Visual Arts

The First Friday of August brings new sights and sounds to art districts all over Denver and beyond. Where will you end up? We have some suggestions.

When the new Velorama Festival descends on RiNo August 11 to 13, you’ll be able to U-lock your cruiser to new, hand-crafted bike racks. In line with the festival’s ties to the Colorado Classic bicycle race, the RiNo Arts District has sponsored the creation of five artisanal, mountain-evoking bike racks by contest winners Mitch Hoffman and Tim Omspach.

Longtime Colorado Springs sculptor and installationist Sean O’Meallie spent ten years in the ’80s and ’90s pitching gizmos and pull toys as a toy inventor, commuting to toy fairs in Manhattan with storyboards in hand. He and his New York-based business partner “never scored it big,” he says, but he did take something valuable away from the experience.

The Western: An Epic in Art and Film is truly epic, as well as full of gimmicks. But when the curators are so knowledgeable and the quality of the material is so high, even gimmicks can’t detract from a great show, and the ideal summer blockbuster for the Denver Art Museum.

August has arrived, but just because the summer is reaching its final days doesn’t mean that Denver’s entertainment calendar is fizzling too.

The Denver County Cultural Council, which dishes out nearly $2 million a year to small arts and culture groups in the city (which happens to also be the entire county) has a vacancy, and Denver City Council is taking applications until Monday, August 14, to fill the position. The money…

Champagne 6, an all-women burlesque crew that aims to bring the spirit of Vegas to Denver, is run by mother-daughter duo, Jasmine and Katrina Lairsmith.

The weekend may be just around the corner, but in a city where life gets more expensive every day, many residents may feel like they have to forgo their leisurely pursuits.

Some naysayers were concerned that Pirate’s move to Lakewood would mark the end of the artists’ co-op as a place to see cutting-edge art by some of the city’s most interesting artists, but the current shows by Eric Anderson and Charles Livingston should put those fears firmly to rest.

For Thomas “Detour” Evans’ interactive exhibit in the Temple tonight, expect bright colors, loud music DJed live, and a chance to break the usual “look-but-don’t-touch” rule of art viewership. Detour, whose work you might recognize from his rose-backed murals, RedLine residency or if you happen to have visited soccer superstar Tim Howard lately, has put together Between the Hues, an art showcase that will culminate in an afterparty at Meadowlark Kitchen.

Born and raised in Utah, contemporary-realist painter Jenny Morgan now lives in New York, where she received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts in 2008. But before that, she spent several years in Colorado, where she got her BFA at the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design in 2003. Now she’s back with a show at MCA Denver.

Enjoy the summer evenings and celebrate art at district-wide Final Friday artwalks and parties in Denver — or just go out and discover a rising young star or two. These five art openings are where it’s at this weekend.

For her current artist residency at the Denver Art Museum, dancer Laura Ann Samuelson encourages museum-goers to engage with the art around them in a different way.

Arts advocacy nonprofit Americans for the Arts has chosen Denver as the host city for its annual convention in June of 2018, further cementing the city’s status as an arts hub. Approximately 1,000 attendees will arrive in the Mile High City from June 15 to 17 to learn about advancing the arts on national policy stages as well as in local communities.

Thaddeus Phillips, known for his mind-expanding experimental work, has a young son, and his latest play, A Billion Nights on Earth, was created for children. Also adults.

Denver is not much of a town for monumental sculpture. Still, while the quantity of public sculpture in this city may be lacking, there’s no shortage of quality — at least, not in the top ten outdoor sculptures in the Mile High City.

Kevin Smith, the brains behind Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Zack and Miri Make a Porno and many other indie classics, is coming to Colorado with Ralph Garman, of Family Guy and Ted fame, to take a stab at the Hollywood industry that pays their bills.

For the Arvada Center’s current Paper.Works show, this artist learned to create art at a snail’s pace.

Crossroads Theater had played host to many performance and community events in the decade since it opened in Five Points in 2007, but now the interior of the venue at 2590 Washington Street is gutted, making way for office space after a decade-long struggle to pay the rent as a performing arts and community space.

The African Community Center merges fashion, fundraising and vocational training at tonight’s Designing Women: A Cross-Cultural Design Collaboration. It’s the first time the organization has hosted a philanthropic event of this kind, which will showcase apparel created by refugee artisans trained through ACC’s We Made This program in collaboration with local designers.

Denver is positively bustling with activity all weekend long, which means that thrifty locals have plenty of opportunities to enjoy everything our city arts scene has to offer, without breaking the bank.

On a sunburn-inducing Saturday in Littleton, accompanied by the occasional faint sound of bagpipes from the nearby Colorado Irish Festival, orange-jerseyed athletes slam shoulders with their opponents and sprint across a field, balancing a fist-sized ball on a paddle. This isn’t football, or lacrosse, or likely any sport you’ve seen: it’s the Denver Gaels and Regulators facing off in the final game of hurling, an ancient Irish sport, before the Rumble in the Rockies Southwest Invitational Tournament hits Lowry Sports Center this weekend.