It's been a busy couple of weeks for Denver film. For starters, we're smack in the middle of the Starz Denver Film Festival. And last week, the locally filmed cult fantasy INK received a huge publicity boost after it popped up on various torrent servers, which probably won't make a ton of money for its filmmakers but will definitely spread the word about this unique film in one of the best possible ways.
Now, another Denver-based film has a chance to reach the masses. The local flick Skills Like This comes out on DVD today.
Halloween is long gone, but the Day of the Dead is a holiday that keeps on giving. An exhibit in the grand hall of the downtown Denver Public Library features staff-produced riffs on the tradition of decorated sugar skulls that provides -- well, plenty of food for thought.
We could rattle on about the adornment or masking of death, substituting celebration for fear, or the use of a universal typology in the service of culture-specific themes. Or we could just shut up and enjoy the show on view below.
The study of neighbors through their lawn ornaments...
Figure 41. North Capitol Hill: Bent-out-of-shape bronze beauty emerges from blow hole.
After hours of careful examination, the bronze statue pictured in figure 41 appears to be either a narcoleptic ballerina riding a stair-stepping machine across a small pond backwards, or a sleep dancer hovering a few inches over a poorly weeded cabbage patch.
The tiara-topped, oversized red guitar sitting on the new Westwood welcome sign seems to have magically appeared out of nowhere last weekend, but it has actually been over ten years in the making.
The newly landscaped corner lot where Morrison Road meets South Sheridan Blvd. was originally part and parcel of a neighborhood bond issue approved by Denver voters way back in 1998. What was once a weed-filled vacant lot is now "Un Corrido Para La Gente," Denver artist Carlos Fresquez's public art assemblage of sculptural forms inspired by items found in neighborhood shops. The big guitar connects to a super-sized shovel through a kinetic papel picado, designed to swing in the breeze.
The study of neighbors through their lawn decoration...
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Figure 40. College View: Where art takes over the swings.
Originally known as Goat Hill, College View has been home to Locavores and Ecotarians long before urban farming was considered hip. This is the neighborhood where Dardano's Flowerland, the locally grown flower-bedding superstore, was founded by Italian truck farmers who made their first fortune by feeding Denver. The area still retains its rural quiet, with silence broken by sporadic crowing chickens and conversing neighbors. To this day, the lots lining the streets range in size from oversized-city to miniature-farm, and nearly all of the yards are packed with personal projects. The yard pictured in figure 40 is College View's yard-art jackpot.
That a child's swing set, placed prominently at the front of the yard, has been converted into a hanging sculpture gallery indicates that this is the home of an older yard artist whose grandkids have grown. The slide has been pushed back to mid-yard and appears to wait nervously to be welded into a designer Cross. The numerous Crosses affixed to the home suggests that the flow of creative energy may be made possible by a belief in Jesus. The carefully welded silhouettes of the Denver Broncos mascot that morph into a Rorschach test shape intimates that every piece of yard art is created with some special meaning.
Spotted over at Boing Boing, this wonderful piece of art, submitted in an office pumpkin contest, almost makes the whole Balloon Boy saga worthwhile. Almost.
Humongous scaffolding being dismantled from entrance to the Hamilton wing
I was walking past the Denver Art Museum yesterday and almost couldn't believe my eyes.
After seven months of confusing tourists and getting ripped apart by hippie art thieves, the gargantuan construction scaffolding at the entrance to the (once-leaky) Frederic C. Hamilton Building was being removed by crews.
The study of neighbors through their lawn decoration...
Figure 38. Platt Park. Passersby can talk to the trees
It is an amazing coincidence that this lumbering display sits in the neighborhood named for the Denver pioneer who's fortune was felled by logs. Vermont-educated James H. Platt served in the Civil War and was a four-term U.S. Representative from Virginia before he moved to Denver in 1887 and spent his life saving's to open the Denver Paper Mill in 1891. He borrowed another $700,000 for an expansion that was completed just as the Silver Panic of 1893 sent Colorado's economy into the tank. Platt died from mysterious circumstances while on a family fishing trip in June of 1894. While boating alone on a lake near Georgetown, he fell into the water and drowned. By 1900, eastern bondholders had foreclosed on the property and sold off all of the equipment.
As pictured in figure 38, logs in Denver now live free of the tyranny of the wood pulper and can bask in the Platt Park sun as yard art. The vertical stance and pairing of these logs indicates that this is a collaborative work created by cohabiters who believe in cooperation and communication. Filling the hollowed interiors with branches and dried long-handle dipper gourds suggests that these yard artists have familiarized themselves with the arranging of vegetable matter through their jobs in the food service and grocery industries. The matching shovel accents propose a romanticized work ethic that strongly intimates an Obama "Hope" poster is hung prominently on the living room wall.
Look below for details of the Platt Park stump lovers' pad...
This weekend, there was metal thrashing and apple bobbing at the Denver Creative Co-Op; Bombay chugging at DU; and a grand opening at Casselman's. You can see photos of all of them at westword.com/slideshow.
Aaron Thackeray
And if you're more of the strongly worded type, jump to the Backbeat blog for dispatches from weekend gigs by Gregory Alan Isakov, the Bottesini Project, Damon and Naomi, and Danielle Ate the Sandwich.
