Art Attack: Where to Find Art on First Friday Weekend in Denver

First Friday is jam-packed in June. That’s the bottom line for planning your itinerary, and while we definitely recommend the various grand-opening celebrations in 40 West, there are other options.

You can follow the rhinos during RiNo’s Rhino Week festivities while hitting art events at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, Alto and Dateline galleries, Lane Meyer Projects and (on Saturday) the Globeville Riverfront Arts Center. Or you can just follow your heart and visit your favorite Denver art haunts.

Here’s some help:

Jody Guralnick, What Happens to the Heart
Michael Warren Contemporary, 760 Santa Fe Drive
Through July 9
Opening Reception: Thursday, June 2, 5 to 8 p.m.
Artist Talk: Thursday, June 16, 5 to 7 p.m.
Jody Guralnick’s organic works are not simply paintings. Rather, they are created in a partnership with nature, borrowing the science and language of the natural world’s most basic building blocks, from fungi and microbes to creatures and plants of every species. Each panel explodes with complex patterns of communing life forms, both enlarged by the microscope or as seen by the naked eye. Walking through Guralnick’s exhibition, What Happens to the Heart, which quietly opened a couple of days ago, is like passing through a fantastic habitat of natural shapes in constant movement. Walk with beauty.

Chained Voices: DU Prison Arts Initiative
Through closing reception, Saturday, August 20, 5 to 8 p.m.
Portrait of a Culture
Through August 20
DCR Studios and DeMarcio: Creating the Glamour on Center Stage at Denver Pride
Through June 30
In Sickness and In Health
Through June 30, First Floor Community Gallery
McNichols Civic Center Building, 144 West Colfax Avenue
The McNichols Building galleries slide into summer with a pair of very different art exhibitions expressing views from marginalized communities that opened June 1. On the second floor, Chained Voices, a show facilitated by the DU Prison Arts Initiative, includes works by 150 incarcerated artists across the state. On the first floor, a show devoted to drag-queen costumery serves as a prelude to a Pride fashion show on June 11, with emcee DeMarcio Slaughter and RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars contestants Yara Sofia and Mayhem Miller. In addition, Portrait of a Culture, focusing on diverse portrait painters Kelle (Nigeria), Jordan Jones (Florida) and Yazmin Atmore (Denver), hangs out on the third floor, and In Sickness and In Health, curated by Mary Grace Bernard and Genevieve Waller, which examines human relations and vows taken in nonbinary partnerships, opens in the First Floor Community Gallery.

Tara Kelley-Cruz and Ashton Lacy Jones, Making Mischief
Rick Dallago in Gallery East
D’art Gallery, 900 Santa Fe Drive
Thursday, June 2, through June 26
Artist Talk: Saturday, July 11, 1 p.m.
Artist’s Reception: Friday, June 17, 6 to 9 pm.
D’art members Tara Kelley-Cruz and Ashton Lacy Jones present a duo of solo shows with the same theme of making mischief, an idea they both seem to approach from a point of breaking rules. The result is a gallery full of playful abstractions, interpreted in layered mediums by Kelley-Cruz and as a study in the process of building a quilt by Ashton Lacy Jones. Boulder-based artist Rick Dallago puts a pop sensibility to work in Gallery East.

Michael Hedges and Karine Léger
Space Gallery, 400 Santa Fe Drive
Friday, June 3, through August 20
Opening Reception: Friday, June 3, 6 to 9 p.m.
Space Gallery presents a summer run by gallery artists Michael Hedges, whose work corrals blasts of color in rapidly painted marks that leave a lasting impression of movement, and Karine Léger, a collage artist who defies the rectangle by joining subtly colored shapes into changeable compositions.

Belgin Yucelen: Shifts Over Time
Canyons Gallery, BMoCA at Frasier Retirement Community, 350 Ponca Place, Boulder
Through October 9
Opening reception: Thursday, June 2, 4 to 5 p.m.
Artist talk: Thursday, August 4, 4 to 5 p.m.
BMoCA sourced Boulder artist Belgin Ucelen for a long run at the museum’s satellite space in the Canyons Gallery at the Frasier Retirement Community, now open to residents and the vaccinated public. Yucelen’s show, Shifts Over Time, is a multi-layered look at the structure of existence and the subtlest parts of daily life we humans tend not to notice. Visit the Canyons Gallery Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Tania Candiani: For the Animals
Guadalupe Maravilla: Purring Monsters With Mirrors on Their Backs
Clarrisa Tossin: Falling From Earth
MCA Denver, 1485 Delgany Street
Friday, June 3, through August 28
Exhibition Opening Celebration, 6:30 p.m. June 3, $25
MCA Denver segues into a new season with a set of three exhibitions, all showcasing Latin-American women artists who look at the future using aspects of installation and/or film media. The centerpiece of Mexico City-based artist Tania Candiani’s exhibition, For the Animals, is a three-channel video also titled For the Animals, which examines the evolution of how sonics wove an aural tapestry of natural sounds — in this case, made by animals native to the borderlands of the Sonoran Desert — creating lullabies for each species of that wilderness menagerie with collaborating experimental musicians. A collection of sculpture, prints and more video, all related to the same concepts, fill out the rest of the gallery.

