Penelope Caldwell is a great-looking solo in the front room of Space Gallery (765 Santa Fe Drive, 720-904-1088). On the south wall are a couple of large paintings Caldwell did in 2005 when she lived in San Francisco; opposite them are a series of more recent oil-on-paper paintings that she…
An art exhibition — even those devoted to the work of a single artist — is typically made up of anywhere from a dozen to three dozen pieces. Some exhibits include more than that, with a blockbuster generally having between seventy to a hundred different things on view. It’s unusual…
When I was at the Lab the other day checking out that impressive Liam Gillick piece, for obvious reasons the installation at the staggeringly ugly University of Denver Station on RTD’s light-rail line came to mind. Like the Gillick, John Goe’s “Reflective Discourse” uses words as a key component. Considering…
In all the years I’ve been going to galleries in Denver, there have only been five or six venues that I would consider first-rate. These places are completely reliable, and I can count on finding something worthwhile on display whenever I arrive. Robischon Gallery, which just celebrated thirty years in…
It’s hard to believe that Walker Fine Art (300 West 11th Avenue, 303-355-8955) has been around for five years already, but the gallery is enjoying its 5 Year Anniversary Celebration. According to owner Bobbi Walker, she didn’t have a clue as to what she was doing when she started. In…
Ironton Studios & Gallery is the flagship facility of the one-year-old RiNo Art District. “RiNo” is a contraction of the words “river” and “north” and refers to the relatively vast area along the South Platte River, northwest of downtown, where some art-related operations — notably a lot of studios –…
Denver collecting couple Jill Wiltse and Kirk Brown have really raised their art profile this season. At the same time the Denver Art Museum’s Hamilton Building was being unveiled last October, Wiltse and Brown put on an important historical show at the Emmanuel Gallery called Treasures Revealed: The Art of…
To celebrate the Denver Art Museum’s new Frederic C. Hamilton Building, three special exhibitions are being presented simultaneously in the three galleries dedicated to changing displays. I’ve already looked at Virginia Vogel Mattern’s collection of contemporary American Indian pottery (“Breaking the Mold,” November 23, 2006) and the cutting-edge work of…
For the past 28 years, Dianne Vanderlip has reigned supreme at the Denver Art Museum as the head of contemporary art, one of the museum’s biggest and best departments. Over the nearly three decades she was there, Vanderlip built a widely renowned collection with real depth in the art of…
Like the art world in general, Denver is focusing in on photo-based pieces (pun intended). More likely than not, you haven’t seen the many excellent offerings currently on display because of the difficulty in getting around on deeply rutted streets. Last week I braved the elements to check out some…
I don’t put much stock in shows installed in non-art businesses, because they’re typically thrown together and feature the work of hobbyist-artists. So it wasn’t until I’d heard a lot of positive buzz about OBJECT + THOUGHT (3559 Larimer Street, 720-226-9196), the graphic-design firm that presents exhibitions in its lobby,…
There’s been a lot of talk about the burgeoning art scene in Denver, with dozens of venues featuring the work of hundreds of artists. The current culture boom is best exemplified by the strip of galleries that line Santa Fe Drive, an area that has been almost universally hailed as…
In the last twenty years, the “Built Green” movement has gone mainstream, with big developers such as ForestCity at Stapleton promoting the environmentally friendly features being incorporated into their buildings. But a generation or two ago, only kooks or visionaries thought about such an issue. Here in Denver, we had…
Considering its outlandish appearance, the new Frederic C. Hamilton Building of the Denver Art Museum has overshadowed what’s on display inside. There are some exceptions, however, and first among them is RADAR: Selections From the Collection of Vicki & Kent Logan, which is installed in the Anschutz Gallery on level…
I am a man, the current offering at Ironton Studios and Gallery (3636 Chestnut Street, 303-297-8626), purports to be about men’s art. For the past thirty years or so, shows about women’s art have become pretty common, while shows about men’s art have not. This exhibit doesn’t really change that…
Hugh Grant, founder and director of the Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art on Capitol Hill, has been a kind of Santa Claus for Denver, bestowing gifts of support and exhibits on the art community. A few years ago, when the Kirkland was just getting off the ground, the…
For me, the real meaning of the holidays involves Burl Ives retelling the story of the foggy night that Rudolph led Santa’s sleigh, and Brenda Lee rocking around the Christmas tree — not to mention taking a moment to listen to Vince Guaraldi back up Charlie Brown, Lucy, Snoopy and…
Simon Zalkind, director of the Singer Gallery at the Mizel Center for Arts and Culture, is best known for group shows based on some kind of theme, which are often plugged into other events, such as lectures, plays or films, that share the same topic. But lately he’s come across…
The smart-looking P Design Gallery (2590 Walnut Street, 720-259-2516) is dedicated to presenting design in an exhibition format with a decidedly fine-art flavor. The current exhibit is DoubleButter Boontje, a duet of shows featuring a trio of artists. The DoubleButter part of the title refers to the collaborative effort of…
I’m sure you’ve all heard more than enough about the Denver Art Museum’s Frederic C. Hamilton Building. That’s too bad, because there’s even more to say about it in light of the show that just opened at Sandy Carson Gallery. Daniel Libeskind: Inspiration, Process and Place is filled with drawings,…
In the past few weeks, there’s been a plethora of news relevant to Denver’s art and architecture scenes. Denver’s Creative Spaces Task Force, which is dominated not by artists but by city employees, was launched last January with much fanfare. I wasn’t too excited, because I knew from past experience…
A funny thing happened to photography on the way to the 21st century: It went from being degraded as an inferior way to convey aesthetic concepts to one of the most significant aspects of contemporary visual culture. The medium provides the foundation not only for a wide array of photo-based…
