Its no understatement to say that without Phil Bender there would be no Pirate co-op. One of the founders of the group in 1980, Benders the only one to stick around. And stick is a good word to use, since hes the glue that held the place together during difficult…
There’s a lot of gossip in the local art world. Some of the rumors don’t make sense, which usually means they’re not true. But I’m privy to one group of gabbers who wind up being correct most of the time. It’s hard to pinpoint the source of this collective commentary…
Mark Lunning is better known as an artisan — a master printer — than he is as an artist. But at the same time that hes been working with some of the best artists around at Open Press, his fine printing shop in Broadway Terrace, hes also been making his…
The show’s title implies that the art history we were taught in school — in which every stylistic phase appears in a neat chronological order — has fallen by the wayside. Now anything goes, as tight representational imagery is hung side by side with non-objective compositions, abstract sculptures are paired…
Potenza, Italy, is one of Denvers many sister cities around the world. But unlike some of the others, Potenza makes sense as a civic sibling, because a lot of Denvers nineteenth-century Italian immigrants came from there. In fact, the Potenza Lodge social club was founded here in 1899 and was…
Some major changes are being wrought at the Denver Art Museum. No, I’m not referring to the new wing that’s set to go up sometime in the near future. Rather, I’m talking about the shifting staff in the Modern and Contemporary department. In this game of curatorial musical chairs, there’s…
Pirate is teeming with good shows right now, and the varied directions of the exhibiting artists are astounding. In the main space, co-op members Richard Colvin and Katherine Temple present collaborative installations in Re-Echo. In many of their pieces, the two artists play with the difference between reality and illusion…
For the last five years or so, the fine-art world has seen a major revival of interest in abstraction in its innumerable stylistic permutations. Abstraction in painting and sculpture came into its own in the first few years of the twentieth century. Its audience among artists and collectors was small…
The Philip J. Steele Gallery in the lobby of the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design is currently showing Andy Warhol: Endangered Species, a group of ten silkscreen prints commissioned in 1983 by New York’s Ronald Feldman Gallery. The year is significant because 1983 is just before Warhol broke…
Under the guidance of Cydney Payton, the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art has become a center for shows in which women artists figure prominently. Muscle: Power of the View, in the West Gallery, is the latest example. It will be followed by Elbows and Tea Leaves: Front Range Women in…
The word is out: ILK on Santa Fe Drive has become a place to see some of the best little art shows in town, and the two exhibits on display right now, Christina Piña: New Paintings, and Bill Brazzell: Constructs, will do nothing but enhance that positive buzz. The first…
The process by which an architect will be chosen to design the Denver Art Museum’s new freestanding wing is coming along nicely. A couple of weeks ago, the City Selection Committee, a mixed bag of politicos and others appointed by Mayor Wellington Webb, narrowed the list of eighteen architectural firms…
It was only this past January that Angela Rios, a former account coordinator for MCI, opened the funky little Morph Gallery in the Golden Triangle. The intimate space, which is made up of three small rooms in a tidy red brick rowhouse, is currently featuring New Show, a group effort…
Denver and its suburbs are in a building boom that has been dubbed “supergrowth,” and the negative effect in terms of lost historic buildings is reaching a critical mass. It’s undeniable: Denver’s established character is being erased. From an aesthetic standpoint, the problem is twofold. First, the vast majority of…
At the end of March, the National Council for Education in the Ceramic Arts held its annual meeting in Denver, attracting more than 3,000 of the most distinguished ceramic artists and teachers from around the country. In response, local galleries, museums and art centers staged a veritable ceramic arts festival…
The Colorado Photographic Arts Center has its offices and exhibition space in the Highland neighborhood in a rehabbed garage it shares with the Carol Keller Gallery. At first, Keller occupied the main rooms — converted mechanics’ bays — and the CPAC was in the smaller rooms that had been offices…
Some might suggest that John McEnroe’s American Standard at the partly face-lifted ILK on Santa Fe Drive is simply a late entry to the ceramics bee still going on in the wake of the National Council for Education in the Ceramic Arts meetings held in town last month. He uses…
Exhibition director Jason Thomas keeps up the pace at the Market Street Gallery@Guiry’s by putting up one great show after another. Right now he’s highlighting two talented artists who create sculptural installations that incorporate ceramics. On the left is Strands Pathways Gravity, featuring wall-hung and floor-bound sculptures by Denver’s Martha…
Well, after two years of local preparation, the National Council for Education in the Ceramic Arts 2000 meeting came and went last week in only a few days. But if NCECA’s gone, it’s not forgotten. Temporary though it may be, it’s left behind a legacy in the form of more…
World of New Colors, which closes Saturday at the Bayeux Gallery in the Golden Triangle, is a solo show devoted to the work of Philadelphia-based textile artist Marcia Hewitt Johnson. Johnson creates geometric abstractions with pieces of cloth joined together using quilt-making techniques, as in the two-panel “New York New…
It seems like the entire art world has gone potty. Denver’s curators and gallery directors alike are crazed these days, since there are more than fifty local art exhibits in which ceramics take center stage going on right now. It’s enough to make our heads spin like a kick wheel…
The modest Philip J. Steele Gallery does double duty as the entry lobby for the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design. But despite this limitation, it’s often a place to see interesting shows put together by gallery director Lisa Spivak. The current show makes the case. Richard Notkin: Passages:…
