Best Museum Show — Solo

Letters of the alphabet — painted ones, wooden ones, mirrored ones — made up a total environment for Between the Lines: Word Works by Roland Bernier at the Denver Art Museum. They climbed the walls and were stacked on pedestals covering the floor. Some were arranged into short words, though the meanings of the words were irrelevant, since Bernier’s point wasn’t to tell stories, but to create something purely aesthetic. And although it’s not easy to use words without bringing in their meanings, Bernier did it. This show — dedicated to the seventy-year-old conceptualist — was put together by the museum’s Nancy Tieken, and it was one of those rare occasions when a Denver artist was given the royal treatment at the DAM.