The Best First Friday Shows on Santa Fe Drive and Other Denver Art Districts

August First Friday events are burning up Denver this weekend, with such hot events as the unveiling of D’art Gallery‘s expansion and visual art by actor Anthony Quinn. The art-and-hip-hop blend of Visible Planets returns to Bitfactory Gallery, with a concert the next night at the gorgeous El Jebel building. In higher climes, all of Aspen is being showered with art and artists.

Here’s where to bump into art this weekend without even trying:

The Life and Art of Tokio Ueyama
Denver Art Museum, 100 West 14th Avenue Parkway
Through June 1, 2025
Included in museum admission, free to $22 here, or at the door
There’s a sad chapter of Colorado history wrapped up in the newly opened Denver Art Museum exhibition, The Life and Art of Tokio Ueyama, about an accomplished Japanese painter who was among more than 10,000 Japanese-Americans — a majority of them American citizens — incarcerated near the Kansas border at the Granada Relocation Center internment camp, better known now as the Amache National Historic Site. In more than forty paintings on loan from the Japanese American National Museum and the Ueyama family, The Life and Art of Tokio Ueyama is a visual diary of the artist’s life, including his time teaching art classes while living in the camp barracks. His story might just inspire you to visit Amache, which was designated a historic site in 2022, and also stop by the museum in the town of Granada.

Aspen ArtWeek
Aspen Art Museum, 637 East Hyman Avenue, Aspen
Through Saturday, August 3
Aspen Art Fair
Historic Jerome Hotel, 330 East Main Street, Aspen
Thursday, August 1, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Friday, August 2, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Day passes, $30 here
Intersect Aspen Art & Design Fair
Aspen Ice Garden, 233 West Hyman Avenue, Aspen
Thursday, August 1, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Friday, August 2, and Saturday, August 3, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Day passes, $25 here
The Aspen Aspen Art Museum’s annual ArtWeek — a series of artist conversations and events that continue through Sunday — is already underway, but it’s not too late to come to the arty party: Most ArtWeek events are free (reserve here), while the new Aspen Art Fair and the annual Intersect Aspen Art & Design Fair, where one can see the latest from artists from across the nation, run concurrently.

August First Friday Art Walk
Art District on Santa Fe, Santa Fe Drive between Sixth and Eleventh avenues
Friday, August 2, 5:30 to 10 p.m.
Dedicated art-walkers wait all year for the First Friday in August, when Santa Fe Drive is closed to traffic from Sixth to Eleventh avenues, making for less crowded sidewalks in spite of big crowds in an open-air art paradise. As one would expect, the art district galleries go all out, with opening receptions and special events, as well as food trucks, live music and street vendors galore. Following are just a few ideas about where to go and what to see there.

Tenth Anniversary Exhibition X.v
Michael Warren Contemporary, 760 Santa Fe Drive
Opening Reception: Thursday, August 1, 5 to 8 p.m.
The fifth and last Tenth Anniversary exhibition series for Michael Warren Contemporary finishes big this week with a fine display of work by artists Jeff Baldus, K Rhinus Cesark, John Garrett, Etsuko Ichikawa, Margaret Kasahara, Gwen Laine, Brad Reed Nelson, Sara Ransford, Allison Stewart, Floyd Tunson and Sherry Wiggins. Feast your eyes.

Corey Pemberton: Piece by Piece
Crafting the Future
Cultivating Threads of Memory, in 965 Project Gallery
Center for Visual Art (CVA), 965 Santa Fe Drive
Thursday, August 1 through October 19
Opening Reception: Thursday, August 1, 6 to 8 p.m.
Glassblowing Demo and Party: Saturday, August 3: 7 to 9 p.m., Flux Glass Studio, 2541 Bruce Randolph Avenue: $75 to $85 at Eventbrite
Metro State University’s Center for Visual Art heads into another school year with a pair of shows that celebrate the intersection of art and craft through the vision of one interdisciplinary artist. Corey Pemberton, a glass-blower, painter, mixed-media artist and co-founder and director of Crafting the Future, a nonprofit promoting diversity in the art world, will show his own work in Piece by Piece, a beautiful primer on the use of craft practices in the production of fine art. Pemberton commonly depicts portrait figures posing in elaborately designed rooms that open up greater perceptions of the people they contain, with themes touching at the same time on otherness and the everyday.

The companion exhibition, Crafting the Future, expands on the theme through work by six diverse artists from Crafting the Future’s Los Angeles residency program. Meanwhile, the student-run 965 gallery fits right in with a show of quilts by Valerie C. White, curated by Bridget Ebert and Alyssa Williams.

