John De Puy – Harwood Museum of Art

Red landscape painting -John dePuy

Taos – Saturday, February 13 – Sunday, May 1, 2016 John De Puy: Painter of the Apocalyptic Volcano of the World TO JOHN DE PUY Madman and seer, painter of the apocalyptic volcano of the world— Compañero, I am with you forever in the glorious fraternity of the damned. —Edward Abbey There is something about…

Laura Shill Phantom Touch

Denver – Museum of Contemporary Art FEBRUARY 20, 2016 – JULY 3, 2016 Why art that moves us into a room through tubes of stuffed pink satin? Why are these hanging in strands, thick ones, like a beaded curtain? Why no sound of clicking beads? Just the fat strands quiet, and pressing with less touch…

Brian Bress: MCA Denver

Denver — FEBRUARY 20, 2016 – JULY 3, 2016 — From T minus 10 years to something good. These photographs are pretty representative of Bress’ work – his most recent work – which captured my eyes for longer than was good for them.  The image in the background – let’s call it the secondary layer…

Frottages

Licktenstein rubbing Menil Collection

Apparitions: Frottages and Rubbings from 1860 to Now Houston: Sept 11, 2015 – Jan 3, 2016 The deMenil Collection in Houston filled their whole current exhibition space with rubbings.  Frottages is the title in French, which makes the activity sound like something exotic enough to fill such a prominent museum. The Menil’s changing exhibition spaces…

Marilyn Minter – MCA Denver 2015

  OCTOBER 2015-JANUARY 31, 2016 To see decades of an artist’s work – the Marilyn Minter show at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver – it’s hard not to feel like you’ve been friends your whole life. You just forgot to call. For me, Ms. Minter is the older girl that lived next door –…

Hume’s Guillotine – Environmental Sculpture

August, 2015 Breckenridge International Festival of Art Is does not make ought – that’s the gist of Hume’s Guillotine, a philosophical law that prefers moral law over natural law. Environmental issues are enormously complex in the Western U.S.  and today, industry and tourism both want of piece of the landscape. Often things are left as…

Formalizing the Camouflage of the Homeless

Denver – Now?Now! – Marcelo Cidade: these blankets have a obvious front and back. An elaborate texture hints they’re made from a mix of materials. According to the artist, they are the byproducts of recycling in São Paulo, Brazil, where Mr. Cidade lives. They’re used as insulation in the construction industry, sold as packing blankets…

Face to Face – Denver & Mexico Studio Swap

detail of Melissa Furness installation at McNichols Vis-a-Vis Exhibition

Vis-à-vis @McNichols Building July 15- July 26 Four artists and months of work fill the third floor of the McNichols building in a show called Vis-à-vis. There is plenty of physical space between the works, and it is pleasantly filled with the conceit that two artists from Denver would swap studios with two artists from…

Suffering the River of Fundament

Red screen following the screen of River of Fundament

TAKING THE FUN OUT OF FUNDAMENT Denver – July 18, 2015. Beautiful images on a big screen in a palatial opera hall could have been a wonderful way to spend a Saturday night. For six hours last night I had the opportunity to see some, but watching the film River of Fundament became more like…

Now What? Artwhat in the Biennial of the Americas 2015

composite from the 2015 opening at MCA Denver for the Biennial of the Americas

The current show – Now? Now – at the MCA Denver seems to be a hodgepodge of jiggery-pokery made by artists from all over the Americas. Being the flagship exhibition for the Biennial of the Americas, it must include many: countries, artists, types, ages, and thus pieces, in a limited space. Fill the MCA with…