Hit it Up: Current Must-See Shows
Great current and upcoming art happenings Current: Right now, you can check out Terminal Kings as it visits Denver. Watch street artists from LA as they do live art every day. Plus Gallery’s Frank T Martinez show is almost over, be sure to see it this week. This week and onwards: Be sure to check out this Friday’s opening at David B. Smith Gallery, featuring the work of Liz Miller. A sample of Liz Miller's installation work The Invented World, by Sandy Skoglund opens this Friday at Rule Gallery. You might know Sandy Skoglund by Fox Games, famously installed at the DAM. All the more reason not to...Read more
filed under: events
tags: Art Redline Sandy Skoglund Huma Bhabha Liz Miller Terminal Kings Street Art Denver
Au: Exchange at Redline
Gold has always been fascinating, and it is especially fascinating in a recession that touts the rare element as recession-proof. Money is so tight right now, or so we hear. Fittingly, in this money-themed show, not much seemed too extravagant. I wouldn't characterize any single piece as a splurge, but rather as calculated, spare, and elegant work. On opening night, the show had a gold and beige color, overall. Nothing stood out color-wise, and perhaps for this reason, each piece demands its own singular, committed attention. The premise for the show is simple: Each Redline artist was granted a 2.5 bar of gold to use for this exhibition. Whether the artists sold the gold t...Read more
Bill Amundson at Plus Gallery
Despite the humor in most of his work, Amundson’s drawings develop integral questions about American commercial lifestyles, and, well, all of America itself. Often when looking at his work I think about what it means to be an American, and I don’t see much glamour or intelligence, just monolithic icons of consumerism. In Amundson’s work, members of the consumer class get burned the hardest, and in his work these folks seem even more mindless than usual. Commercial giants who suffer at the expense of Bill's jokes seem to be deserving subjects: Dollar stores, Wal-Mart, and cookie-cutter houses out of suburbia serve as the locus of a minimal absurdism, where there is n...Read more
Salutations, Project Hello 2011!
On Saturday, June 25th Redline hosted this year's Project Hello. The event presented over 40 artists, designers, musicians, and poets. Redline buzzed with introductions and activity throughout the day. Rebecca Peebles' project guided visitors through the creation of a drawing that mapped the different kinds of visitors to the space. With the aid of colored china markers everyone was invited to color a rhombus representing themselves. As the day wore on, the paper became a colorful graphic representation of the event. People were able to work on the piece while also meeting the artist and one another. Many food vendors were present including Yours Truly Cupcake who had m...Read more
Denver Art Museum Gets Down and Dirty
This week marks the beginning of The Denver Art Museum's first ever campus wide exhibition based on one material, Marvelous Mud: Clay Around the World. Every department in the Museum is involved from Design to Photography. In Director Christoph Heinrich's words, “Don't think pots”. The entire Summer is dedicated to activities and demonstrations surrounding the main exhibition. Activities include the Museum's Mud Studio where young and old can get hands on with clay as well as weekend demonstrations throughout the Summer. This weekend artist Bob Smith was on hand to perform Raku firing, an intense process that yields beautiful glazes, on the plaza in front of the Hamilt...Read more
Blink! Brings Electronic Media to the Forefront
While browsing through the Denver Art Museums acquisitions, curator, Jill Desmond, came to the realization that works utilizing electronic media lacked categorization. During the last twenty five years the DAM had amassed video, sculpture, animation, and installations incorporating electronic media, yet these works had never before been brought together. Thus the impetus for Blink! Light, Sound, and the Moving Image, the newest exhibit at the Denver Art Museum, was born. Jill and her team were not only challenged with the technical aspects of bringing so many divergent pieces together, but also discovering a unifying theme to the works. What was found was ...Read more
OMG UTA BARTH
Speaking of pictorialists… Uta Barth is a German born, American-based contemporary photographer who has been a favorite of mine. Her work is of still life, and is similar to an expressionist painting. Barth does not focus on a single subject, instead she often out-of-focuses on recognizable entities. Barth’s is able to speak to a broad audience of transient beauty that is found in accessible landscapes. The simplistic images bring to attention the light, texture, and space, and focus on peripheral, or marginal perceptions that often remain unnoticed. Barth’s work is engrossing because of the active role the audience plays when viewing her work. Her ob...Read more
Happy MOP Denver
This month the photographic community of this state as well as communities across the globe are celebrating The Month of Photography! Galleries all over Denver are a buzz with showings of photography from traditional, alternative, and digital, and everything in between. The month of events was organized by RedLine Gallery, and fun will be had all month long. As for myself, I plan on celebrating by attempting a blog a day, highlighting the masters and the master amateurs, discussing history/theory and also technique. If there is anything you, my readers would like to know about the media, let me know and leave me a comment! There are 27 days to find out everything you’ve ever...Read more
Sandra Fettingis and Andi Todaro Shoot Laser Beams!
This past Saturday I found myself eyeing some wonderful geometry from local artists Sandra Fettingis and Andi Todaro. Using similar processes both create works of Art with an aesthetic all their own. Each utilizes the power and precision afforded by a laser cutter but to different ends. The overall gestalt of Sandra's work is that of refinement and subtle contrasts of texture and layering. Her pieces have a pristine, ordered quality and a definite fragility. This is counterbalanced by the structure inherent to the triangular and diamond shapes hewn from acrylic (edit, wood). A natural/unnatural distinction comes across with hints at natural wood beneath. Patterning can be found...Read more
Scot Lefavor's Got Wood at Crema
Artist/Designer Scot Lefavor graced Larimer's Crema Coffee House with Driftwood this past Saturday. The work on display has a definite air of sarcasm mixed with a graphic, cartoony, 1960's aesthetic. Scot uses invented characters along with a creamy, muted palette on pieces of found wood ranging from two by fours to cabinet doors. Crema's semi-plastered brick and plywood walls are the perfect compliment to Scot's edgy depictions. Each painting is unique, spanning just a few inches to several feet in dimension with a plethora of aspect ratios thrown in. Formally, Scot has taken this hurdle in stride working text and image into stable imagery on the given picture plane. There are lot...Read more