by three very different emerging artists — New Zealander Shannon Novak…
Unquestionably, one of the most ambitious and interesting exhibits of this summer is Faces, Places & Spaces at the Arvada Center. It was put together by Collin Parson, who has only recently been named the exhibition manager. That’s good news, as this show demonstrates. Parson has actually been doing the…
When artist Andrea Moore was asked to return to PlatteForum to work with high school students for the art space’s summer-long program, ArtLab, she wanted to do something teenagers would be excited about. What she landed on was subversive art. Two times a week throughout the summer, Moore worked with…
If there’s one thing that pop culture has taught us, it’s that robots fight. From Terminator to Transformers, robots are duking it out everywhere. But maybe it doesn’t have to be that way. Maybe some robots just want to dance…
Local skater Julian Christianson — Westword’s Best of Denver 2012 Best Skateboarder pick — has a knack for turning local contest honors into bigger opportunities. Last year his Hometown Heroes contest win in Denver earned him an invite to skate in the amateur finals at the X Games in Los…
When it comes to art and bicycles, Ivar Zeile knows how to keep the wheels turning. The owner of Plus Gallery, Zeile — who was in charge of curating last year’s inaugural USA Pro Cycling Challenge bike art installation — is taking the project for another spin, as Colorado again…
There are many reasons why we Coloradans love our state. Colorado keeps collecting accolades that prove time and time again why we truly are the best in the West. And here’s the latest: Southern Ute Cultural Center & Museum in Ignacio has been rated the “Top Western Museum” by True…
Ever since the cavemen used embers to sketch animals on their cave walls, humans have been making art about where and how they live. But the city is a far cry from a prehistoric cave, and portraying the cosmopolitan scene is a lot more complicated for modern-day artists than it…
This year’s Denver Comic Con was too good to be true: Drawing more than 27,000 comix gawkers to the Colorado Convention Center over three days in June, the inaugural expo exceeded all expectations, proving once again that Denver is one lovably geeky city. We can dress up like Wonder Woman…
Athena Project’s Plays in Progress series is now in full swing, and while the plays are only getting a workshop treatment, one of them will win a full production at next spring’s Athena Project Festival — and that means it will need a costume designer. Cue the festival’s newest opportunity:…
With the advent of tintype photography, during the Civil War, the chance to capture family memories was made more accessible to the middle classes. However, getting kids and babies to sit still for the long shutter speed was evidently a problem, as collectors of tintype photographs figured out when they…
Reed Weimer has been integral to the Navajo Street Arts District since its unofficial birth in the early ’80s. He and his wife, Chandler Romeo, have worked side-by-side as both artists and landlords in this now-thriving art scene. Weimer — whose paintings and prints hang in the Denver Art Museum,…
After you do your artistic duty for the Denver Art Museum’s Open for Design project, consider entering the second annual Inventor Art Competition — a graphic precursor for the 2012 DaVinci Inventor Showcase. “We think the convergence of Denver’s new Patent Office and the area’s growing culture of innovation will…
The delivery date for submissions in the Denver Art Museum’s Open for Design community challenge is closing in. Have you been dragging your feet because you just don’t know how to come up with a solution that fits the problem within the framework of the challenge? The DAM isn’t about…
Tattoo-Haiku wants to make its mark on Denver. Joseph Carman, founder of the 555 Collective, which promotes the arts and also raises money for trauma victims, is advertising a haiku contest on fliers posted around town. To enter, you must pay a $5 submission fee — which Carman plans to…
Sitting beside me at the Henrys last night was the woman who makes it all happen: Gloria Shanstrom, general manager of the Colorado Theatre Guild. It is Shanstrom who makes this glittering event — this huge coming together of elegantly dressed, excitedly-gesticulating actors, directors, tech people and their audiences –…
There’s a really unusual show at Pirate right now that combines neo-traditional paintings of the figure with animated projections based on them. The Future Is Coming is a collaborative effort by painter Terry Campbell and photographer Matt Slaby. The front space contains half a dozen monumental paintings by Campbell. In…
The Dark Knight Rises is the epic conclusion to filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, starring Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Morgan Freeman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and more. The movie premieres at 12:01 a.m. Friday, and on Thursday night fans will have several ways to go to bat for Batman…
