Nine Arty Things to Do and See This Weekend

Get in line: The April onslaught of new gallery shows and events isn’t over yet. Catch on to the Denver art scene’s continuing reverberations at these nine hot spots.

Drew Landon Harris, Inspiration/Perception
Globeville Riverfront Arts Center, 888 East 50th Avenue
Opening reception: Thursday, April 12, 6 to 10 p.m.
The GRACe studio enclave opens up to the public this week for a solo show by resident artist Drew Landon Harris, who will be showing work from two series: The Golden Figures, with its black and gilded portraits, and The Space Between, mixed-media constructions that play with iconic shapes and light on unorthodox geometric surfaces. Arrive early and you might luck out: Harris will be handing out free prints to the first few early birds in the door.

Heart Therapy: PeeMonster Solo Show
Sally Centigrade, 445 South Saulsbury Street, Lakewood
April 12 through May 5
Opening reception: Thursday, April 12, 5 to 9:30 p.m.
Though it’s hard to believe, lowbrow champion Scott Bailey of Sally Centigrade says Heart Therapy is the first true solo show the gallery’s ever hosted since its first local iteration opened in Larimer Square in 2014. He also can’t hide his excitement over the exhibit, which features work by the Bay Area artist known as PeeMonster, who creates sought-after naive portraits in graphite and charcoal. PeeMonster might or might not be present at the reception, but there will be plenty of his signature artwork to view.

Mark Fitzsimmons: Identification Please (Flag Piece)
RMCAD Spring 2018 Graduation Exhibition
Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design, 1600 Pierce Street, Lakewood
Opening reception: Friday, April 13, 5 to 9 p.m.
While the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design’s 2018 graduating class celebrates its graduation exhibition with a reception in RMCAD’s Philip J. Steele Gallery on April 13, fellow grad and war veteran Mark Fitzsimmons will be finishing his culminating work on metro-Denver streets. For Identification Please (Flag Piece), Fitzsimmons plans to work through the emotional weight he still carries from his time in the military in a physical performance, by walking nine miles through the city, carrying a weighted American flag. His walk, which begins at 1 p.m. at Curtis Park, 31st and Champa streets, is scheduled to end around 6:30 p.m. at the gallery, where he’ll join the celebration. Viewers are asked not to join him on his trek, but feel free to meet up at either end of the hike, or in the middle, at Civic Center Park. To follow Fitzsimmons online, send him a “find my friends” and request “the day of.” Select “share till the end of the day.” Fitzsimmons also hopes to stream live video on his Facebook page.

Friday the 13th — Spooky Art Edition
RiNo Made, 3501 Wazee Street, #109
Friday, April 13, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
RiNo Made, an official retail outlet for artwork made by artists working exclusively in the art district, occupied its new permanent digs in the Zeppelin Station market hall in March, but the celebration isn’t over yet — and it may never end. The shop will be decked out in an ode to Friday the Thirteenth this weekend, with a display of spooky art you don’t expect to see in April. It’s all in fun, and you might find something perfect for next Halloween. Don’t let a black cat cross your path…

Impossible Winterbourne AlphaBots Book Release and Pop-Up Exhibit
Leon Gallery, 1112 East 17th Avenue
Through April 16
Reception and Reading: Saturday, April 14, 7 to 10 p.m.
Seven or so years ago, strange, pensive, half-submerged human faces began to appear surreptitiously on city walls, lampposts and tree trunks around Denver, lending an air of mystery and a fresh take on public art to city spaces. The artist who placed the sculptures around town, known as the Impossible Winterbourne, soon branched out into the SteamBot pieces he’s become famous for. These days, he’s mainly placing his clandestine artwork in other cities like Austin and Chicago, but Impossible is back in town to show off his beautifully illustrated new children’s book, The AlphaBots, which picks up on his robotic steampunk arsenal of characters. And while he’s here, he’s also thrown up some new work, on the walls at Leon Gallery through April 16. Check Impossible Winterbourne’s Instagram for a primer on his style.

Home Tour with Frankie Toan
Saturday, April 14, 11 a.m. to noon,
Free, RSVP required on Facebook event page
The Vicki Myhren Gallery’s exhibit Making Art / Making Community, which runs through April 29, continues to invite public participation with artists through social experiments that foster new avenues of thought and perception. One of those artists, Frankie Toan, decided to take his experiment on the road for an artsy, thirty-minute private home tour on April 14 — with a prerequisite request to first check out the owner’s Instagram handle. After the tour, everyone will compare notes on the difference of perspectives on the home, as gleaned from the Internet as opposed to the real-life visit. RSVP and learn more at the Facebook event page.

Jennifer Sullivan and Alicia Gibson, Shadow Boxing
Lane Meyer Projects, 2528 Walnut Street
Opening reception: Saturday, April 14, 6 to 10 p.m.
A pair of New York artists with similar but singular aesthetics, Jennifer Sullivan and Alicia Gibson are dropping in at Lane Meyer Projects for Shadow Boxing, a symbiotic two-person show with an urban DIY spirit. Stop by and chat with them on Saturday night.

Meow Wolf Presents: Rubedo & Nocando
Camp Kalamath, 3900 South Kalamath Street, Englewood
Saturday, April 14, 7 to 11:30 p.m.
RSVP required on Facebook event page
Who wouldn’t want to attend a private dance party with Rubedo, Nocando and other bands that’s sponsored by Meow Wolf and includes a major multi-artist installation by such local names as Pedro Barrios, Tom Bond, Elissa Eaton, Victor Escobedo, Anthony Garcia, Max Kauffman, Jon Koalenz, Jaime Molina and Sam Pierson? Realistically, no hip person in town would turn that down, so act fast, or available spaces will disappear. As noted above, RSVP like the wind on the Facebook event page.

Samuel Matao Dreskin, Planted or Buried
Rosehouse, 14 South Broadway
Opening reception: Sunday, April 15, 7 to 9 p.m.
When the unusual-plant purveyor Rosehouse offers up wall space to Sam Dreskin, a worker at Black Ink Press 1312 whose prints and drawings are often politically driven in the leftist direction, the work is certain to invoke a botanical theme. Either way, Dreskin and Rosehouse will donate 60 percent of all proceeds to two social-justice causes: The Water Protectors of the Standing Rock blockade in North Dakota, and Herman Bell, a former member of the Black Liberation Army who will be paroled on April 16 after 45 years in prison.

Interested in having your event appear in this calendar? Send the details to [email protected]. For more events this weekend, see our 21 Best Things to Do in Denver.