When it comes to advertising that is geared to deter someone from something, the most effective — and most often chosen — tactic is to use images that scare the shit out of any would-be buyers or doers. This is often seen in political ads and AIDS awareness ads, and…
Local artist Axel Geittmann’s paintings take viewers into a surrealist world of psychological landscapes, exploring complex emotional territory by combining gestures of realism with an essence of the other-worldy. Mostly painting with acrylic and spray-paint, Geittmann fuses traditions and viewer expectations to create a haunting mythology all his own. We…
How many cities can boast an annual city-wide contest honoring the most kick-ass building designs? Denver can, thanks to its six-year-old Mayor’s Design Awards, which recognizes achievement in new architecture and urban reclamation alike. And judging from this year’s 11 winners, who’ll be feted tonight at 6 p.m. in the…
Of all the U.S. presidents — George W. notwithstanding — Richard Nixon might have been the most unintentionally hilarious. A dour, glowering grinch with a cat’s disposition and a simian’s posture, Nixon nevertheless had a surprisingly expressive face, in a silly-putty sort of way, that makes his goofy faces that…
Before October, I don’t think I’d touched a lump of clay for at least thirty years. When I was in high school, I was lucky enough to take ceramics from the great local wood-fired pottery guru Mark Zamantakis, and that romp in the clay was delicious; though I couldn’t throw…
We cover culture low-brow and high on Show and Tell, which sometimes includes scraping the underbelly of the internetz to bring you memes that are incredibly popular on message boards and online forums, if nowhere else. Which is why today, we bring you the twelve best “Fuck Yeah” images from…
Randy Roberts, the owner of Z Art Department (1136 North Speer Boulevard, 303-298-8432), has done a good job over the last few years of picking up pieces of old modern art created by earlier generations of Colorado artists. In the past twenty years, there’s been increasing scholarly and collector interest…
Noah Van Sciver is a very successful comic book artist: Besides his weekly appearance in Westword with 4 Questions, he’s also been praised by comic critics and even nominated for an Ignatz Award for his series Blammo, now in its sixth issue. All of these things would be way better…
No one in their right mind would normally try to hit four art walks all in one night, but last Friday wasn’t any old First Friday, it was Denver Arts Week’s Know Your Arts First Friday and, courtesy of Visit Denver flak Rich Grant, I got to do it in…
Several blocks outside the First Friday art-walk on Santa Fe sits Illiterate Gallery at 72 South Broadway. It’s a part of town that some consider a place so-called “hipsters” call home — but if you stand in front of Illiterate too long on any other night of the week, you’re…
In an effort to shed some light and some laughter on the stupidity that constantly swirls through the airwaves, we bring you a stupid moving advertisement that will hopefully brighten your day, either with its outright foolishness or with its laughable condescension. This week, Bundaberg Rum from Australia succeeds in…
Ever read George Orwell’s dystopian classic 1984, wherein the powers that be monitor your every move via video devices called telescreens? Super creepy, right? Well now a creepily similar technology is coming to a theater near you…
Why is this First Friday different from all other First Fridays? In most ways, it isn’t, and that’s the real beauty of it. But it is Denver Arts Week’s Know Your Arts First Friday Arts Walk, meaning the monthly evening art walk event in arts districts all over town will…
Ah, Heidi Montag. How do we take pleasure in your misfortune? Let us count the ways: First, there was The Hills, one of the most boring reality-drama-fests ever created. Then, there was the messy split from husband/ultra-douche Spencer Pratt. Then, there was the will-they-won’t-they sex tape, and the comically enormous…
It’s a sad but true fact: Neglected words are continually falling off the back of this montivagant English of ours, making room for such gems as verbs like, ‘tweet’ and ‘google,’ and such kexy nouns as, ‘staycation’ and ‘frenemy,’ as we march boldly into the unknown territory of the twenty-first…
Dana Cain is the lady with her thumb in a million pies: The local maestra of event-planning throws several well-attended collectors expos, art shows, parties, chocolate fests each year. Her latest — and biggest — project is next summer’s Denver County Fair. But Dana is also an avid art collector…
Yesterday, we learned the sad news: Denver Initiative 300, which would have created an official, government-approved commission to prepare our fair city for a visit from extraterrestrials, was soundly defeated, garnering hardly fifteen percent of the vote — meaning hardly fifteen percent of the population has any sense of humor…
General William Sherman once said that “war is hell” — but what he should have said is “war is hellarious. Or at least it is when adorable animals are all dressed up and cute. Because anthropomorphizing our fellow inhabitants of the animal kingdom is one of the strangest things humans…
Charged with the task of interviewing the common folk of Denver for Westword, my weekly quest to speak with interesting characters about the pressing issues of our time found me in an alley on Capitol Hill, where I found a part-time graffiti writer who identified himself only as Kodak. He…
For nearly twenty years, conceptual artist Christo and his late wife, Jeanne-Claude, made plans for the “Over the River” project, a series of sun shades that hopefully will be installed in a few years over intermittent stretches of the Arkansas River in southern Colorado as a temporary work of art…
As reported earlier today on the Cafe Society blog, the enormously popular new cantina from Sean Yontz and Jesse Morreale, El Diablo, will host the second annual Dia de los Muertos Tattoo Art Show and Charity Auction, which debuted last year at the team’s defunct Tambien in Cherry Creek and…
Yes, there are great men out there, influencing your world every day without your knowledge, and you could be one of them someday, assuming you’re male. If you’re a woman, there’s another Askmen.com list you can be on, but it uses, ahem, slightly different metrics in determining greatness, which you…
