Translating the Building
McNichols Building, first floor, 144 West Colfax Avenue
August 2 through 25
Panel discussion and opening reception: Sunday, August 4, 3 to 5:30 p.m.
If architects and city planners are the true visionaries when it comes to how cities grow, how can they shape a better future for urban spaces that bypasses urban ills? That’s the simple version of the premise behind Translating the Building, for which architects, both professional and in training, were asked by curators Aaron Mulligan and Jordan Gravely to imagine a better future. See the results and get the news from the horse’s mouth at Sunday’s panel discussion.
The Smallest Giant in the World: Tripper Dungan
Sally Centigrade, 445 South Saulsbury Street, Lakewood
August 1 through October 5
Opening reception: Thursday, August 1, 5 to 9:30 p.m.
Tripper Dungan puts his unique and cartoony style to work in an installation of wall-mounted 3-D imagery inspired by carnivals, sideshows and roadside attractions for a show that will tickle your arcane curiosities — the ones that you (and everyone else) won’t always admit to. Dungan’s skewed look at the world is, after all, just for fun.
Invisible Information: New Paintings by Jason Albert Garcia
God Spelled Backwards: New Paintings by Patrick Kane McGregor
Dateline Gallery, 3004 Larimer Street
August 2 through 31
Opening reception: Friday, August 2, 6 to 11 p.m.
Dateline brings mural art indoors (in anticipation of Crush Walls, perhaps) with a showcase of two Denver-based artists and Globeville studio-mates, Jason Albert Garcia and Patrick Kane McGregor. Garcia’s geometric color studies are inspired by the protective symbol of the Ojo de Dios, or God’s Eye, from indigenous Mexican culture, while McGregor delves into a favorite visual subject: dogs, man’s best friend. It’s going to be a colorful evening.
Jennifer Lord, As you find yourself in the verdant fields with the sun on your face
JuiceBox Gallery, 3006A Larimer Street
August 2 through September 14
Opening reception: Friday, August 2, 6 to 10 p.m.
Next door to Dateline, JuiceBox Gallery adds inter-gallery synergy to the corner of 30th and Larimer streets with a sunny splash of color in free-form, gestural floral and landscape paintings indicative of sunny skies and summer heat.
Courtesy of Core New Art Space
Core New Art Space, 6851 West Colfax Avenue, Lakewood
August 2 through 25
Grand Opening Reception: Friday, August 2, 6 to 9 p.m.
Kanon's Grand (re)Opening Party and Group Show
Kanon Collective, 6851 West Colfax Avenue, Lakewood
August 2 through 15
Opening reception: Friday, August 2, 6 to 10 p.m.
It’s a night of new beginnings for co-ops in 40 West, where Core New Art Space and Kanon Collective, fresh from the Art District on Santa Fe, celebrate brand-new digs at Pasternack’s Art Hub in 40 West. Despite the recent building flood that set back preparations for their First Friday Art Crawl openings, both galleries are up and running and ready to show their stuff. Core debuts with one of the gallery’s most popular traditions, the Wide Open Whatever (WOW) open-entry show, while Kanon shows all its stuff in a group member exhibition.
Katie Caron and Martha Russo, “Oxytocin (polymer)."
Katie Caron and Martha Russo, William Havu Gallery
Laura Truitt on the mezzanine
William Havu Gallery, 1040 Cherokee Street
August 2 through September 14
Opening reception: Friday, August 2, 6 to 9 p.m.
A trio of gallery artists inspired by science and the natural world — Katie Caron, Regan Rosburg and Naomi Scheck — bring varied views, from installation work to drawings, to Havu Gallery for Unseen Nature. Notably, "Oxytocin," a pulsing, glowing steel-and-porcelain collaboration between Caron and installationist Martha Russo, is included in the exhibition. Laura Truitt presents abstract paintings on the mezzanine.
Paul Garcia, Dream Wish of a Casino Soul
Lane Meyer Projects, 2528 Walnut Street
August 2 through September 20
Opening reception: August 2, 6 to 11 p.m.
Pon Pon co-owner Paul Garcia waxes on the gambler’s obsession in a multimedia, self-exploratory conglomeration of painting, digital art, collage, diorama and video. It’s what you do when you undertake a memoir in the 21st century.
Jennifer Pettus, Frame Story
ReCreative Denver, 765 Santa Fe Drive
August 2 though 30
Opening reception: Friday, August 2, 6 to 9 p.m.
Think of Jennifer Pettus’s mixed media and fiber exhibition — based on the literary conceit of weaving a story within a story — as a kind of storytelling by a chorus of voices moving at different speeds, bringing textural warp and weft to its Babel-like narratives. Expect to be hooked, just as you would by a great novel. ReCreative will frame the show with $5 beer or wine and hands-on block printing with Betterish.
