Art Attack: Find Art This Weekend in All the Right Places

There’s no shortage of powerful shows opening this week: a show and conference on community-based design at CVA Denver, photography by newly trained military vets at the Colorado Photographic Arts Center, a group show of modern Haitian art at Leon, the historical photography of Ernest Withers at the Dairy Center, and a vast cross-section from the Denver Art Museum’s Vicki and Kent Logan Collection, to name a few.

Here’s where to forage this weekend’s big and little selections:

D’art and Friends
Tabitha Benedict, Becoming Bewitched, in Gallery East
Through Sunday, February 6
D’art Gallery, 900 Santa Fe Drive
Artist Talks, Lydia Riegle and Tim McKay: Saturday, January 15, 1 p.m.
Artist Talk and Poetry Reading, Lisa Calzavara and Tom Calzavara: Sunday, January 16, 1 p.m.
D’art and Friends, the gallery’s paired-artist show of side-by-side works by members and invitees, continues, as does a complement of artist talks. Meanwhile, Erie artist Tabitha Benedict, who draws and paints wildlife portraits on a surface of Venetian plaster, takes over the East Gallery for Becoming Bewitched.

Artist Panel: Matter of Time
Thursday, January 13, 5 to 6 p.m.
Walker Fine Art, 300 West 11th Avenue, Unit A
In person or streaming live on Zoom and Instagram
As the group exhibition Matter of Time comes to an end, the participating artists — Julie Anderson, Kim Ferrer, Doug Haeussner, Peter Illig, Mark Penner-Howell and Karin Schminke — will conduct an interactive conversation addressing the temporal musings in their work with live and virtual audiences.

Design for the Common Good
Center for Visual Art, 965 Santa Fe Drive
Friday, January 14, through Saturday, March 19
Exhibition Introduction and Welcome: Friday, January 14, 5 to 6 p.m.
Opening Reception: 6 to 7:30 p.m.
Design for the Common Good shapes up as more than an exhibition: It comes with a conference, “Structures for Inclusion,” hosted by the Design Corps and Metropolitan State University of Denver in February, and a couple of online conversations pop up in March. The overarching subject is public-interest design projects as practiced around the world, from the Auraria Bike Pavilions right here in Denver to the Ger Innovation Hub in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, with other stops in the U.S., Europe, Africa, Asia, India, Latin America and the Pacific Islands. Learn more about the show and how to attend live or virtual programs at the website.

Relational Ground: Personal Projects by Veterans
Colorado Photographic Arts Center, 1070 Bannock Street
Friday, January 14, through Saturday, February 12
Opening Reception: Saturday, January 15, 5 to 8 p.m.
Since 2017, CPAC’s Veterans Workshop Series has been engaging regional military veterans in a five-month advanced photography mentor program that culminates with a professional portfolio and the chance to show new work in a public exhibition. Relational Ground shows the remarkable projects nine CPAC mentees tackled during the most recent cycle. Subjects range all over the map: Cowboys, carnivals, bird’s-eye views, eating disorders, life stories and the ravages of gentrification.

Long Range
Stripping the System: The True Cost of Fast Fashion
Firehouse Art Center, 667 4th Avenue, Longmont
Friday, January 14, through Sunday, February 6 (Stripping the System) and Sunday, March 6 (Long Range)
Opening Reception: Friday, January 14, 6 to 9 p.m.
Firehouse starts fresh in January with a pair of new exhibitions. Long Range showcases work in various mediums by four member artists, juried by Honolulu-based curator Jane Burke. Stripping the System blends printmaking and sustainable fashions created by teens who made their own designs to print on pieces of clothing they no longer wore, giving the garments a second life. At the opening, the teen participants will host a clothing swap and mending station.

Justin Beard
Hart Krypilo, The Art Is in the Frame
Pirate: Contemporary Art, 7130 West 16th Avenue, Lakewood
Friday, January 14, through Sunday, January 30
Opening Reception: Friday, January 14, 6 to 9 p.m.
Pirate members Justin Beard and Hart Krypilo launch solos that last through the end of January. Krypilo makes fun of “high art” by hanging ordinary (and sometimes ridiculous) art in the gaudiest frames he could find; we’re not sure what Beard has cooked up yet, but his installations always provide food for thought.