Brazilian artist Clarrisa Tossin looks upward, leaving Candiani’s sounds of the earth far behind, propelling into space to explore the desire to groom the moon or the planet Mars for colonization. “The 8th Continent,” a trio of large-scale tapestries representing mineable resource areas on the moon, lends a focal point to Falling From Earth, which also includes commissioned works of sculpture incorporating repurposed industrial materials and meteorite powder, NASA satellite images, tree bark and clay. Finally, the 62-foot-long silicone sculpture “Death by Heat Wave (Acer pseudoplatanus, Mulhouse Forest)” basically mourns the slow death of precious trees.

Finally, Salvadoran Guadalupe Maravilla wrestles with the issues of migration and the harm it can bring to the mind, body and sense of belonging. Central to Purring Monsters With Mirrors on Their Backs is a trio of what Maravilla calls “Disease Throwers,” sculptures that compris metal tubing, gongs and plastic representations of human organs that reference his own battle with colon cancer. Accenting the overall narrative of the exhibition are a Tripa Chuca mural (meaning “dirty guts,” after a childhood game played in El Salvador) and a retablo painting.

Lucía Rodríguez: a través del silencio
Alto Gallery, RiNo ArtPark, 1900 35th Street

Friday, June 3, through June 25
Opening Reception: Friday, June 3, 6 to 10 p.m.
An old familiar face shows up again in Denver, as painter Lucía Rodríguez — who, with her partner Aaron Mulligan, once ran the adventurous, community-driven JuiceBox Projects gallery next door to Dateline — returns from Brooklyn for an exhibition of her mesmerizing oil color studies.

Devin “Speaks” Urioste, Every Moment Counts
Dateline Gallery, 3004 Larimer Street
Friday, June 3, through June 30
Opening Reception: Friday, June 3, 6 to 11 p.m.
Devin Urioste, whose handle is Speaks, wears many hats as an artist, photographer, music producer, performer and program coordinator at Youth on Record. But art, a lot of it on urban walls, has become a real passion for Urioste, who is the subject of a solo show opening on First Friday at Dateline. The work is raw, colorful and from the neighborhood, and you don’t want to miss it.

Colby Deal, Juan Fuentes and John Lake, All the Time, All the Time
Lane Meyer Projects, 2528 Walnut Street
Friday, June 3, through June 26
Closing Reception/Zine Sale: Friday, June 24, 8 p.m. until late
This trio of photographers collaborated on a site-specific exhibition, curated round-robin among themselves and covering a thirty-year trajectory of personal histories, some with universal meanings. Immerse yourself in the lives of others and you might find some “Aha!” moments of your own.

40 West Colfax Art Crawl/The Hub Grand Opening Celebration
40 West Arts District, West Colfax Avenue Corridor, from Lamar Street to Wadsworth Boulevard, and the Hub at 40 West Arts, 6501 West Colfax Avenue, Lakewood
Friday, June 3, 6 to 11 p.m.
If you have to choose one place to park yourself on First Friday, head to 40 West, where an orchestrated game of musical chairs has placed numerous art-district galleries in new homes, making way for others to also move into the area.

The biggest celebration is at the new Hub at 40 West Arts, a former Denver Drumstick restaurant in the shadow of Casa Bonita that’s been renovated as a home to multiple galleries, including 40 West, Core, Edge, Kanon, Next and Lakewood Arts. Meanwhile, 40 West’s former building now welcomes the Chicano Humanities and Arts Council, ending that gallery’s long search for a new home after being priced out on Santa Fe Drive. 40 West enlisted professional party planners the Fantastic Hosts to dress up the district with DJs, art acts, aerial dancers and more for this evening. Pirate, by the way, isn’t moving anywhere, but there will be live music there, at 7130 West 16th Avenue. More on the moving galleries below.