D’art Gallery Expansion Grand Opening
Dmitri Valone and Amanda Stavast, Entanglement
Artist Reception: Friday, August 9, 6 to 9 p.m.
D’art 360 Gallery Pop-Up Exhibition (August 1 through August 11)
Artist Appreciation Night: Friday, August 16, 6 to 9 p.m.
Founders Exhibition, in Gallery West
Artist Appreciation Night: Friday, August 16, 5 to 9 p.m.
I Belong in a Museum: Part 2, in Gallery East
Artist Reception: Saturday, August 3, 6 to 9 p.m.
D’art Gallery, 900 Santa Fe Drive
Thursday, August 1, through August 25
D’art Gallery will celebrate its new super-sized look on Santa Fe Drive with the debut of the D’art 360 Gallery in the front space formerly occupied by Spark Gallery, where 32 member artists will rotate shows, as well as Gallery West, where sixteen D’art founding members are hosting a show of their own. In other spaces, members Dmitri Valone and Amanda Stavast share the theme of Entanglement by finding common ground while working in completely different styles, and members of the budding Colorado Women Artists Museum prevail in Gallery East. See the D’art website for more events and additional corresponding events for each gallery show.

Anthony Quinn: ¿Qué Soy? / What Am I?
Museo de las Americas, 861 Santa Fe Drive
Friday, August 2, through September 22
Opening Reception: Friday, August 2, 6:30 to 9 p.m.; RSVP in advance here
When thinking of Anthony Quinn, your thoughts usually turn to the actor’s memorable performances in such twentieth-century films as Viva Zapata!, Zorba the Greek and Lust for Life (where he played Paul Gauguin to Kirk Douglas’s Vincent van Gogh). But like Gauguin, Quinn was also a painter and sculptor, who got his start as a boy, sketching actors on the sly while visiting a studio where his father worked in Los Angeles. Get the old Hollywood vibe and a touch of modernist Mexico when the Museo hosts a pop-up exhibition, ¿Qué Soy? / What Am I?, curated by Yolanda Fauvet in collaboration with the Anthony Quinn Estate and Anthony Quinn Foundation president Katherine Quinn.

Visible Planets 2024
Bitfactory Gallery, 851 Santa Fe Drive
Friday, August 2 through September 14
Opening Reception: Friday, August 2, 6 to 9 p.m.
Visible Planets Concert: Saturday, August 3, 7 p.m. to midnight; $35 to $55 or $500 to $1,000 VIP at Eventbrite; El Jebel, 1770 Sherman Street
Outdoor Jam Session with Georgia Anne Muldrow: Sunday, August 4, 10 a.m., free; Benedict Fountain Park, 401 East 20th Avenue
Closing Reception: Friday, September 13, 6 to 9 p.m.
Last year’s Visible Planets art exhibit at Bitfactory and concert at Herman’s with hip-hop artists Aesop Rock, Deca, Isaac Sawyer, Kid Acne and Quelle Chris was such a success that Denver artist Dan Drossman is hosting it again. The street exhibition includes Georgia Anne Muldrow, Homeboy Sandman, Fresh Daily, Lily Fangz and more, and a new venue for the concert. And on Sunday, the American soul and hip-hop singer, producer and songwriter Muldrow will add a  community-service jam event, with a free-trade outpost where one can give or take donations.

Kris Iltis, A Troubling of Koi
Artists on Santa Fe, 747 Santa Fe Drive
August 1 through August 31
Opening Reception: Friday, August 16, 5 to 8 p.m.
Artists on Santa Fe’s August featured artist Kris Iltis, best known as a painter, focuses on ceramic and print work imagery capturing the koi fish swirling in an underwater world. Iltis also captures the wabi-sabi imperfections of that world in functional clay pieces with uneven shapes and bubbling surfaces, in keeping with a Japanese craft aesthetic.

Christine Nguyen, Cosmographies Imagined
Understudy, 840 14th Street
Through August 18
First Friday Party: Friday, August 2, 6 to 9 p.m.
Christine Nguyen’s newer mixed-media installations — blending a backdrop of photo-based paintings on fabric with suspended crystalized-salt-crusted organic shapes from nature in sparkling ceramic and porcelain — have taken over Understudy. A First Friday Party celebration invites the public in to enjoy the installation in full swing, with accompaniment by lights and music. August is a big month in general for the Denver Theatre District, which curates Understudy, as well as Night Lights projections at the Clocktower Building. DTD event producer David Moke has also revamped another Night Lights projection offering at the Kittredge Building, 1601 Glenarm Street, which officially debuted a few days ago and, like the Clocktower installation, runs nightly from sunset to midnight. It’s all free; come downtown and see.

Quentin Rice: New Works
Alto Gallery, 1900 35th Street, Suite B
August 2 through August 31
Opening Reception: Friday, August 2, 6 to 10 p.m.; RSVP here
Quentin Rice is a comic artist and graffiti writer whose recent work transfigures those sources into abstracted minimalist graphic shapes and a more sophisticated look that is strong in color and textures. This is Rice’s second exhibition at Alto Gallery, where the show runs through August. 

New Floral: Works by Miriam Dubinsky
Dateline Gallery, 3004 Larimer Street
August 2 through August 31
Opening Reception: Friday, August 2, 6 to 11 p.m.
Printmaker Miriam Dubinsky keeps it bright and fun for New Floral, a series of circular, tropical floral works collaged with screen-printed cutouts and debuting at Dateline on First Friday.

