Each year, the Colorado Photographic Arts Center (1513 Boulder Street, 303-455-8999) selects three members as prizewinners and presents their works in an annual exhibit. The latest version of the show has the already-outdated-sounding title of 2002 CPAC Member Awards. (In fairness to the organizers, the exhibit opened in December, so…
It doesn’t have what I’d call a seasonal character, but Eye Candy, at Judish Fine Arts, does feel at times like a really wild holiday party. As the title implies, the exhibit is not sharply defined, but comprises things whimsically selected by gallery director Ron Judish according to whether they…
It all started in November, when Art Students League artist Cong Lu won a prize for his painting “Self-Portrait of a Martyr.” Conservative in style, it shows a very buff Lu raising his T-shirt, revealing that his abs are strapped with explosives. Some students and viewers objected, and this thin…
Contemporary art is dangerous territory to map. There are so many different aesthetic and intellectual paths to follow, half of them leading in opposite directions. There’s a confusing array of named and unnamed stylistic tendencies vying for attention and comment — some concerned with championing the object, others with destroying…
With so much attention directed at all the major exhibits around, many modest but equally worthwhile offerings get lost in the shuffle. Hopefully, that won’t be the fate of a quartet of interesting solos in two of the city’s co-ops. In the front space at Spark Gallery (1535 Platte Street,…
Though his studio was in Pennsylvania, internationally known modernist-sculptor and designer Harry Bertoia, who died in 1978, had a number of Colorado connections. For many years he served as a fellow of the Aspen Institute, and there are important pieces of his work in the permanent collections of the Denver…
As a part of the Leah Cohen Festival of Books and Authors at the Mizel Center (350 South Dahlia Street, 303-316-6360), the Singer Gallery is fitted out with Illustrations by Leonard Baskin, Michelle Barnes and Barry Moser. The show was organized by gallery director Simon Zalkind and is made up…
In television, ratings determine everything. That’s why the networks pull out all the stops in programming during sweeps weeks. There are only a few of them during the year, but you know when one comes around, because the entire Godfather series runs on Bravo, MTV airs a Jackass marathon, there’s…
Here’s some sad if not unexpected news: It will soon be time to bid adieu to the wonderful little Andenken Annex (1449 Wynkoop Street, 303-758-2290) in LoDo. Since June, the Annex has been ensconced in the first-floor space of the SteelBridge loft complex, which has a great, high-profile location. Now…
More than any other fine-art medium, photography presents itself in myriad guises. It plays a variety of roles, depending on the context. In fact, the vast majority of photographs are not works of art at all — not because they’re badly done (well, not only that), but because they were…
Rokko Aoyama lives in northern Colorado, but it’s her former homeland, Japan, that gives her conceptual sculptures and installations their decidedly foreign flavor. Many of Aoyama’s works in Visual Itch, now at Artyard Gallery (1251 South Pearl Street, 303-777-3219), include ovoid shapes inspired by Manju, a popular Japanese snack. The…
For the art scene in Colorado, the Denver Art Museum is the only big-league game around. It’s something akin to the Broncos, Rockies and Nuggets all rolled into one. When I first heard about the recently unveiled Retrospectacle, a salute to modern and contemporary art, I got a little nervous…
Zip 37 (3644 Navajo Street, 303-477-4525) is an artists’ co-op with an atmosphere that’s equal parts alternative space and tacky gift shop. Right now, there’s something special on display in the former: An Unwelcome Guest and Other New Paintings, an exhibit devoted to strangely compelling little pieces by emerging artist…
On the frigid night of November first, hundreds of art enthusiasts made their way to the opening of the Four Year Anniversary Show at the William Havu Gallery. The occasion, of course, was a celebration of the gallery’s fourth year in business. “We’ve never had an opening like it,” says…
The Soup Gallery (554 Santa Fe Drive, 720-946-2899) is run by artist Josh Bemelen in the space that was formerly the home of the ILK co-op. Sadly, ILK exists today only as ILK @ Pirate, where it started — and where, if rumors are to be believed, it will soon…
The fall/winter show at Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art, POPjack: Warhol to Murakami, is a thoughtful and thought-provoking survey of the interrelationships between the American art of the 1960s and ’70s and Japanese and American art from the last five years. The compelling exhibit is highly unusual, even if the…
Spark Gallery, the city’s oldest co-op, is hosting a pair of intelligent and complementary solo shows, Sue Simon: How Many? and Foci: Photographs by Barbara Carpenter. Simon, a former scientific illustrator, has created a group of abstract paintings that vary widely in appearance even though they are apparently all part…
Denver’s new Wellington E. Webb Municipal Office Building, by the Denver firms of David Owen Tryba Architects and RNL Design, is the latest monument to rise at the Civic Center — which, by the way, is Denver’s premier urban space. Because of its prominent location, designing a building here has…
The Victoria H. Myhren Gallery, in the Shwayder Art Building on the University of Denver’s campus (2121 East Asbury Avenue, 303-871-2846), is hosting an exquisite exhibit titled Ronald Davis: Recent Abstractions 2001-2002. The show, which runs through November 8, was organized by Gwen Chanzit, a professor of art history at…
I said it just a few weeks ago: It’s hard to believe how many first-rate art shows this season are devoted to that old warhorse, abstract painting. There’s no question that the current positive reappraisal of abstraction — both of the historic and contemporary type — is a train that’s…
It’s strange to find a first-rate painting show on the second floor of a run-down warehouse near the National Western Stock Show Complex — but that’s exactly what’s there right now. The impressive exhibit is called hEMLOCK rOW: Paintings by Stephen batura, and it’s on display in a building known…
The Robischon Gallery is surely the flagship of Denver’s contemporary-art venues. Oh, sure, there are a handful that are every bit as good — but none are any better or have as long of a distinguished track record. The gallery’s physical plant, with its high ceilings and big walls, is…