In Honor of Alicia Cardenas: A Journey Through Generations
Chicano Humanities and Arts Council, 1560 Teller Street, Lakewood
Friday, June 3, through August 21
Opening Reception: Friday, June 3, 5 to 9 p.m.
CHAC’s grand opening on Teller Street is dedicated to the late Alicia Cardenas, who was a CHAC artist and symbolic to the gallery’s old guard as the wave of the future. Just last year, she helped curate CHAC’s Generations series, pairing work by young and seasoned artists. The grand-opening show, A Journey Through Generations, looks back and forward, with a spread of work curated by CHAC artist Rebecca Rozales and boardmember Sonia Del Real. On the celebration side, Grupo Huizilopochtli will bless the new space, and later, a cash bar and DJ Moe Medina will keep it lively.

Fred Voigt Becker, Original/Nature
Robert Davis Garner, Tests, Allies and Enemies
Core New Art Space, the Hub at 40 West Arts, 6501 West Colfax Avenue, Lakewood
Friday, June 3, through June 19
Opening Reception: Friday, June 3, 5 to 10 p.m.
At Core, it’s business as usual — in a new art space — with member shows by Fred Voigt Becker, who paints intuitional expressionist abstracts, and Robert Davis Garner, a representational painter who has placed young monotone figures into dangerous landscapes.

Next Member Show: Collaboration
Laura McCracken, Observing the Drift
Demeri Flowers, Trips Around the Sun
Next Gallery, the Hub at 40 West Arts, 6501 West Colfax Avenue, Lakewood
Friday, June 3, through June 19
Opening Reception: Friday, June 3, 5 to 10 p.m.
Next Gallery celebrates its new space with a group member show, Collaborations, to show solidarity, and member solos by Laura McCracken and Demeri Flowers represented, respectively, by fused, kiln-fired glass pieces and paintings celebrating the child’s-eye view.

New Passages: Edge Members’ Show
Edge Gallery, the Hub at 40 West Arts, 6501 West Colfax Avenue, Lakewood
Friday, June 3, through June 19
Grand Opening: Friday, June 3, 6 to 9 p.m.
Edge members, who’ve made the move from the old Art Hub to the new Hub at 40 West, flock together for a group show dedicated to the power of change and renewal.

Pixel Portraits: New Works by Kym Bloom
Kanon Collective, the Hub at 40 West Arts, 6501 West Colfax Avenue, Lakewood
Friday, June 3, through June 26
Opening Reception: Friday, June 3, 6 to 9:30 p.m.
Kanon troop mother Kym Bloom is introducing some new work for her grand-opening member slot at Kanon Collective. Known for her pixel-perfect mosaic artwork using Chiclets as a medium, Bloom is now painting carefully graphed and pixelated watercolor portraits, many of them depicting cult heroes, from Prince to Tim Curry as Frank N. Furter and beyond. She says the technique is fallout from her career as a graphic artist and a fan of early 8-bit video games.

Dona Laurita, Waves
Bus Stop Gallery, 4895 Broadway, Boulder
Friday, June 3, through June 26
Opening Reception: Friday, June 3, 5 p.m.
Photographer Dona Laurita remounts her beautiful Waves series, a multimedia body of work in watery blue hues that speak to the ups and downs that we navigate through the journey of life. A fog of mystery hangs over the images, reaching for the really deep memories. DJ Vibrarian will contribute the evening’s curated soundtrack.

Dairy Block Summer First Friday Art Walk
Dairy Block Alley, 1800 Wazee Street
Friday, June 3, 5 to 9 p.m.
The Dairy Block brings back open-air First Friday Art Walks in the alley for the summer, with changing group art exhibitions curated by Inside Her Studio. Artists for June include Richelle Cripe, Jessie Bélisle and Emily Christyansen. Summer First Friday Art Walks continue monthly through August.

Transforming Creatives First Friday Gallery: Greg Forber
Converge Denver, 3327 Brighton Boulevard
Friday, June 3, 6 to 9 p.m.
Transforming Creatives Gallery, run by an artists’ collective at Converge in RiNo, fetes featured painter Greg Forber and other collective members for its monthly First Friday display. Forber works in a variety of styles, both representational and abstract, including portraits of people and pets, landscapes and nudes. For the June opening, Pizza + Plants Food Truck will be dishing pies for hungry art-goers.

Doug Karhoff
Tenn Street Coffee & Books, 4418 Tennyson Street
Friday, June 3, through June 26
Opening Reception: Friday, June 3, 6 to 9 p.m.
Doug Karhoff, this month’s feature at Tenn Street, paints brightly colored, design-forward imagery, occasional landscapes and stylized portraits that will pretty up the walls at the Tennyson Street coffeehouse. Plus, you can power up with caffeine while you’re browsing the art.