Locals Only Group Exhibition, featuring the Apex Collective
Mirus Gallery Denver, 1144 Broadway
Friday, January 14, through Friday, March 4
Opening Reception: Friday, January 14, 7 to 10 p.m.
RSVP in advance at Eventbrite
Mirus Gallery sheds light on all-local urban artists instead of national and international names in a show with an obvious name: Locals Only. More than thirty artists are included, with an emphasis on artists from the Apex Collective, who’ve hung a show-within-a-show for the event.

Deck the Halls Closing Reception
ILA Gallery, 209 Kalamath Street, Suite 12
Friday, January 14, 6 to 10 p.m.
RSVP in advance for timed-entry slot
ILA Gallery sees off its holiday season skate-deck show Deck the Halls with a closing reception where you can get a last — or first — look at what’s left from the picks made by jurors Lorenzo Talcott and 2Tongues. There’ll be a party that retains some holiday cheer, with libations from Suerte Tequila, PBR and Topo Chico Mineral Water.

Pitit Tig / Children of Tigers
Leon Gallery, 1112 East 17th Avenue
Saturday, January 15, through Saturday, February 26
Opening Reception: Saturday, January 15, 6 to 10 p.m.; RSVP online in advance for timed-entry reception slot
Ten Haitian artists whose works are steeped in colorful folklore, vodoun spiritualism and political unrest against great odds star in the group showcase Pitit Tig / Children of Tigers, which focuses on art generated by a multi-generational project preserving traditional imagery in modern times. This is a best bet if you’re looking for something different, and a good introduction to an island nation in constant turmoil.

Organic Tarot: Works by Tya Alisa Anthony
Cross-Pollination: The Moth Migration Project
Freyer-Newman Center, Denver Botanic Gardens, 1007 York Street
Saturday, January 15, through Sunday, April 3
Artist Talk: Hilary Lorenz, Moth Migration Project: Thursday, January 13, 6 to 7 p.m.
Artist Talk: Tya Anthony: Thursday, January 20, 6 to 7 p.m.
Tya Anthony’s Organic Tarot is a project that raises up the legacy of historical Black life and values in the present, represented in a self-made set of tarot cards collaged with images of Black sharecroppers standing amid unexpected gardens of lush botanical growth. Cross-Pollination, on the other hand, celebrates the free spread of knowledge and culture, likening it to moths going about their pollinating journeys to ensure future blooms. Artist Hilary Lorenz attached more than 16,000 printed paper moths throughout the gallery as a reminder.

Ben Kinsley, Tree Talks (Winter)
Kenosha Pass, Colorado Trail Section #6 Trailhead, Forest Road 849, Jefferson
Sunday, January 16, 12 to 2:30 p.m
Free, RSVP in advance at Eventbrite
In collaboration with the Black Cube Nomadic Art Museum, artist Ben Kinsley continues the Tree Talks speaker series he curated to follow the seasonal cycles of Populus tremuloides, aka the ubiquitous quaking aspen of the Colorado Rockies. Meet Kinsley and guest speakers Marilyn Martorano, Christine Biermann and Brian Linkhart, who will discuss such topics as the effects of global warming in Colorado, owl ecology and archaeological finds, in a grove atop Kenosha Pass.

Withers Photography Collection Exhibit
Dairy Arts Center, 2590 Walnut Street, Boulder
Sunday, January 16, through Sunday, February 27
Opening Reception: Sunday, January 16, 1:30 p.m.
Revisit the eye-opening photography of Ernest Withers, who caught scenes from the civil rights movement, as well as portraits of Black musicians and leaders through history, when NAACP Boulder brings photos from the Withers Collection in Memphis to the Dairy Center in conjunction with 2022 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day observances. Rosalind Withers, the photographer’s daughter, will give a keynote speech at the reception; future events include a concert by the Grammy Award-winning Jubilee Singers and three guided tours, with special performances in January and February. Find a schedule here.

Disruption: Works From the Vicki and Kent Logan Collection
Hamilton Building, Denver Art Museum, 100 West 14th Avenue Parkway
Opens Sunday, January 16
Disruption revisits the vast Vicki and Kent Logan Collection of contemporary art (donated by the couple more than twenty years ago) with a new exhibition pulling fifty works from a cache of 300. For lovers of leading contemporary art, it will be delightfully all over the board, featuring modern Chinese works by Yang Shaobin and Zhang Dali, American Glenn Ligon, British painter Jenny Saville, Canadian Kent Monkman, Argentinian Agustina Woodgate, and the Scandinavian team of Elmgreen and Dragset, among others.

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