Six Arty Things to Do and See This Weekend

Spring is almost here, and Denver galleries are blossoming with group shows and musings on the environment alongside a pop-up retail art experiment, exhibits designed to change the way you think and a foray into performance art. Here are the goods.

Edward Burtynsky, Selected Work
Elena Dorfman, Transmutations
Chuck Forsman, Hard Seasons
Karen Kitchel, Austerity Measures
Robischon Gallery, 1740 Wazee Street
March 15 through May 5
Opening Reception: Thursday, March 15, 6 to 8 p.m.
Robischon Gallery’s quartet of spring shows are linked by their focus on the textures and expanses of the landscape and other natural imagery. Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky looks at how the modern world encroaches on these spaces, with environmental consequences. Elena Dorfman explores her complicated Albanian roots on boundary-crossing photo-tapestries. Chuck Forsman subtly addresses how the presence of humans tweaks nature in mountainscapes besmirched by French poodles and curvilinear roadways that ape the lay of the land. And Karen Kitchel beautifully appreciates the grace of a rapidly disappearing natural world, right down to individual blades of wild grasses.

Locus
Mai Wyn Fine Art, 744 Santa Fe Drive
March 16 through April 15
Opening Reception: Friday, March 16, 5 to 9 p.m.
Mai Wyn joins Mo’Print 2018’s wave of March shows with a two-person exhibit showcasing monoprints and collographs by gallery artists Fawn Atencio and Sharon Strasburg. Like Robischon’s foursome, Atencio and Strasburg also observe shapes from nature, but they use them as the basis for abstractions on paper or wood surfaces. Meet the artists at the March 16 opening reception, then come back on Saturday, March 24, between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. for hands-on printing demos with Strasburg, in conjunction with Mo’Print’s daylong Studio Tour.

Vantage Points
Walker Fine Art, 300 West 11th Avenue
March 16 through May 5
Opening Reception: Friday, March 16, 5 to 9 p.m.
Some artists just naturally open doors to new points of view with their work, whether it comes by idiosyncratic observations, pictures that tell ambiguous stories, or explorations into the way light falls or colors complement one another with electric results. Walker Fine Art invites you to walk into the gallery on Friday with fresh eyes for Vantage Points, a group show drawing attention to the subtle and sometimes life-changing cues an artwork can evoke – if you just look at it long enough. This is food for thought that will leave you hungering for more.

New Genres Collective presents Lorem
Counterpath, 7935 East 14th Avenue
Friday, March 16, 6 to 9 p.m.
Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design faculty members Tobias Fike and Jeff Page founded the New Genres Collective, a loose performance-art club at RMCAD, to open avenues for students looking to stretch their frontiers as fine artists. For Lorem, NGC members and friends will source the LOREM IPSUM text placeholder in graphics as a prompt, each performing a spontaneous action or performance using sound, music, visuals, movement – and whatever else works – to make a statement. Come see what they’ve cooked up Friday at Counterpath; admission is free. Learn more about NGC online.

SupaStore Human — We Are the Product, Closing Reception
Dikeou Pop-Up: Colfax, 312 East Colfax Avenue
Friday, March 16, 6 to 9 p.m.
Sadly, Sarah Staton’s SupaStore Human — We Are the Product is going away. The international traveling emporium of artist-made goods opened at the Dikeou Pop-Up in December, and its three-month run is coming to an end. You can have a last look (and take advantage of 20 percent discounts on everything) at the March 16 closing reception. Get a memento while you can, because there’s no guarantee that the SupaStore, which journeys to museums, galleries and alternative spaces around the world, will ever return.

Dini Dixon, claypunk
808 Projects, 808 Santa Fe Drive
March 16 through April 22
Opening Reception: Friday, March 16, 7 to 10 p.m.
Chances are you haven’t ever thought of a block of clay as a gendered art material, but in Brooklyn-based ceramic artist Dini Dixon’s show, claypunk, the idea that clay has been feminized and deemed a less-important medium by the patriarchy is the underlying theme. But if that doesn’t get you thinking, checking out the brand-new artist-run space 808 Projects at its debut event might be a good enough reason to visit. Dixon’s show was curated by Sophie Lynn Morris, and it could be the start of an exciting future at 808.

Also worth catching:

Impermanence, with works by Tiana Graves, James C. Jones, Brenda LaBier and Lynda Tygart. Opening with a reception on Friday, March 16, from 6 to 9 p.m. at Sync Gallery, 931 Santa Fe Drive. Through April 14.

Zoa Ace: Solo Show, opening with a reception on Friday, March 16, from 6 to 9 p.m. at Zip 37, 3644 Navajo Street. Through April 1.