Out There Art Fest 2022
Globeville Riverfront Arts Center (GRACe), 888 East 50th Avenue
Saturday, June 4, 3 to 9 p.m.
GRACe, the Globeville-based phoenix that rose from the ashes of Wazee Union off Brighton Boulevard, continues in the same communal vein, harboring more than seventy artists in dozens of studios and throwing gallery shows, as it has now for more than five years. Recognizing that it’s not the easiest place to find, the residents of GRACe annually throw an open house and art show, with live music, demonstrations, food trucks and the whole shebang. Meet the artists and get a feel for how many artists lie under the radar in the Denver metro art scene.

Yard Art 2022
100 Gaylord Street
Saturday, June 4, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, June 5, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Yard Art is just like a yard sale, but with merch that’s not even close to being secondhand. Instead, it’s real art by notable Denver artists, who’ve banded together to take advantage of warm weather to sell their work free of a middleman. Produced by artists Annie DeCamp and Michael Dowling, the series has plumped up for 2022, with a schedule of six weekends through September at different art yards around town. The kickoff gets started Saturday in the Denver Country Club neighborhood. Future dates follow on June 25-26, July 9-10, July 30-31, August 9-10 and September 17-18. Visit Annie DeCamp’s website for future locations and times.

Ninth Annual Park Hill Art Festival
Park Hill Masonic Lodge, 4819 Montview Boulevard
Saturday, June 4, and Sunday, June 5, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily
Another summer tradition, the Park Hill Art Festival will open for business this weekend with a solid, juried inventory of original fine art in various categories, as well as photography, jewelry, fiber and wood, from ninety artists and artisans. Visit the website for an artist preview.

Film Screening: John David Davenport: An Artist’s Life, a film by Andrew Carr
Pirate: Contemporary Art, 7130 West 16th Avenue, Lakewood
Sunday, June 5, 7 to 8:30 p.m.
CU Denver Film & TV student Andrew Carr, whose father, Thomas Carr, is a local photographer, thoughtfully chose Pirate member John Davenport as the subject for a short documentary. John David Davenport: An Artist’s Life tells the active community member’s story through interviews with colleagues and Davenport’s own exemplary photo imagery. Pirate will celebrate the career of one of its own by hosting a free screening of the bio-doc and two other short films by Carr.

Social Justice Thru the Arts: Amending and A-mending History
Nancy Richardson Design Center, 522 West Lake Street, CSU Campus, Fort Collins
Sunday, June 5, through June 12; Opening Reception: Sunday, June 5, 1 p.m.
Visual Arts Building, 551 West Pitkin Street, CSU Campus, Fort Collins
Monday, June 13, through August 15
The exhibition Social Justice Thru the Arts results from a one-week student workshop on the subject at Colorado State University, where participants studied with CSU faculty and Fort Collins-based multimedia artist Louise Cutler. The show opens with a reception and a weeklong stay at the Nancy Richardson Design Center, then moves to CSU’s Visual Arts Building, where it will become part of the campus’s Engaged Art Walk, an arts-based community building project and exhibition space with rotating installations.

Present Box: By Any Means We Deem Necessary: An Archival Exhibit of the 1994 Ethnic Studies Protests at CU Boulder
Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (BMoCA), 1750 13th Street, Boulder
Monday, June 6, through June 12
Community Panel and Discussion: Re-examining the Legacy of the 1994 Ethnic Studies Protests at CU Boulder: Friday, June 10, 5 to 7:30 p.m.
This documentation of the re-emergence of scholarly, oft-forgotten BIPOC and Chicanx activism in Boulder will drop in for a short stay at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, where it will present ephemera and objects supporting the legacies of Los Seis de Boulder and other BIPOC-led student movements at CU Boulder. For more insights, attend a free panel discussion on the subject with Mateo Manuel Vela and UMAS y MECHA on June 10, from 5 to 7:30 p.m. at BMoCA; RSVP requested in advance.

Primavera
City of Thornton Gallery, Thornton Arts & Culture Center, 9209 Dorothy Boulevard, Thornton
Tuesday, June 7, through August 26
Reception: Friday, June 17, 6 to 9 p.m.
This CHAC Group Show in Thornton represents the hope of springtime and changes at one of many venues that supported the arts group during its search for a new home.

Interested in having your event appear in this calendar? Send the details to [email protected]