Review: Don’t Miss Marilyn Minter: Pretty/Dirty at MCA Denver

This fall’s blockbuster at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, Marilyn Minter: Pretty/Dirty, is an orgy of visual experiences, a spectacle comprising scores of works, many of them monumental and all of which could be described as either pretty or dirty or both — just as the show’s title warns…

Old-Fashioned Chinese Brush Painting Goes Contemporary at CVA

Surely the biggest news for contemporary art in the twenty-first century is the ascendancy of Chinese contemporary art and its important place in the international mix. Amazingly, exhibition-goers in Denver have had a front-row seat for this rapid transformation in the art world’s hierarchy, and that’s partly due to the…

The Mayday Experiment: Questions and Answers

People have a lot of questions. Every other week or so, someone knocks on my door or slips a note through the window of the tiny house asking me to call because they have “so many questions.” I try to be friendly to the knockers, though often they are interrupting…

Checking Out More of Denver’s Little Free Libraries

Little free libraries — tiny houses where you can leave a book or take a book — are popping up all over town. Some efforts are modest, like the library my father installed in front of my house; others are more elaborate — history-making, even. The Design and Production team…

Gallery Sketches: Three New Shows in Denver for October 9-11

From a magnificent solo by Joel Swanson at the Museum of Outdoor Arts to a deadly beautiful tribute to plants that go bump in the night in Aurora to a celebration in a rare survivor of that dying breed, the RiNo art-studio warehouse, this weekend is shaping up as a…

Love Is Love Blends Art and Activism at Emmanuel Gallery, Opening Today

An art exhibit about love doesn’t always have to be heart-shaped Valentine’s Day fodder — though hearts might still be part of the equation. Tasked with developing a group show that celebrates the entire spectrum of love, Emmanuel Gallery curator Jacquelyn Connolly crafted Love is Love, working with an eye-opening,…

Off-Center@The Jones Is Coming to Take You Away on Halloween Night

We’ve come to trust the Denver Center’s Off-Center@The Jones when it comes to offbeat theatrical entertainment. Any show put on by Off-Cente – whether it’s improv or performance art – pretty much promises to make folks in the audience laugh and/or cry, sometimes at the same time, all while getting…

Weekend Break-In at the Source Strikes a Blow to Svper Ordinary

Yesterday morning, Tran Wills of Svper Ordinary in the Source put out a plaintive plea on Facebook after the gallery and boutique co-owned by Wills, her husband Josh Wills, Pedro Barrios and Bryan Cavanaugh, was burglarized over the weekend — along with, Wills believes, other businesses in the Source: “Today…

The Mayday Experiment: Old Habits, New Plans

From the outside, things have been quiet with the tiny house, and it would appear nothing is happening. But appearances are misleading: There has been a flurry of plans drawn and redrawn, as Victoria Salvador and I figure out stairs from a Sketch-Up drawing on Imgur; more research done; budgets…

Painter Ken Elliott Knows That Rewards Come With Risk

You can find art all over town — not just on gallery walls. In this series, we’ll be looking at some of the local artists who serve up their work in coffeehouses and other non-gallery businesses around town. “Wishes come true,” says artist Ken Elliott of his slow migration from…

Five Cool Things in Ruby Hill, Athmar Park and Overland

There’s a new game in town starting Saturday: That’s when Denver’s civic health club, Warm Cookies of the Revolution, takes to the streets for the Stompin’ Ground Games, a yearlong series designed to celebrate cultural richness in the city’s thriving and sometimes lesser-known neighborhoods. First up is a love song…

Will Day’s Paintings Sound Every Bit as Good as They Look

You can find art all over town — not just on gallery walls. In this series, we’ll be looking at some of the local artists who serve up their work in coffeehouses and other non-gallery businesses around town. Boulder Open Studios is celebrating its twentieth year of connecting artists with the…

Dalai Lama Cancels October Appearances in Boulder

They were some of the hottest tickets in town. But for medical reasons, the Dalai Lama will not be coming to Boulder for a series of scheduled programs on October 20 and October 21, or attending any of his planned events in the United States next month. Today the Tibetan Association…