Time flies, as the saying goes, but it’s still hard to believe that Space Gallery (765 Santa Fe Drive, 720-904-1088) is already celebrating five years in business. Apparently, though, it’s true: The current exhibit, Untold Riches, is being billed as the venue’s fifth-anniversary show. Organized by Space owner Michael Burnett,…

Cydney Payton, director of Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art, has often said that one of the most important things an art show can do is to create controversy. The exhibit that’s there now, Will Boys Be Boys?, is not really controversial, but it does raise a lot of issues –…

Two contemporary abstraction artists, McKay Otto and Ethan Jantzer, have been given separate solos at + Gallery (2350 Lawrence Street, 303-296-0927). The two shows, Otto’s Every Place and Jantzer’s Bound, are very compatible, with both artists doing new work based on time-tested traditions in abstract art: expressionism and minimalism. Otto,…

The landscape and the natural environment have long preoccupied artists. In a contemporary context, though, artists can’t simply record the scenery; they need to comment on it, transform it. Robischon Gallery is currently presenting a pair of solos featuring two Boulder artists whose reputations go way beyond the metro area…

In the center spaces of the Sandy Carson Gallery (760 Santa Fe Drive, 303-573-8585), director William Biety has installed Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend: Mixed Media, a display of oddball, multi-part pieces made of offbeat materials. The show doesn’t really go with the Jeff Wenzel feature installed across the front of the gallery…

The art world is constantly searching out fresh material, which is why there’s always interest in talented artists in their twenties. But another way to come across stuff that’s new is to rediscover artists who’ve been out of sight for a long time — people who are typically in their…

The members of Denver’s oldest artist cooperative, Spark Gallery (900 Santa Fe Drive, 720-889-2200), have had a hard time figuring out how to effectively use the 1,200-square-foot space that they moved into last year. Every show I’ve seen there has been awkwardly installed, because there’s not even one good wall…

The Museo de las Américas has had a bumpy ride over the past few years, and surely many in the art community thought the small but significant institution was headed for the trash heap of Denver history. Luckily, that hasn’t happened, and the Museo looks as though it’s on the…

When I heard about a controversy brewing over a ceramics show at the Lakewood Cultural Center (470 South Allison Parkway, 303-987-7876), I naturally assumed that the problem exhibit was American Stoneware & Crockery: 1880-1930, featuring the collection of noted ceramics authority Tom Turnquist. After all, that show was overflowing with…

From the moment I heard about it, during the last years of Mayor Wellington Webb’s administration, I thought the idea of constructing a jail on the site of the Rocky Mountain News building just off of West Colfax Avenue was ridiculous — and I said so on this page back…

Carley Warren is the subject of the thoughtfully conceived and handsomely presented solo, Cribs, currently on display in the intimate indoor space at Artyard Sculpture Gallery (1251 South Pearl Street, 303-777-3219). Though the room is unbelievably small and modestly appointed, it almost always looks good — as it does now…

Sculpture has long been one of the specialties of the William Havu Gallery. Typically, there’s a piece or two placed outside the front, plus there’s a sculpture garden in the back. Right now, there’s even more sculpture on display than normal, as the inside exhibition spaces have been outfitted with…

It’s so discouraging to be interested in architecture and live in Colorado. There’s very little top-drawer material here to begin with — surely not more than 1 percent of the built environment — and demolition seems to be relentlessly picking off the buildings in that elite 1 percent. About a…

An astounding thing about Simon Zalkind, the director of the Singer Gallery at the Mizel Center for Arts and Culture, is the way he turns the ridiculously modest facility into a place that’s guaranteed to have an important exhibition, as it does now. The show in question has the epic…

The Viewing Room Gallery in the back recesses of the Robischon Gallery (1740 Wazee Street, 303-298-7788) has an intimate atmosphere, sort of like somebody’s swank living room. But even though it’s small, it’s still big enough to present proper shows, such as Entelechy, a good-looking solo made up of recent…

Richard Serra is one of the few living artists who can accurately be described as a modern master. He is best known for his monumental sculptures, which are installed in public places all over the world. But Serra has also long created works on paper. A group of these makes…

The current solo in the main space of Rule Gallery (111 Broadway, 303-777-9473), James Westwater: 10 Years, Geometric Narcissism, 1995-2005, basically surveys the work Westwater has done since he settled in Santa Fe. This crowded show does not mark Westwater’s Denver debut, but it is his first major presentation here…

If I were asked to come up with a list of the most significant contemporary artists working in Colorado, Floyd Tunson would not only be on it, but he’d be near the top. The Manitou Springs-based artist, who taught for decades as a high school art teacher in Colorado Springs,…

A lot of hype has been thrown around about the creation of an arts district in old downtown Aurora, an area that’s been seriously declining for the past couple of decades. So far, though, all the talk has been little more than a lot of hot air. True, quite a…

Many art forms, such as literature and drama, have long used narrative to convey their stories, but the visual arts, for the most part, don’t have to: Paintings and sculptures only need to look good — or at least be interesting. It’s easy to understand the appeal of the purely…

I ran into John Grant from the city’s Office of Cultural Affairs last month, and he told me he was going to prove me wrong about the Performing Arts Sculpture Park on Speer Boulevard next to the Colorado Convention Center. He was referring to what I had written when Jonathan…

Vicki and Kent Logan are high-profile art collectors and generous donors. Former residents of the Bay Area, they first made a name for themselves in the art world when they gave a substantial gift of contemporary works to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. This happened at roughly the…