It’s hardly news that a multimillion-dollar house has been put up for sale in the suburbs of Denver. What makes this particular offering newsworthy, however, is that the big-ticket property in question is not a stucco monstrosity with a design that recalls some imaginary past (unlike most others of its…
Charles Deaton, the creator of the Sculptured House wasn’t the only local architect with a flair for the theatrical. James Sudler was one, also. Whereas Deaton was a self-taught high school graduate who pulled himself up by his bootstraps, Sudler was a bon vivant Yale grad — and one of…
The Arvada Center is unquestionably one of the most important art venues in the state. A midsized facility with a respectable budget, the institution incorporates several theaters, numerous meeting rooms, various workshops dedicated to diverse pursuits such as ceramics and ballet, and — of greatest interest to those in the…
The two solos at the Edge Gallery (3658 Navajo Street, 303-477-7173) are installed together as a single show, with the dividing wall pushed to the back. It’s amazing how grand the space is without that wall. It’s not unprecedented to connect the spaces, but it is only rarely seen. Even…
Mark Masuoka, director of the Carson Masuoka Gallery, has put together the very impressive Ambient Lux, a group show featuring installation art that can be readily compared to the installation-filled biennial now playing at Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art. As many will recall, Masuoka launched the MCA’s biennial series with…
The Colorado Photographic Arts Center (1513 Boulder Street, 303-455-8999) is presenting its annual summer feature, the members’ show; this year’s edition has the prosaic if eloquent title CPAC Members Juried Exhibit 2003. Membership in CPAC is not limited to serious photographers, meaning that amateurs are also represented in the ranks…
The Colorado Rockies — the mountains, not the baseball team — have attracted painters for more than a hundred years. But it’s the period between 1900 and 1950, without question, that is the most significant for Colorado landscape painting, with scores of accomplished artists working here at that time. It’s…
The truly wonderful summer show at the Robischon Gallery (1740 Wazee Street, 303-298-7788), Divining: Art and Water in the West, provides Denver gallery-goers with some badly needed psychological refreshment on these hot, dry days. It’s water, water everywhere — at least by implication, because there’s not a real drop in…
The drought of the past few years has been on nearly everyone’s mind, making water a timely topic around here for politicians, gardeners and even artists. In doris laughton: theSplatphenomenon2003, multimedia artist Doris Laughton takes the shape of a drop of water hitting a hard surface — the ‘splat’ referred…
The Cordell Taylor Gallery (2350 Lawrence Street, 303-296-0927) was originally situated in Salt Lake City; it moved to Denver in 2001. The gallery maintains a Salt Lake connection, though, and from time to time pairs artists from the two cities. That’s exactly what’s happening now with sight unseen, an exhibit…
For the past ten years or so, the Denver Art Museum has presented one important exhibit after another, focusing on art from the last decades of the nineteenth century and the first ones of the twentieth. As a result, Denver audiences have enjoyed numerous explorations of such relevant topics as…
The exhibit ReconFIGURED: Persons and Personas of the Permanent Collection, on display at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center (30 West Dale Street, Colorado Springs, 1-719-634-5581), includes an eclectic assortment of pieces that range widely in style and date. One standout among this mixed bag is the institution’s famous John…
On the morning of Thursday, June 12, Mayor Wellington Webb and First Lady Wilma Webb, among a host of political and art world luminaries, dedicated the most expensive sculpture ever erected in Denver, “The Dancers,” by international art star Jonathan Borofsky. The public was invited to the event, and I…
The commercial strip that lines Tennyson Street in northwest Denver has changed a lot over the last few years. Whereas once it was a collection of thrift shops and laundromats, it is now home to loft buildings, coffee shops and specialty stores. In the last category are Metro Frame Works…
The Center for the Visual Arts in LoDo is currently hosting a large and important show. Tamarind: Forty Years documents some of the many accomplishments achieved over the decades by the legendary New Mexico-based printmaker. The title is somewhat misleading, since Tamarind was founded in 1960, making 2003 the 43rd…
It’s unusual for a juried show to have a coherent theme, because there’s no controlling what artists will submit. Yet Interior Spaces, a sculpture show in the North Gallery of the Lakewood Cultural Center (470 South Allison Parkway, Lakewood, 303-987-7844), was juried and is coherent. So how did artist-jurors Patricia…
One of the most hotly discussed contemporary shows of the year is the 2003 Colorado Biennial: 10 + 10, at Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art. The controversial show is undeniably important, which is not unexpected. After all, it’s the state’s official biennial and the lone summer attraction at Denver’s official…
Many of the city’s most prominent women artists are brought together in the Ladyfest Out West Art Exhibition at Andenken Gallery (2110 Market Street, 303-292-3281). The show is the art component of the larger Ladyfest Out West, an event that includes concerts by acts with names like Vox Feminista and…
Surely one of the most appealing art-world attractions in Denver this spring is JUDY PFAFF: New Work, at Denver’s prestigious Robischon Gallery. It’s the kind of thing that’s unexpected in the off-season, but there’s a reason Denver audiences are being treated to such a big deal at this time of…
In the intimate and inviting Viewing Room in the back of the Robischon Gallery (1740 Wazee Street, 303-298-7788) is a wonderful show, Trine Bumiller: new paintings. The elegant Bumillers provide the perfect visual chaser to Judy Pfaff, which is on display up front (see review). True, the space in the…
For a while back in the ’80s and early ’90s, it looked like formalism — essentially non-objective abstraction — was on the ropes. Then about five years ago, it rose, Phoenix-like, from the ashes of neo-expressionism, on the one hand, and annoyingly personal conceptualism on the other, re-establishing itself as…
Surplus, at Studio Aiello (3563 Walnut Street, 303-297-8166), is the big-tent title connecting three unrelated solos — but just for good measure, each also has its own title. The show starts with Clare Cornell’s Dress Formal, which combines photo-based pieces and sculptures. The sculptures from Cornell’s “Lingual Discharge” series are…
