The many spaces on the ground floor at Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art (1275 19th Street, 303-298-7554) are dedicated to an expansive survey of contemporary Chinese photography. But on the mezzanine is a quiet solo, Hidden Images, dedicated to recent compositions by a major contemporary Czech artist, Adéla Matasová. The…
It’s amazing how readily recognizable the imagery associated with the American West is, especially considering how quickly the whole cowboy-and-Indian thing came and went. In less than a century, the Western states were transformed from a huge, unknown frontier into a settled region linked by railroads and lit by electric…
The unusual group offering in the main gallery at Pirate: A Contemporary Art Oasis (3659 Navajo Street, 303-458-6058) includes pieces by artists from around the world. Mapas y Espejos (Maps and Mirrors) showcases the Matrix Art Project, a loose collective that mounts presentations such as this one throughout the United…
These days, it’s hard to mention the University of Colorado at Boulder and keep a straight face. I’m referring, of course, to the involuntary smirks, cringes and eye-rolling that are among the most common responses to hearing all the juicy dirt about the athletic department’s controversial recruiting practices. (With the…
The current show at Denver’s modest but highly regarded Artyard Sculpture Gallery (1251 South Pearl Street, 303-777-3219) features the latest body of work by Carley Warren, a famous name in local sculpture circles. The exhibit, Burdens, highlights the artist’s signature style with a group of her familiar wooden sculptures, which…
It would be an understatement to say that there’s a lot of excitement surrounding the marvelous idea of constructing a new building to house Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art. And even if the MCA hasn’t yet mounted a campaign to raise the $3 million to $4 million needed, the process…
Shots of mountains, cowboys and horses, and other subjects evocative of the American West make up most of Photographs by Barbara Van Cleve, the solo at the Camera Obscura Gallery (1309 Bannock Street, 303-623-4059). Born in Montana and living today in New Mexico, Van Cleve is a true Westerner, but…
Using politics to create art requires a skill for balancing aesthetics with philosophy, since political artwork must be visually successful while also conveying a message. The problem is that most artists can’t pull it off — something that’s very apparent in the art world, where bad message art is so…
It’s no secret that the alternative scene in Denver has been pretty flat for the past couple of years. But it looks as though Edge Gallery (3658 Navajo Street, 303-477-7173), an artists’ cooperative, is forging a path out of these woods. Since the beginning of the season last fall, Edge…
Pablo Picasso had a long life — he died in 1973 at age 92 — and during his epic career, he made a number of key stylistic breakthroughs essential to the development of modern art. He was on the ground floor of cubism and surrealism and, come to think of…
Ivar Zeile, previously with the Cordell Taylor Gallery, which has closed, and Ron Judish, the director of the gone-but-not-forgotten Judish Fine Arts, have together launched the city’s newest art hot spot, (+) Zeile/Judish Gallery (2350 Lawrence Street, 303-296-0927). The new gallery occupies the old Cordell Taylor location, but it will…
It’s surprising, yet it’s all but official: Walker Fine Art has established a place for itself at the main table of contemporary art in Denver. True, it hasn’t quite reached the top tier of local venues, but it’s only one level down from it — pretty impressive for an operation…
Mark Sink, who runs Gallery Sink (2301 West 30th Avenue, 303-455-0185), has organized Staged Fantasy, an exhibit of posed photos by an assortment of contemporary photographers. A lot of the work relates to Sink’s own efforts, which, though not included in the show, are highly visible, as they are hung…
The Robischon Gallery sets the standard for art exhibitions in Denver. Whatever’s going on there, it’s always as good as — or better than — anything else around. There are two reasons for this: First, the selections are always intriguing, and second, every piece is perfectly situated in Robischon’s chic…
The oldest of the city’s alternative spaces is Spark Gallery (1535 Platte Street, 303-455-4435), which is in a charming storefront in the historic Big Chief Block on the western edge of the Platte Valley. Spark has two dozen members but only two small exhibition rooms. That means it’s pretty packed…
More and more, it seems to me that nearly all current contemporary art can trace its impetus directly back to the 1960s and ’70s. I guess that’s why almost everything today looks like it could have been created back then. This is not a negative appraisal of the current situation;…
There’s an interesting show at Edge Gallery (3658 Navajo Street, 303-477-7173) that expresses some connections between Mexico and the American West. Called shared horizons/horizontes compartidos, it was organized by Ricky Armendariz, a well-known Latino artist living in Boulder. “I leaned that two artists from Mexico, Javier Guadarrama and Claudia Gallegos,…
Though he’d kept a low profile during the past ten years and only rarely exhibited his work during that period, longtime Denver artist Bill Joseph remained involved in the city’s art world until his death, on December 15. In fact, I ran into him in the company of his wife,…
The Colorado Photographic Arts Center (1513 Boulder Street, 303-455-8999) is putting on Visions 2: Contemporary Colorado Photography, an impressive group show that takes a snapshot of the present state of contemporary fine-art photography in Colorado. As indicated by the title, this is the second such effort to have been organized…
The Colorado History Museum rarely presents exhibits that concern the fine and decorative arts. The museum’s philosophy is more attuned to promoting what’s called “material culture” — a broad field that includes things like pickaxes and ski lifts. This is all well and good, but for those of us interested…
Right now there’s a major retrospective that examines the work of Mark Zamantakis, one of the state’s most significant ceramic artists. The exhibit, Zamantakis: From the Earth, is ensconced in the Victoria H. Myhren Gallery (2121 East Asbury Avenue, 303-871-2846) at the University of Denver. It was put together by…
Cydney Payton, director of Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art, has been putting a lot of effort into expanding that plucky little institution, which occupies only limited space on a first floor and mezzanine at Sakura Square. Her plan to construct a from-the-ground-up building is unfolding, and the competition to select…
