At the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, artists were attracted to the West by its majestic scenery. Then, in the late twentieth and early 21st centuries, artists began to notice how people were wrecking those formerly perfect views. A typical approach for many of…

During the groundbreaking ceremonies for the new Denver Museum of Contemporary Art last week, executive director Cydney Payton addressed the crowd (see “Next Up”). In her remarks, she pointed out that the MCA was “not a hundred-million-dollar project,” since it’s projected to cost only $15 million. Though she didn’t say…

On the morning of Monday, May 1, throngs of Mexican-Americans, most of them young, marched through downtown Denver — and cities across the country — in support of the rights of undocumented immigrants. The story of these Mexican exiles is well known, with many of them toiling in the unforgiving…

Ivar Zeile, director of + Gallery (2350 Lawrence Street, 303-296-0927), went to college in Utah and during his student days became friends with painter Jean Arnold. As so often happens, the two friends drifted apart after school. When Zeile recently came upon Arnold’s work on the Internet, it had been…

Among the standard features of the visual arts, two attributes rise above the others: what something looks like, and what it means. The rise of modernism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was, to a great extent, all about appearances, with formalism providing a kind of conceptual justification…

The Sandra Phillips Gallery (744 Santa Fe Drive, 303-573-5969) has stumbled on a niche in the art market: featuring the work of well-known Colorado artists from yesteryear. Last month it was Ruth Todd, who is in her nineties, and now it’s Mel Strawn, who’s quite a bit younger. He’s in…

Having people from both inside and outside the art world come to me and plug a show is a standard feature of my life as an art critic. What’s funny about it, though, is how many of them think they’re doing me a favor. You see, in their fantasies about…

Five to ten years ago, there seemed to always be some kind of over-the-top installation at Edge Gallery (3658 Navajo Street, 303-477-7173), but lately such displays have been few and far between. They do take a lot of effort, after all, and are completely un-sellable. Being outrageously ambitious and a…

Up until the 1960s, people argued in all seriousness that photography was not a fine art because a machine was used to produce it. Today this seems not just naive, but incredibly wrong, as photography is now the predominant form in all types of contemporary art. Photos themselves are a…

Skyline Park, which runs along Arapahoe Street between 15th and 18th streets, was once a world-class example of modernist landscape design. It was created in 1970 by Lawrence Halprin and featured a multi-level topography created with cast-in-place concrete planters, berms and fountains. Now it’s a ho-hum kind of place, as…

Though my workaday life is filled with the high-minded pursuit of looking at exhibitions, I do have more than a few guilty pleasures. I love Peeps, for example, those marshmallow chicks rolled in yellow sugar available this time of year. I also love muscle cars from the ’60s and ’70s…

More often than not, members of the city’s art co-ops are not youngsters fresh out of art school, but established artists who’ve shown their work around here for years. This is true not only of the old-line spots, but also in the case of the newer ones, such as Sliding…

Some thirty years ago, Foothills Art Center in Golden established Colorado Clay as an annual juried exhibit to highlight ceramics being done in the state. But Jenny Cook, the center’s director, has decided to make the exhibit a biennial so she can open up the schedule for new programming. Colorado…

Many contemporary artists are still interested in providing a window on the world through their art. Some, like those currently showing at Robischon Gallery, look to nature, while others, such as Frank Sampson at Sandy Carson Gallery, are interested in their own unique fantasies (see review). Yet another group riffs…

For its current exhibition, Robischon Gallery stitched together three solos and a duet to make something that looks a museum theme show. The shared subject is the Western landscape as translated by contemporary painters and photographers living and working in Colorado. The first up is Don Stinson: Shared Sky/Natural Forces,…

A little over a decade ago, Denver International Airport opened to the public and unveiled its multimillion-dollar collection of public art. Only a handful of pieces that were commissioned have stood up well to changing tastes. One work that looks as good as ever — and has been a hit…

Colorado painter Sushe Felix has been listening to a lot of old jazz lately. Especially important to her are the pieces that interpret the classics written by Cole Porter, George and Ira Gershwin and Harold Arlen. She also likes Burt Bacharach numbers, especially the way Dusty Springfield sings them. Felix…

The Civic Center area is the cultural hub of Denver, and last week the city announced that the Clyfford Still Museum would join the other attractions there. The Still Museum, which has not yet been designed, will be located south of West 13th Avenue on the east side of Bannock…

In May 2005, Denver voters approved the financing for a new multi-part Justice Center complex with a municipal courthouse and a jail to be built in the greater Civic Center area. I thought that particular spot, being right next door to the United States Mint, was such an odd choice…

In the western half of Spark Gallery (900 Santa Fe Drive, 720-889-2200) is ADVENTURES, a solo of strange sculptures by Lydia Brokaw-Nelson. Some are fairly interesting — such as the one of a log with its bark removed in a continuous piece — but others, including the dress made of…

In the late 1960s and through the 1970s, there arose what has come to be called the “art of identity.” This genre was — and is — art by members of identifiable groups trying to explicate their specific and peculiar struggles for social justice and equality. To call something “art…

Sandy Sardella’s swank Pismo Fine Art Glass (2770 East Second Avenue, 303-333-2879) in Cherry Creek North is unique among Denver galleries because of its specialty. With an exhibition space as nice as any around, Sardella is able to give glass artists the same opportunity for proper exhibitions as is ordinarily…