August First Friday Colfax Art Crawl
40 West Art District, West Colfax Avenue Corridor, between Lamar Street and Wadsworth Boulevard
Friday, August 2, 6 to 9 p.m.
40 West’s quarterly Colfax Art Crawl happens to occur on First Friday in August, when the side show of live music, street performers and food trucks up the art-walk ante. From the galleries in the 40 West Hub, 6501 West Colfax Avenue, to Furnace Gallery and Prismajic, both just west of Wadsworth, the district will be hopping with receptions and other delights. Find the 40 West Art District map here, and visit all the hot spots.

Colorado Folk Tales and Legends
40 West Gallery, 6501 West Colfax Avenue, Lakewood
August 2 through September 1
Opening Reception: Friday, August 2, 6 to 9 p.m.
40 West’s eponymous gallery at the 40 West hub hosts Colorado Folk Tales and Legends; artists were tasked with a challenge to dig up some of the state’s beloved, scariest and most controversial artworks, historical characters, tall tales, mythical beings and conspiracy theories to commit to canvas. This could be great fun.

Month of Photography
CHAC Gallery, 7060 West Colfax Avenue, Lakewood
August 2 through August 31
Opening Reception: Friday, August 2, 5 to 9 p.m.
CHAC Gallery members turn to photography in August, and particularly the type that celebrates summer sights and adventures. Curated by Rob and Tammy Yancey, the show might remind some viewers that school days and chilly fall breezes will return in what feels like a minute, but we recommend taking a piece of CHAC’s photographic sunshine home to enjoy through the winter.

Earl Chuvarsky: The Estate Sale: 10 Years With Core Art Space
Phyllis Anderson: beWILDer: Unexpected Landscapes
Core Art Space, 6501 West Colfax Avenue, Lakewood
August 2 through August 18
Opening Reception: Friday, August 2, 5 to 10 p.m
Core presents shows by members Earl Chuvarsky, who looks back over his decade as a member of the co-op gallery with multidisciplinary 2- and 3-D artworks; and Phyllis Anderson, whose wildly colored mixed-media mountain landscapes put a new spin on windy roads and purple peaks.

On Edge
Edge Gallery, 6501 West Colfax Avenue, Lakewood
August 2 through August 18
Opening Reception: Friday, August 2, 6 to 9 p.m.
Edge makes room for its annual On Edge juried exhibition, a colorful representation of artist works from throughout Colorado and the Rocky Mountain region. Esteemed Denver gallerist Jim Robischon put his expertise to work to jury a show with a wide breadth of variety in subject matter, styles and mediums.

Middle School Life: The Art of Pam Farris
Andre Lippard, Gregorio & Other Cubisms
Portrait Play, in the Members Gallery
Next Gallery, 6501 West Colfax Avenue, Lakewood
August 2 through August 18
Opening Reception: Friday, August 2, 5 to 10 p.m.
At Next, members Pam Farris and Andre Lippard are on display in a pair of very different solos. Farris recalls Middle School Life in mosaicked imagery of classroom objects and lessons remembered, while Lippard goes cubist in new paintings. In the members’ gallery, Portrait Play puts a new mixed-media spin on portrait painting.

Collective Dreaming: LFACxNWC
Yolia ArtSpace, 901 Englewood Parkway, Suite 112, Englewood
August 3 through October 20
Opening Reception: Saturday, August 3, 6 to 8 p.m.
An artistic meeting of the minds and a brand-new gallery space in Englewood making Collective Dreaming big news in the local art scene came about thanks to a chance encounter between members of Denver’s Los Fantasmas and Pittsburgh’s all-female Not White Collective in 2022. The idea of an inter-city exhibition got tossed around, and after two years of planning, Collective Dreaming, an intersectional, intergenerational and inclusive joint show will open at the new Englewood home of Los Fantasmas, Yolia ArtSpace (in Spanish, the word “yolia” refers to an eternal spirit or “life force located in the heart”). The partnership will then move to Pittsburgh for a run in early 2025, and beyond that, we can always hope it bounces back and forth.

2024 Design and Build, August 3 through December 6
Curious Objects, August 3 through February 7
Museum of Outdoor Arts, Marjorie Park,  6331 South Fiddler’s Green Circle, Greenwood Village
Opening Reception: Saturday, August 3, 5 to 8 p.m.; RSVP at Eventbrite to attend the free reception
There’s a lot to see at Marjorie Park beginning Saturday, when the unhoused Museum of Outdoor Arts not only debuts its annual Design and Build exhibition, Exploring the Luminous Shadow, but also celebrates new additions to the Cabinet of Curiosities, a wonderland of art and beautiful curios encased inside a walk-in cabinet by art wizard Lonnie Hanzon and his talented crew. Design and Build, a culmination of MOA’s Design and Build summer program, where emerging artists put their heads together with artist mentors to produce new installations for display in the park through early December, debuts with an open-air party; percussion by Tian Chi Chi, the Brutal Poodle food truck and beverages add to the experience.

Interested in having your event appear in this calendar? Send the details to editorial@westword.com.