Everyone loves a hero. Add a little mystery and some suspense, and you’ve got yourself a recipe for an epic tale of valor and woe, which we all love. (If you don’t love a tale of valor and woe, you can get the hell off this planet.) The folks at…
The Jersey Shore’s third season just wrapped up, and the crew is headed to Italy. In a statement last January, MTV announced that the show’s fourth season will be shot in “the birthplace of the culture [the cast members] love and live by” — a questionable decision, given that the…
There’s a principle in Buddhist philosophy that the journey ultimately matters more than the destination — what exists besides right now? — and, in that capacity, Improv Star is pretty much nothing but nirvana. In the words of one contestant: “as long as you’re steering it somewhere, you don’t really…
Sabin Aell of Hinterland took up the challenge of Denver’s Month of Photography by putting out an international call for entries for work that is “wild, uncontrolled, different, luminous, beautiful, sparkling, in the flow.” It’s a tall order, but that’s exactly what came up out of the ground for jurors…
Looking ahead to the citywide Create Denver arts blowout in May, the Downtown Denver Partnership and Denver Theatre District are teaming up to put the work of some Denver digital media artists up in lights — really big ones — on the giant outdoor LED screen at 14th and Champa…
Timothy Flood is into deconstruction. And right now, he’s into musical instruments — specifically, pulling them apart and rebuilding them into things that basically perform the same tasks, but in radically different ways and for totally different purposes. How different? Try this on for size: One part of the installation…
Within just a few hours of the time local artist Talia Kauk installed 1,000 paper cranes outside the Hamilton Building of the Denver Art Museum yesterday, without permission, security came out, snipped them down and tossed them in the trash, and they were gone. Conceived as a commentary on the…
Advertising is an expression of the culture in which it exists. It is a reflection of ourselves through the lens of very intelligent people whose job it is to know more about our inner psychology than any of us want to admit. Turns out that psychology degree was not a…
This year has started with a bang for those of us who are fascinated by the visual arts culture in Colorado. In January, RedLine unveiled a wholehearted salute to Dale Chisman, a master in the field of abstract painting here during the last three decades. With that show, one of…
Some years ago, Denver artist (and Westword MasterMind, class of 2007) Katie Taft instigated and curated the Self Made salon series at Mario’s Double Daughters Salotto, wherein artists gave informal talks and networking and discussion ensued over food and drink. Financial realities and life then got in the way, and…
The 2011 March Powwow and all the festivities therein taught me something I suspect is tremendously important. If you are wearing feathers, mirrors, bells, and dancing like you are a force of nature — if you are even in close proximity to people doing these things — it is near…
In the grand tradition of pugilists like Rocky Balboa and, to a lesser extent, Rudy Ruettiger, I have a demanding workout routine: Every morning, I get up, eat four steaks, drink a dozen raw eggs directly from the blender, oil myself up and stare at my imposing delts in the…
Somewhere between the literary obsessiveness and the heroin-haze that, together, consumed his life, William S. Burroughs developed a technique called cut-up writing, which uses fragments of preexisting works and rearranges them to create something new. The results, generally, are dizzying and nonsensical, but wonderfully so: because they are unintelligible, they…
No, it’s not your imagination. The Art District on Santa Fe Drive does look different. That’s because about 200 new high-efficiency LED lights have been installed in all the street lamps along Santa Fe, between Sixth and Tenth avenues. Oh, and they’re blue. Not golden, and — for goodness sakes!…
Hey, do you know Ernie? No? Well, you should, since the guy wants to draw your face off. Seriously: Ernie, apparently a local guy, has a brand new operation titled — you guessed it — “Draw Your Face Off.” The premise? Give Ernie a picture of your face, as well…
Formed as a way to promote the work of local musicians and artists of all medias, the small but mighty Birdseed Collective is looking for you — and your artwork. The group is putting out a call to any artists are interested in submitting to it’s 100 on 100, a…
It wasn’t First Friday or even Second Saturday, for that matter, but last Friday night was still art-heavy with receptions as the Month of Photography progresses. A lot of people, I found out, were over at Belmar, ringing in Feminine Influence, a woman-centric show curated by Katie Taft at Flash…
To the officers of the Durango Police Department: A couple of months ago, as you are no doubt aware, your department quietly changed its policy to allow a form of facial hair that has never in modern history been widely sported by members of the law enforcement community: the goatee…
During the Month of Photography, there are many fine shows around town focusing — excuse the pun — on the medium. But one stands out, if only in its aim to resurrect the reputation of a forgotten photo star who was once at the top of the heap in Colorado…
Like graffiti, most adverts sloppily plastered to the screens of the technospere fall under the heading of worthless cultural detritus, but also like graffiti, some pop up out of nowhere and shock us with their inventiveness and brilliance. They cause us to take pause and reflect on our own humanness…
Someone is setting ‘hipster traps” in New York, as photographed by this Reddit user. The awesomely cartoonish bear trap surrounds a pack of American Spirits, a can of PBR and sunglasses. Please warn your jobless young friends to avoid these traps…
In every competition-based TV series, there eventually comes a point where each contestant is more or less qualified to win. After a while, everyone left in the running is good at what they do; they all dance with the same self-effacing vigor or sing at comparable degrees of awful or,…
