| In Review: Denver Arts 2008 |
| Posted: December 29, 2008 | |||
As is customary come year end, here's a summary of what was what on the Denver Arts scene, 2008. The MCA Denver celebrated its one year anniversary and what a year it was with an incredible array of first rate shows including Jasper De Beijer, Brad Kahlhamer, Susanne Kuhn, Omer Fast, Damien Hirst and local artist Terry Maker. The David Adjaye designed building has lived up to the hype and it's a great place to spend time taking in art, although I would love to see better use made of some of the blank spaces, much the way Jonas Burgert's excellent work was featured on a wall previously unused for display. Let's see how the search for a new museum director and curator goes in 2009 now that Cydney Payton has moved on. While the MCA turned one, Denver saw two new additions in 2008 including studio/gallery/arts organization Redline which kicked off back in September to an excellent exhibit highlighting the works of some of Denver's finest artists who have taken up residence in the spacious environs of outer RiNo: Spatial Investigations at Redline. Ron Judish's gallery "T" was the other prime addition upping the ante on Santa Fe Drive with a beautiful space, top tier national artists and an interesting stable of talented local painters as well: Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons at T. And while it seems like a long time back, 2008 saw the presentation of Brad Cloepfil's design for the new Clyfford Still Museum Cloepfil's Clyfford Still Museum Unveiled. The Lab at Belmar offered up a variety of witty and informative lectures on a gamut of topics with some of Denver's top curatorial talent in tow including the DAM's Christoph Heinrich and local artist Phil Bender with his Bender Bender. The Lab's highlight from an exhibition standpoint was the Silent Films and Bedroom Painting show which had the Lab's director Adam Lerner curating excellent large scale paintings by Frank Martinez and Amy Metier among others, alongside a hypnotic presentation of historic silent films curated by CU's Jennifer Peterson. Props to Eric Matelski and Katie Taft for their efforts to bring artists to the masses through their respective "First Monday Arts Talk" and "Action Figures" lecture series.  The art world continued its Chinese art binge and Denver played along with the excellent Face East at Robischon as well as the Chinese photography show Body Art at the Foothills Art Center. Local Chinese artist Xi Zhang's show at Rule Gallery brought the Chinese art experience a little closer to home as well.I was fortunate to catch Jean Claude and Christo's lecture at the Buell Theater as well as the outstanding Christo and Jeanne-Claude Prints and Objects at the CVA which was probably one of the finest exhibits of 2008. Another excellent, nationally significant exhibition not associated with the larger local institutions was the Starn Twins at RMCAD. On the DAM front, we benefited from new curator Christoph Heinrich's association with German artist Daniel Richter and were treated to a first rate retrospective of the artist's work. Another compelling Heinrich coup was the "Fuse Box" display space featuring the work of Berlin video artist Bjorn Melhus. The Landscapes from the Age of Impressionism was also a welcome addition bringing dozens of masterpieces from the Brooklyn Museum to the DAM. Two notable pan-Denver phenomena were Mark Sink's Month of Photography Denver which had pretty much every gallery in town exhibiting photographic arts and the Denver Arts Week Night at the Museums which had everything around the Golden Triangle buzzing into the evening. Quite frankly, I didn't think that any of the DNC based arts events lived up to the incredible energy of the zoo that was the DNC, and I was a little disappointed that DoCA was unable to give any local artists a piece of the thousands of dollars raised in artistic support of the convention. (see the review of DoCA's Minsuk Cho's Air Forest for more...) Some other notable gallery shows that I enjoyed in 2008:
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