For the third time in two years, there’s a major show addressing how traditional Chicano art has progressed into post-Chicano art. The latest is Chain Reaction: Chicano/a and Latino/a Art in Colorado, at the Vida Ellison Gallery on the seventh floor of the Denver Central Library. The dialogue began locally…

Tracy Felix’s Colorado Modernism: 1930-1970 (see review) at Foothills Art Center (809 15th Street, Golden, 303-279-3922) brings together the work of around three dozen painters; one sculptor, Robert Mangold; and a single photographer, James Milmoe. There are only three Mangolds, which is in line with the other artists in the…

I’ve recently wondered why everyone seems to be so retrospective right now, with so many of the latest exhibits highlighting the state’s glorious aesthetic past. In the last several weeks, I’ve promoted a group of these shows, including the groundbreaking Decades of Influence, Colorado 1985–Present, being jointly presented at the…

Something to Consider is a wonderful summer show filled with fresh-looking contemporary paintings and ceramic sculptures at Sandy Carson Gallery (760 Santa Fe Drive, 303-573-8585). I’m not sure the title means anything, but I am sure that the show is a knockout. Is it just me, or is Denver abstract…

During the last decade or so, there has been increased interest in exploring the rich art history of Colorado, and Hugh Grant, director of Denver’s Kirkland Museum of Fine and Decorative Art, has been at the forefront of this movement, having acquired thousands of works by hundreds of artists who…

Weilworks (3611 Chestnut Place, 303-308-9345) is an elegant little contemporary gallery in the River North area, not far from downtown. It’s in a smart-looking building that’s something like a post-modern farmhouse. For the current offerings, which opened late in June, owner Tracy Weil wanted to come up with something that…

Boulder came of age in the 1960s, right along with the first baby boomers. The beautiful little town became a national center for the counterculture and the New Left, creating social and political currents that flowed into the 1970s. The visual arts got caught up in the times, too, thanks…

It seems like everyone has their own list of who should be in Decades of Influence: Colorado 1985 — Present at the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Center for Visual Art, the Gates Sculpture Triangle and the Carol Keller Project Space. I’ve even done my own roster, “Extra Innings,” on…

Cydney Payton’s name has been on the tip of everyone’s tongue because of the roster of 72 artists that she included in Decades of Influence: Colorado 1985 — Present, the over-the-top spectacular currently on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art (“Home Run,” June 22), the Center for Visual Art…

Of the four aspects of Cydney Payton’s marvelous Decades of Influence: Colorado 1985 – Present, the part on view at the Carol Keller Project Space (1513 Boulder Street, 303-298-7554) is by far the edgiest. When I first heard that the Keller spot was part of the Decades extravaganza, I naturally…

Cydney Payton, the director and curator of Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver, has really outdone herself with Decades of Influence: Colorado 1985 – Present, her four-part paean to the art of our region. The first chapter in the blockbuster is on view at the MCA itself, where Payton has installed the…

Cydney Payton, the director of Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art, must be a workaholic. Not only was the groundbreaking for the new David Adjaye-designed building just a month or so ago, but she is now undertaking the most ambitious show of her curatorial career, Decades of Influence: Colorado 1985 -…

For the first time in its history, the Museum of Contemporary Art/ Denver is hosting a set of exhibitions that collectively work like a blockbuster. Decades of Influence: Colorado 1985 – Present sets out to be a sociological analysis, if not a historical survey, of the art scene on the…

Edge Gallery (3658 Navajo Street, 303-477-7173), one of the top alternative art spaces in town, is currently given over to a group of shows that highlight the use of photography in various ways. This kind of aesthetic unity at Edge is very rare considering that there are usually three completely…

Sitting on the lawn of the Colorado Convention Center adjacent to Speer Boulevard is “Indeterminate Line,” that enormous rusted-steel spiral doodle. The piece, created by Bernar Venet, is one of the most important works of art in the city. The French-born but New York-based artist has an international reputation, but…

It may seem like there’s a new gallery opening in town every day, but it’s actually only about one ribbon-cutting per week. One of the latest to open its doors is Translations Gallery (773 Santa Fe Drive, 303-629-0713), which specializes in contemporary textiles. This makes Translations unusual in Denver –…

You’d think that by now artists would have tired of recording the sights of the world in the tried-and-true mediums of painting and drawing. For heaven’s sake, representational art has been done for the past 15,000 years. Just thinking about it makes me drowsy. But, no. Despite the rise of…

Like the pop charts, boutiques and Hollywood, the art world is always looking for the latest thing. And because the newest ideas are usually found in the ranks of unknown and emerging artists, juried shows are worth looking at, because that’s who they feature. Space Gallery (765 Santa Fe Drive,…

Believe it or not, in the 1950s, Colorado’s main art scene was seated not in Denver, but in Colorado Springs, of all places. The most sophisticated art in the region was being created by a loosely affiliated group of artists who were based down there and who represented a veritable…

Surely one of the city’s funkiest, grungiest, edgiest and strangest art galleries is Capsule (554 Santa Fe Drive, 303-623-3460), the brainchild of artist Lauri Lynnxe Murphy. I don’t see every show presented here, but I’ve seen enough to know that whatever’s on view will at least be interesting, if not…

The swank David Cook Fine Art has been riding the recent wave of interest in the art of the American West, a formerly untapped treasure trove. One way the gallery has done this is by presenting consistently great shows on the subject, filling them to the brim with first-rate pieces…

During the past ten years, the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design (1600 Pierce Street, 303-753-6046) has emerged as a local powerhouse. Although there are fewer students enrolled in the entire school than there are fine-art majors at Metropolitan State College of Denver, there have been more significant emerging…