Christoph Heinrich, the Denver Art Museum’s curator of modern and contemporary art, must be a workaholic. In recent months, he’s unveiled two new dedicated spaces: a paper-works gallery in the museum’s Hamilton Building and a new-media space called the Fuse Box. Then he took on the ambitious reinstallation of the…
I was really disappointed to learn that Ann Daley (pictured), associate curator of Western art at the Denver Art Museum, had decided to step down after more than a decade in her present post and after having worked for the museum for a lot longer than that. Over the years,…
With no exhibition director on staff at present, the art program at the Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities is essentially rudderless. Executive director Gene Sobczak is running the program in his spare time, but he is no art expert, and he’s busy with other duties. In addition, Sobczak…
Adam Helms. This MCA solo is the New York artist’s first museum show anywhere. In his works on paper and in a monumental sculpture that conjures up a shooting blind, Helms explores political themes, especially armed struggle. He takes images of different radical and extremist movements from different places and…
It’s amazing how inexhaustible abstract expressionism is as an aesthetic ideology, both in its attenuated original form — going strong for sixty years now – and in its heir, neo-abstract expressionism. Edge Gallery (3658 Navajo Street, 303-477-7173) is currently hosting a pair of exhibits that highlight this long-lasting appeal. In…
Making the most with the least is a specialty of Sandra Phillips, owner of her namesake gallery on Santa Fe, which opened five years ago. A tiny and cramped storefront with an almost invisible street presence, the facility has little to recommend it from the outside. Inside, there’s only a…
In many ways, magic realism anticipates conceptual realism, even though it’s not actually an early form of the cutting-edge style. Boulder has been a center for magic realism for decades (I guess art really does imitate life), in no small part because of Frank Sampson and Luis Eades, artists who…
Over the last quarter-century, old-fashioned representational imagery has supplanted abstraction, which had dominated most of the cutting-edge art of the twentieth century and become the preeminent expression in the fine arts internationally. It’s not that abstraction is passé; it’s just that more and more artists have embraced the figure to…
Last week, the Colorado Historical Society announced that Steven Turner will become the director of the State Historical Fund. That means that Turner is resigning as the director of Historic Denver. The promotion is good news for those of us who appreciate the old buildings of Denver. Not because Turner…
On September 3, I made my way to the Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver as I’ve done so many times since the new building opened last year. But this time I wasn’t in pursuit of an art show. Instead, I was headed, along with a few hundred others, to the memorial…
The death last winter of Mark Travis, a contemporary artist who made his reputation in Denver’s go-go scene of the 1980s, left a big question mark regarding a scheduled exhibit of his work. His representative, Michael Burnett of Space Gallery (765 Santa Fe Drive, 720-904-1088, www.spacegallery.org), had asked Travis to…
Ever since the Denver Art Museum unleashed the Daniel Libeskind-designed Frederic C. Hamilton Building in 2006, the rest of the top galleries and art centers around here have felt the heat. To compete, they’ve presented one great show after another, seeking to outdo each other. And showing up the DAM…
I’m a political junkie, so having the Democratic National Convention here was a treat. And since Denver strategically spiffed up over the last few months in preparation, it was a delight to see our beloved city looking sensational on TV and giving us some civic pride. There were glamour shots…
The Modern and Contemporary department at the Denver Art Museum gained official status in 1978 when the institution hired Dianne Vanderlip to head it up. During her nearly three decades in the post, Vanderlip facilitated the acquisition of thousands of works for the permanent collection. But between shopping sprees, she…
Last week, the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center concluded its nearly year-long search for a new director by hiring Sam Gappmayer (pictured). The job represents a big promotion for Gappmayer, who is currently the director of the much more modest Sun Valley Center for the Arts, in Idaho. Second only…
I’ve long thought of Denver as being the Rodney Dangerfield of American cities, because we just can’t get no respect. But ever since the Democrats announced they would hold their national convention in town, those of us who live here are starting to feel more like Sally Field, because it…
Although he moved away ten years ago, Gary Sweeney has a long and committed relationship with Denver. Sweeney is a conceptual artist with a taste for pop imagery, as seen in his best-known local creation, the pair of decorated maps titled “America, Why I Love Her” at Denver International Airport…
Don’t count me among the biggest fans of what’s called “street art,” a loose category that runs the gamut from graffiti to wall murals, with the former often being used to vandalize the latter. Vandalism isn’t the biggest problem with street art, though; the key issue is that it almost…
The one thing about Denver that I really can’t stand is the relentless lack of support for local artists among the entities that could make a difference. Not only does this wrongheaded approach cheat the artists, but it shortchanges the city, too. The latest affront is Dialog:City, which is being…
Foothills Art Center marked its fortieth anniversary last Friday, and to honor that milestone, the institution is presenting XL: Forty Years on the Frontier of Art, which runs through the end of the month. The main exhibit features a quartet of contemporary artists, while an ancillary show, Foothills Founders: A…
Denver artist Gwen Laine is one of the four artists selected to help celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the Foothills Art Center in Golden (see review, page 46). But she’s also completely taken over the Carson/van Straaten Gallery (760 Santa Fe Drive, 303-573-8585, www.sandycarsongallery.com) with her solo, Passing Through. The…
Sculptor Bob Mangold moved to Denver with his wife, Peggy, about fifty years ago and helped to lay the groundwork for the contemporary sculpture scene here today. At the time, sculpture was a fairly undeveloped medium compared to painting, printmaking and even ceramics. There are still many more painters than…
