A generation ago, in the latter third of the twentieth century, post-modernist deconstructionists were finished with abstraction. It was dead, they said, along with painting itself. But in the intervening decades, two things happened. First, this deconstructionist idea became entrenched in academia, and second, it was proven to be wrong…

The landscape has long fascinated artists, particularly in the American West, with those interested in the form today falling into two broad categories. There are artists who re-create the high points of nineteenth and early-twentieth-century realism and impressionism. And there are those who try to introduce new ways of dealing…

I’m a big fan of public art, and Denver has commissioned some standout pieces over the years that really spiff up the city. But sometimes things go awry when politics and civic bureaucracy meet the art world. While some of the people who serve on selection committees may have artistic…

The Denver Art Museum’s Gio Ponti tower — now ignobly dubbed the North Building — was completed in 1971. It was less than two years later that a young Asian-art scholar, Ronald Otsuka, was hired to shepherd the Asian-art department there. This December, Otsuka, the Joseph de Heer Curator of…

Michael Burnett, director of Space Gallery, has a taste for neo-modernism — that post-postmodern style that’s been coming on strong for the last decade. You can see it in his neo-modernist building, which opened this past summer (and which, by the way, has become the place to have your cannabis-friendly…

The exhibit Testing Grounds, which runs through this weekend only at Robischon Gallery, brings together artists who look to nature, especially the Western landscape, as sources for their disparate approaches. As usual at Robischon, there’s enough room to allow the artists to essentially be given solos, so that the work…

Michael Paglia isn’t a big fan of the City & County of Denver when it comes to architectural and artistic decisions. After all, he writes, officials there have fumbled everything from I.M. Pei’s Zeckendorf Plaza, which was demolished in 1996, to the proposed destruction of Civic Center Park. Now the…

I’ve never been a big fan of the City & County of Denver when it comes to architectural and artistic decisions. They’ve repeatedly dropped the ball on everything from I.M. Pei’s Zeckendorf Plaza, which was demolished in 1996, to the proposed destruction of Civic Center Park’s beauty in 2006, to…

Part of a crop of new galleries that have been sprouting up like mushrooms around town in the past few months, Michael Warren Contemporary occupies the storied Santa Fe Drive space that formerly housed the van Straaten Gallery, and before that, the Sandy Carson Gallery. The current exhibit, Introductions II,…

Michael Paglia has been writing about the art scene in Denver and Front Range for twenty years, following the latest shows, trends and news at museums and galleries. Read his latest review, of Beyond Pop: A Tom Wesselmann Retrospective, now posted on Show and Tell…

In the 1960s, when Tom Wesselmann, whose work is currently on display at the Denver Art Museum, first gained national attention, and into the ’70s, his name was mentioned in the same breath as that of Warhol, Johns and Rauschenberg. Today, not so much. On a personal note, I teach…

Michael Paglia has been writing about the art scene in Denver and Front Range for twenty years, following the latest shows, trends and news at museums and galleries. See his latest review, of ID Series, at the Sandra Phillips Gallery, on the Show and Tell blog…

Codes are the focus of four artists who are showing work at the Sandra Phillips Gallery right now in ID Series. The featured artist is Sue Simon, who is brand-new to Phillips but has been showing in Denver since the 1990s. During that time, she has continuously explored ways to…

For In Technicolor, her new exhibit at Walker Fine Art, Boulder artist Angela Beloian created a body of retro ’60s and ’70s paintings and screen prints based on “sketches” done using an iPhone. The works refer to minimalism, abstract surrealism and psychedelic art using just a couple of formal moves…

Burns Park fills the triangle of hillside defined by Colorado Boulevard to the west, Alameda Avenue to the south and Leetsdale Drive, which runs diagonally from northwest to southeast. The park is notable for being home to a suite of mostly minimalist sculptures, some of which have been on the…