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Best Computer-Art Show

Quintin Gonzalez

Computers have had a big effect on the visual arts, especially photography: Digital cameras and digital printing are now the standards. And though the pieces in Quintin Gonzalez: digital images resembled digital photos, they were actually drawings created with a variety of software applications. One of the most striking features of the work was the iridescent palette of remarkable tones that Gonzalez squeezed out of a LightJet printer. Not only is Gonzalez one of the best high-tech artists in town, but he also inspires the creative use of technology as a teacher at the University of Colorado at Denver. The Sandy Carson show was a good introductory course.

Best Political Show

Unstitched: A Voyeur's Idiom

Unstitched: A Voyeur's Idiom, displayed at weilworks, was both confrontational and beautiful, an outlandish and hard-to-achieve combination. Photographer Jimmy Sellers used his childhood interest in G.I. Joes to create political works that comment on the issues of gays in the military and same-sex marriage. In color and black-and-white digital prints, the macho figures were posed in various evocative situations; some involved violence, others eroticism. The G.I. Joes so resembled real men that many viewers had a hard time figuring out what was and wasn't real. Taking beefcake shots of dolls to further political discussions was very funny -- and very effective.

Best Religious-Art Show

Susan Goldstein: POLI VESTURE

Susan Goldstein's POLI VESTURE lent the Edge Gallery a creepy, haunted-house mood last spring -- not surprising, considering that Goldstein's photos were shot in an abandoned factory where religious articles were once produced. The title of the show was taken from the name of the factory, which was located in Pittsburgh. Goldstein captured the broken crucifixes and headless saints under dim lights. In the context of the factory's wrecked infrastructure, with abandoned machinery glimpsed in the background, the photos had an ironic quality, but they also seemed strangely pious.

Best Class Project

IN LIMBO

Under the direction of Gwen Chanzit, a professor at the University of Denver and a curator at the Denver Art Museum, a group of DU students organized IN LIMBO, a terrific show at the school's Victoria H. Myhren Gallery. The exhibition featured works generously loaned by big-time local art collectors Vicki and Kent Logan. The students used computers to view digital images of the Logan Collection at the DAM, as well as the Logans' private hoard. They then made their final selections, researched the chosen artists, produced an exhibition design and had a catalogue published. The finished product took a lot of hard work to produce -- and was a lot of fun to look at.

Best Western Landscape Show

The Painter's Eye

The West has inspired artists for over a century, and LoDo's David Cook Fine Art is one of the best places in Denver to check out some of the genre's older creations. The gallery rarely presents exhibits, so The Painter's Eye, on display last summer, was an unusual treat. The show included pieces by artists who worked in Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and California. A bonus was the in-depth display of pieces by local master Charles Partridge Adams, an impressionist who worked in the early twentieth century. It was a great way to enjoy the mountains without having to leave town.

Best Latin American Duet

Painting a New World and Tiwanaku

The Denver Art Museum's New World department includes both pre-and post-Columbian sections, and patrons Jan and Fred Mayer were principal sponsors of two relevant shows designed to showcase both. First was the post-Columbian offering, Painting a New World, which surveyed Mexican colonial painting. Then came the pre-Columbian Tiwanaku, which examined a little known civilization in Bolivia. Donna Pierce, the DAM's curator of Spanish colonial art, put together Painting a New World, and Margaret Young-S´nchez, the museum's curator of pre-Columbian art, did Tiwanaku. The two shows were predicted to have low attendance, and they did. But they were fine, well-thought-out shows, so it's great the DAM did them anyway.

Best Architecture Salute

Poetry and Stone

In the early '90s, architect Cab Childress designed a mountain home for University of Denver chancellor Daniel Ritchie. The imposing stone structure was done in an unusual neo-traditional style, with a copper roof called "Granny's Castle." Though Childress didn't know it at the time, the building was his audition for the post of DU architect. Over the next decade, Childress rewrote the appearance of the DU campus, beginning with the impossible-to-miss Daniel L. Ritchie Sports and Wellness Center, and followed by many other equally outrageous buildings. Curator Sally Perisho told the whole story in Poetry and Stone, a long-overdue salute to Childress's great contributions to the built environment of Denver.

Best Wall Art

"Womb"

Assembly art gallery is know for showing more controversial, cutting-edge works than some of its neighbors on Santa Fe Drive. But it wasn't an exhibit that got director Jared Anderson in trouble with the City of Denver. No, it was his yard art, "Womb." Designed as a freestanding monumental sculpture, "Womb" spans nearly fifty feet by fourteen feet, blocking the back of the gallery from the trashy alley behind 768 Santa Fe. It's a beautiful, innovative piece, but when inspectors got wind that Anderson had used recycled doors -- a prohibited material for constructing walls -- they cited him and took him to the Board of Adjustment of Zoning Appeals. Anderson eventually prevailed, and he won a variance for his sculpture. Now he hosts regular film nights in the gallery's back garden, where visitors can enjoy the protection of the city's best art wall.

Best Tribute to Old Denver

Tilt-a-Whirl World

Lakeside Amusement Park creaks on year after year, slowly sliding down the path toward historical oddity. It's Colorado's very own Coney Island, and that's exactly what makes the place so charming. Local photographer Christina Ianni captured the broken-down park -- with the rickety old Cyclone and carny-favorite Tilt-A-Whirl -- on film, using toy cameras scrounged at five-and-dimes. The results were rich, magical photos that expressed the beauty and nostalgia of one of Denver's great cultural legacies. When they all hung en masse in Kirk Norlin Gallery, it was as if Ianni had captured not just the park, but the heart and soul of Denver.

Best African-American Treasure Chest

Stiles African American Heritage Center

Retired teacher and Colorado Preservation, Inc. State Honor Award-winner Grace Stiles rescued a once-dilapidated Victorian frame house in Five Points and reshaped it for the greater good. The Stiles African American Heritage Center is stuffed with Stiles's own special legacy for black Denver's youth: a haystack of pictures and artifacts that piece together the lives a dozens of the region's African-American historical figures. Stiles invites school groups to tour her mini-museum, and occasionally hosts lectures and Chautauqua-style performances for the public.

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