For the past eight years, Denver artist Stephen Batura has been doing works of art based on an archive of historic photos from the collection of what used to be called the Colorado Historical Society and is now known as History Colorado. Batura, who once worked at the Denver Public…
Some art writers, including critics and commentators, have been trying to put abstraction in its grave for a generation. In fact, abstraction has been the butt of sneering invective from those who champion other aesthetic approaches since artists first embraced the style a hundred years ago — and it’s come…
As much as any art museum or venue in town, Plus Gallery (2501 Larimer Street, 303-296-0927, www.plusgallery.com) is committed to showcasing cutting-edge art. The current case in point is Industry, a Jonathan Saiz solo made up of a group of closely related wall sculptures that function as a single, coherent…
It would be easy to argue that all art is partly about the artist who created it. But that doesn’t mean every piece can be classified as art of identity. No, that relies on a person’s sexual, ethnic, racial or religious background as a key element. The current art-of-identity era…
For a few days last month, Denver and the Front Range were shrouded in a smoky haze, courtesy of the forest fires in California. It was more than a little unsettling, lending the town a doomsday quality right out of a disaster movie. But fires are a natural part of…
The sluggish economy has affected the bottom line for art galleries, just as it has other businesses, but you wouldn’t know it from looking. In recent months, exhibits as good as, if not better than, ever have been unveiled one after another. And with the fall season now underway, you’d…
Denver artist Michael Brohman is known for conceptual sculptures and installations with ambiguous narratives. He’s also known for having edgy, if not questionable, tastes that result in the use of stomach-turning materials like human bones and skulls, animal pelts and remains and, believe it or not, horse manure. And then…
Very rarely is it possible to start out on the wrong foot and yet wind up hitting a successful stride. But somehow, in the case of the History Colorado Center, getting it wrong at first hasn’t precluded the possibility of getting it right later. In 2005, a state building committee…
The tight-looking duet James Dormer & Paul Flippen, at Translations Gallery (1743 Wazee Street, 303-629-0713, www.translationsgallery.com), features two artists on the faculty of Colorado State University. Though both work on paper, their approaches are quite different: Dormer is a classic modernist, while Flippen delves into postmodernism. Neither is particularly well…
It’s hard to believe that twenty years ago, many people felt photography wasn’t an art form, especially since it would be easy to argue that today it’s the preeminent one. This naysaying of the past was partly the product of the medium’s mechanical aspect: Many people had the naïve view…
Surely one of the most interesting places in Denver for fans of modern art is Burns Park, a triangle of grass and trees at the western edge of Hilltop, bounded by Colorado Boulevard, Alameda Avenue and Leetsdale Drive. What makes the park a hot spot for art enthusiasts is the…
I love group shows, in particular those that are held together by a clearly defined organizational theme. At their best, these sorts of exhibits can lay out a broad-based historic, aesthetic or stylistic narrative — sometimes all three at once. But solos can also be superior because they give viewers…
One of the interesting things about the art world is how open it is. I’ve been at many events where the attendees ranged from the classic starving artists who lived in their studios to zillionaire donors, along with lots of people like me, whose circumstances lie somewhere in between. A…
During the many years I’ve been paying attention to art in Colorado, there’s one thing that’s always bugged me: people in positions of power or influence who dismiss it or degrade it. There are many reasons for this, but my favorite is when these detractors project their own low self-esteem…
Billing itself as an “urban laboratory,” RedLine (2350 Arapahoe Street, 303-296-4448, www.redlineart.org) is a place where artists are provided with free or partly subsidized studio space and where there are some pretty impressive facilities for exhibitions. The handsome, award-winning studio/gallery — in a converted industrial building — could one day…
The human figure is the most essential referent in the world of art, and it surely has the longest history, as revealed by the Venus of Willendorf, a sculpture of a nude woman created in what is now Austria around 26,000 years ago. The Venus was recovered a century ago,…
Despite its intimate — read “tiny” — space, the Sandra Phillips Gallery (744 Santa Fe Drive, 303-573-5969, www.thesandraphillipsgallery.com) has big ambitions. Owner Sandra Phillips has relentlessly filled the place with something worth seeing, often turning to established talents and zeroing in on those who only rarely exhibit their work. Such…
The past ten years have been a remarkably interesting time for the fine arts in Colorado. The most obvious evidence of this cultural flowering has been the museum-building boom we’ve all witnessed. But there’s also been a consequent growth in the commercial-gallery realm, with the emergence of many art districts…
The Auraria campus shifts into low gear during the summer, but that doesn’t mean the Emmanuel Gallery (Lawrence Street Mall, 303-556-8337, www.emmanuelgallery.org) shuts down. On the contrary, Emmanuel uses the summer to stretch its wings, mounting ambitious shows. A perfect example is the current offering, Steve Wilson. This handsome if…
MCA Denver’s building was constructed with six small or mid-sized galleries (two on the first floor and four on the second), a decision that was dictated by the functional program developed by former director Cydney Payton. She laid out this idea of a multiplicity of discrete spaces instead of large…
The board of directors of Denver’s Museo de las Américas (861 Santa Fe Drive, 303-571-4401, www.museo.org) has announced that Maruca Salazar (pictured), a well-known Colorado artist and arts educator, has been named as the institution’s new director. She’s only the third chief executive in the museum’s nearly twenty-year history. Salazar…
The idea of basing art on things found in nature has had many adherents over the centuries and today manifests itself in a wide array of approaches, from straight-up depictions of the landscape to abstracts made up of organically inspired shapes. The latter style is found in two good-looking solos…
