One of the Denver Art Museum’s greatest strengths is its New World department, which houses two distinct collections: Pre-Columbian and Spanish Colonial. For more than two decades, the department’s founder, visionary curator Robert Stroessner, enthusiastically collected relevant material way ahead of supporting scholarship. He was buying things before anyone –…
Brandon Borchert’s Random Art Two, currently at Capsule @ Pod (554 Santa Fe Drive, 303-623-3460), is one of this season’s hottest prospects. Though Borchert has shown around for the past several years, he was little known until earlier this season. His big breakthrough came with an appearance in this summer’s…
The definitive art history of Colorado has yet to be written, but even without a scholarly guide, it’s not hard to list the great ones. In terms of mid-century-modernist abstraction, for instance, it is widely known that Herbert Bayer, who lived in Aspen, and Denver’s own Vance Kirkland towered over…
There’s an interesting if uneven exhibit of abstract paintings and sculptures at the enormous Studio Aiello (3563 Walnut Street, 303-297-8166). Called Quartet, it includes the work of four artists: Andrew Speer, Chad Colby, Michael Burnett and Jonathan Hils. Speer, who is well known to many because he’s taught in the…
Cydney Payton plays many roles at Denver’s smallish, newish Museum of Contemporary Art, including that of director and chief curator. She doesn’t put together every show at MCA, but she does organize the vast majority of them. In fact, it was her reputation as a first-rate curator that got her…
The redevelopment of Stapleton International Airport by mega-developer Forest City has been surprisingly successful. The town center at 29th Avenue and Quebec Street is very nice, being the best-designed of the many ersatz downtowns that have sprung up all over the metro area. Like Lowry before it, Stapleton has made…
I’ve been pretty tough on Jerry Gilmore, chief curator and director of the art program at the Arvada Center, because he seemed to model his behavior on that of the proverbial bull in a china shop. Soon after he took over a few years ago, for example, longtime staff members…
The formal exhibition spaces at the Arvada Center (6901 Wadsworth Boulevard, 720-898-7200) are called the Lower Galleries and the Upper Galleries; they’re currently filled with impressive solos by Charles Parson and Emilio Lobato (see review, page 45). But there are more informal places at the center where art is exhibited…
Art displayed in public places dates back to the very start of civilization. The Egyptians, the Greeks, the Persians, the Chinese, the Romans and many other ancient cultures adorned their buildings and streets with art. And the situation has changed little over these several millennia. In the here and now…
Mark Brasuell’s solo at Edge Gallery (3658 Navajo Street, 303-477-7173) has the bizarre title of Difficult Abstraction. I say it’s bizarre because the four paintings that make up the show are not the least bit hard to look at. The artist apparently attacked the canvases with paint-loaded brushes, which resulted…
One of the weirdest twists in contemporary art over the last quarter-century — other than increased interest in boring videos and self-indulgent performances — is the way in which beauty has come to be denigrated. Today’s art world is suspicious of beauty, and to say something is decorative is to…
There’s an elegant little show with the possibly insulting name of Silence Nothingness at Sandra Phillips Gallery (744 Santa Fe Drive, 303-573-5969). The title is taken from a Samuel Beckett quote, but taken out of context, the words are robbed of their meaning. The exhibit pairs abstracted versions of the…
Photography includes so many different things, it’s head-spinning. There are all the various styles, plus a wide array of categories, including, of course, fine-art photography. But over the past couple of decades, it’s become all but impossible to separate fashion photography, commercial photography, documentary photography — and especially photojournalism –…
In the space once occupied by the now-gone and nearly forgotten ILK co-op, Lauri Lynnxe Murphy, who was once that group’s director, has opened her own art business, Pod & Capsule (554 Santa Fe Drive, 303-623-3460). Pod is a funky boutique that offers affordable artist-made objects, while Capsule is a…
Among the first chapters in the history of Western art is the one devoted to Egypt, with much of the subsequent story tracing its origins to the objects and buildings produced in the Nile Valley more than 3,000 years ago. This was long before — millennia before, as it happens…
Photographs by David Alexander Björkman make up the interesting exhibit The Maya Ballgame, now on display at the Museo de las Américas (861 Santa Fe Drive, 303-571-4401) for the “Month of Photography.” The Björkman shots, printed in black and white, are divided into two groups: those in the north gallery…
You’d have to have been living under a rock for the past few weeks not to know that something’s up in Denver’s exhibition world. Everywhere you look, some gallery, museum or art center is hosting a show devoted to photography — photojournalism, fashion, pin-up, fine art, experimental, and lots of…
Though the main spaces at William Havu Gallery (1040 Cherokee Street, 303-893-2360) are dedicated to celebrating Denver’s “Month of Photography” (“Photo Play” ), the intimate areas beneath and on the mezzanine are given over to Painting exhibition: Julia Rymer and Kate Thompson, a show that has nothing to do with…
Some of the best art shows around are those unwieldy wide-ranging group presentations — though in truth, solos are the heart of the art-show business. What makes a group show interesting is its inconsistency and its multiplicity of visions, which, of course, are just the opposite strengths of a solo,…
There’s an extremely coherent twosome at the + Gallery (2350 Lawrence Street, 303-296-0927) called Manifesto Abstractos, which features non-objective paintings that are influenced by Hispanic culture. To put this excellent show together, gallery director Gilbert Barrera tapped the talents of an old friend from Houston, Ibsen Espada, and a new…
Ronald W. Wohlauer, whom everyone called Ron, was one of those artists who always seemed to be at the top of the visual-art pyramid around here — until, that is, his untimely death earlier this year. During his long career, which began more than thirty years ago, he was a…
It’s surely surprising — if not shocking — to find one of the best ceramics shows of the year being presented at the modest and remote Lakewood Cultural Center (470 South Allison Parkway, 303-987-7876). But that’s exactly what’s going on now with Place of Mind, a solo show dedicated to…