Zero Party With the Fasano Twins
PS Design, 2921 Walnut Street
Friday, August 2, 6 to 10 p.m.
Besides being identical twins, Charly “City Mouse” Fasano and Vincent Cheap are both gifted with innate imagination and talent. The do-it-yourself duo will share paintings, drawings, poetry, films and sonic soundscapes in the latest version of the Zero Party art show series. The performance portion will begin around 8:30 p.m.
Feel
Foolproof Contemporary Art, 3240 Larimer Street
August 2 through September 14
Opening reception: Friday, August 2, 7 to 11 p.m.
RSVP in advance
Foolproof turns over a new leaf for the end of summer with Feel, a group grab bag of art that deals with jumbled-up feelings. If you miss this opening, Feel will remain on view through Crush Walls, on First Friday in September, when mural-making will intersect with gallery art.
Katy Zimmerman, Seeing Through Feeling
Boxcar Gallery, 554 Santa Fe Drive
August 2 through 31
Opening reception: Friday, August 2, 6 to 10 p.m.
Additional gallery hours: Saturday, August 3 and 31, noon to 4 p.m.
Katy Zimmerman brings a new load of paintings, sculptures and wearable art to Boxcar. Expect a mishmash of moons and stars, eyeballs, feminism and open-minded spiritualism to spin around Zimmerman’s cosmic world.
Summer Group Show
Mai Wyn Fine Art, 744 Santa Fe Drive
Through August 24
First Friday reception: Friday, August 2, 6 to 10 p.m.
Mai Wyn takes advantage of the Art District on Santa Fe First Friday street closure to showcase the gallery’s summer group show and solicit affordable art at $200 or less to help fund a September pop-up event in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It’s going to be a party, here and everywhere, on Santa Fe.
Debra Manville, Twin Bunny
Alto Gallery, 4345 West 41st Avenue
August 2 through 31
Opening Reception: Friday, August 2, 6 to 10 p.m.
Alto presents a solo by Debra Manville, a painter and digital artist whose oeuvre orbits around duplicate shapes that might designate different facets of the whole self — identical on the outside, but experiencing different realities on the inside. Whatever the intention, her semiotic graphics are compelling and pleasing to look at.
Becky Wareing Steele, Utopia: A New Society for All
Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College, 30 West Dale Street, Colorado Springs
August 3 through November 3
Something Else: Artist Talk: Friday, Sept 27, 5:30 p.m.
Becky Wareing Steele continues her examination of Utopias in miniature with a new tiny-world diorama at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. The characters, who inhabit desert Earthships, are based on real people who’ve applied to be included in Wareing Steele’s perfect world. The artist will explain everything during an artist talk in September, giving you one more reason to travel south for the exhibition.
Outside Artfest
Globeville Riverfront Art Center (GRACe), 888 East 50th Avenue
Saturday, August 3, 3 to 8 p.m.
The artist-denizens of the Globeville Riverfront Art Center (GRACe) create their own community within the community at large by sharing space, ideas and creativity as they labor in their personal practices. Once in a while, they let the rest of the world in to see how that works, and this is one of those times: a celebration of all of the above, with open studios, a gallery show, live art, mural-making and outdoor installations. Get inside the hive, and save room for street tacos from the Richie's on the Run food truck.
ARTbrunchSALE
EvB Studios, 3735 Ames Street, Wheat Ridge
Saturday, August 3, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Clay artist Marie Gibbons has been busy creating new work, including ceramic and encaustic wall-mounted jellyfish, whimsical air (plant) head vases, sea women and sculptures inspired by cancer cells — among other things. Gibbons will serve up art and noshes while you shop on Saturday in her Wheat Ridge studio.
Pandora’s Box
Leon, 1112 East 17th Avenue
Saturday, August 3, 7 to 11 p.m.
Admission: $7 in advance, $10 at the door
Leon hosts something entirely different in Pandora’s Box, a one-night, pop-up happening pairing creations by floral artists Arthur Williams and Amie Oakley of Babylon Design with soundscapes by experimental musician f-ether. We call that immersive as heck, and a moment in time that can never be reconstituted.
Sweet Toof, Gone Fishing
Black Book Gallery, 3878 South Jason Street, Englewood
Opening reception: Saturday, August 3, 7 to 10 p.m.
Black Book christens its new warehouse-sized home in Englewood with new works on canvas, prints and more by Sweet Toof, a British street and graffiti artist. This is a rare occasion when Black Book, mostly an online emporium of international urban art and prints, will be open to the public, and the good stuff usually gets grabbed up fast. Be there or be square.
Interested in having your event appear in this calendar? Send the details to [email protected]. For more events this weekend, find details in this week’s 21 Best Things to Do in Denver.
