This past summer, Cydney Payton, director of Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art, put together a mini-blockbuster, Decades of Influence: Colorado 1985-Present. In that exhibit — which was displayed not only in the MCA’s own facility, but also extended to Metro State’s Center for Visual Art, to the Carol Keller Project…

Every other year, the University of Denver’s School of Art and Art History teaches a very interesting class called the Marsico Curatorial Practicum. It’s an outgrowth of the special relationship DU has with Vail mega-collectors Vicki and Kent Logan, who open their collection to the school and allow art students…

From the moment Daniel Libeskind was tapped to design a freestanding addition to the Denver Art Museum, people began to question whether a building designed by a deconstructionist could possibly function as an art museum. There was even more skepticism when Libeskind’s model for a crystalline concoction of up-ended boxes…

The often overlooked Emmanuel Gallery (Auraria campus, 303-556-8337) is currently hosting an important show called Treasures Revealed: The Art of Hungary, 1890-1955. To give you an idea of the significance of this particular exhibit, not only did the Hungarian ambassador come out from Washington, D.C., for the preview, but so…

The daring Frederic C. Hamilton Building created for the Denver Art Museum by Daniel Libeskind and the Davis Partnership became an instant Mile High landmark when it opened last week. The same thing happened 35 years ago when what is now called the North Building, by Gio Ponti and James…

Almost seven years ago, the Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver opened in a two-level space in the former Granada Fish Market at 19th and Lawrence streets. Since its inception in 1996, the MCA (then known as MoCA/D) had been ensconced on the mezzanine of 1999 Broadway. The MCA originally intended to…

It’s been more than seven years in the making, and for the last three, it’s been slowly rising on a site just south of the intersection of West 13th Avenue and Acoma Plaza. You’d have to have been living under a rock — or way out in the suburbs –…

The funky little Edge Gallery (3658 Navajo Street, 303-477-7173) is the city’s oldest art co-op, which may be why it frequently hosts great pairs of solos. Currently, Edge is home to a couple of sophisticated shows dedicated to contemporary abstraction, with Jennifer Hope: 4 new paintings installed in the front…

There’s one thing you can always expect from the Singer Gallery in the Mizel Center for Arts and Culture: high-quality art exhibits with some kind of intellectual content. So it’s no surprise that EUGENE YELCHIN: A Thousand Casualties, a solo featuring expressionist abstractions based on Old Master paintings, is one…

There are two interesting shows kicking off the fall season at Walker Fine Art (300 West 11th Avenue, #A): WHAT SEASON IS THIS, which is in the front and combines paintings by Don Quade and sculptures by Paula Castillo; and, in the back, Selective Vision: The Art of Digital Atelier,…

William Havu Gallery is the only art shop in the city in its own specially designed building. That’s why, when things are really cooking, as they are right now, the atmosphere is more like that of a small museum than a retail store. For his opening volley this season, gallery…

Daniel Libeskind’s ideas for Denver’s Civic Center are off the wall (see review,) but equally bizarre — though in a positive way — is the launching of the Laboratory of Art and Ideas at Belmar (404 South Upham, 303-742-1520) with an opening on Saturday, September 16, from 2 to 9…

Last month I wrote a piece about the Civic Center Conservancy in which I implied that the group’s members were a bunch of clowns (“Civic Circus,” August 10). In the weeks since, I’ve really come to regret that metaphor and feel a little guilty. After all, clowning is an honorable…

44T ARTSPACE, the exhibition end of Metro Frame Works (4400 Tennyson Street, 303-433-0335), is a smart-looking miniature sales room with extensive show windows that open the place up to the street. The gallery is one of only a handful participating in this year’s Denver Art Dealers Association series highlighting talent…

August is typically a dead time in the Denver art world, so the Denver Art Dealers Association came up with DADA INTRODUCTIONS, a way for members to present shows by artists whose work has not previously been shown in town. Robischon Gallery (1740 Wazee Street, 303-298-7788) is just about the…

The Stay Gallery (3519 Brighton Boulevard, 303-408-3057), run by the husband-and-wife team of John and Amy Bodin, only recently opened; in fact, the current exhibition, UNDERGO, is only the third show to be presented there. UNDERGO is a solo featuring Justin Beard, one of Denver’s most interesting young artists, and…

In a few weeks, the fall art season will get under way, and as I look into my crystal ball, I see an unprecedented tsunami of exhibitions and events. (I feel like I’m drowning already.) The October opening of the Frederic C. Hamilton Building at the Denver Art Museum is…

Michael Burnett’s Space Gallery (765 Santa Fe Drive, 720-904-1088) is one of the highlights of the Santa Fe Arts District. It’s especially nice that it’s right across the street from the area’s flagship, the Sandy Carson Gallery — though if you’re tempted to jaywalk to get from one to the…

In January 2007, Dianne Perry Vanderlip, the founding curator of the Modern and Contemporary Art department at the Denver Art Museum, will retire, giving up the job she’s held since 1978. Vanderlip has been the most important and influential person in the Denver art world — something that will not…

I’m a logico-deductive sort of person, I think A comes before B, and I firmly believe that 1 + 1 = 2. And I don’t need any insider information to figure out what’s going on in the public sector of Denver, because so much of it is, well, public. I’m…

I can’t imagine what world-famous architect Daniel Libeskind was thinking when he took on the job of brainstorming about the Civic Center right before his new Frederic C. Hamilton Building at the Denver Art Museum is set to open. After all, the Civic Center is beloved by many, and messing…

There are two interesting shows installed back-to-back at Pirate: a contemporary art oasis (3655 Navajo Street, 303-458-6058). In the handsome members’ space that underwent a thorough remodel last year is Jason Appleton; in the still-as-funky-as-ever associates’ space is Strange attachments. Appleton, a longtime member of the venerable co-op, has gotten…