The yard pictured above clearly showcases how "American Crapitalism" has ruined the world's best holiday. Halloween is an ancient autumnal ritual of impersonating the dead and tossing bones into bonfires to placate evil spirits. It is celebrated on October 31, because that is the one day of the year when the boundary between the real world and the underworld dissolves. However, in America, the flesh-eating goblins and roaming packs of the living dead have all been replaced with animated airblown-rising vampire coffins, terra cotta jolly double-pumpkin chimineas and trick-or-treat strawberry Care Bears. If you scan this yard long enough, you'll probably even see a light-sensor-activated permaplastic bag-of-doggy-doo novelty from Hallmark that blinks on and off, wails with a recording of demoniacal laughter and opens to reveal a cache of fun-size Snickers bars.
The selection of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird for this year's "One Book, One Denver" city-wide book club program must have seemed like a safe bet politically. The book's long been entombed in the shrine of high literature, a staple among middle-school curricula everywhere. Plus, this year is the book's fiftieth anniversary -- time for a birthday party, whoopee!
Too bad Malcolm Gladwell, aka "the smartest man in the universe," thinks it sucks.
The study of neighbors through their lawn decoration ...
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Figure 37. Ruby Hill: Mixing themes gives yard art a new slant
The Ruby Hill neighborhood is unlike any other in Denver. Ruby Hillers seem to have a different perspective on life than most other Denverites. Perhaps it has something to do with the neighborhood's location. While most of Denver looks toward the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains to get their bearings, the Ruby Hill neighborhood is built on land that tilts down to the western bank of the South Platte River. Most of the homes have great views of the eastern horizon. This is the neighborhood where Denver looks back on itself, and not surprisingly reveals a very wicked sense of humor.
The display pictured in figure 37 is a classic example of the mix-n-match method of yard artistry that showcases the neighborhood's unusual perspective. Combining a nude male and clothed child statue could be considered a big mistake, but the black plastic planter suggests that the naked guy is only hiding behind the sunflower to take a "pee in the potty." The laughing child statue further indicates that from this perspective, public exposure is indeed fun, and funny! A good sense of humor is probably what is keeping this display off of the yard-art offender registry list. Many other mirthful mix-n-match yard art mash-ups exist throughout Ruby Hill, and include the reflective grilling Madonna.
Look below for more examples of yard art boners in Ruby Hill ...
Move over swine flu, the latest epidemic to hit Denver is an outbreak of ghosts. Granted, most are made of rags, have tissue for brains and dangle from the low-hanging branches of maple trees, but the photo above proves that more mischievous spirits do exist. Yes, ghosts must be real, because why else would someone take a perfectly serviceable late-model automobile and doll it up with fake ghostbusters paraphernalia?
And you can tell that this a dead serious ghostbuster. Look at that perfect parking job, with the front wheels angled toward the curb to prevent accidental rolling, as per the driver's training manual. Be prepared for an infectiously frightening Halloween this year.
Telling Stories has long been a blessing for those of us who like our high culture in low-impact form. The four-year-old program combines chamber works and literature readings in ways designed to appeal to the under-forty set. In other words, the troupe, founded by local classical musician and writer Jennie Dorris, a former Best of Denver winner, showcases its fusion of musical pieces and personal essays at bars and cafes that are better suited for micro brews and lattes than intermission cocktails (see the videos above and after the jump for examples of their work).
Now, Telling Stories has found a new way to bring highfalutin arts for the masses. Its fourth season will be produced by Colorado Public Radio, which means the performances will be played on air as well as eventually released as podcasts. The troupe will still be performing live as well; their first show, "Pilots," takes place at 6 p.m. on October 3 at the D Note, 7519 Grandview Avenue in Olde Town Arvada. In other words, either from the privacy of your own home or the hustle and bustle of the neighborhood pub, you can get your culture on over a nice frosty beer. Talk about classy.
The Denver Art Museum, designed by Daniel Libeskind, is an architecturally striking building on any day. But lately, it's been even more eye-catching than usual due to a noteworthy visual element: crews of repairmen walking gingerly on its radically slanted roof in order to avoid shooting off the edge and creating a Jackson Pollock-like splatter piece on the sidewalk below.
Since March, DAM has featured a display Westword's Jared Jacang Maher dubbed "Giant Scaffolding to Repair Piece of Shit Leaky Roof" in an earlier post. But the presence of crews clinging to the structure like Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible III adds an element of risk that lifts the display to another level. It's proof that art can be dangerous.
Look below to see more photos of this DAM exciting exhibition.
Officials at Denver International Airport recently floated ideas about an ambitious redesign of the facility's terminal -- although none of them were as interesting as those envisioned by Westword's own Kenny Be. (Take a gander at his notions here, here and here.) In the meantime, Fentress Architects, the original airport's designer, wants us to know that DIA continues to win accolades just as it is. Today, the firm sent out a press release noting that DIA just won a reader's poll in Business Traveller magazine as the nation's best airport, a plaudit it's received four years running. Moreover, it landed in the fourth slot in a 2007 survey focusing on the top architectural landmarks built in the previous fifteen years. Check out the Fentress take by clicking "Continue."
Shepard Fairey, creator of the iconic Obama "HOPE" poster, was sentenced to two years probation and a $2,000 fine Friday in Boston after pleading guilty to several vandalism charges of posting art on public and private property. He had been arrested in February before entering an art show.
The bust took place around that time that his six-month probation term in Denver was expiring; he'd plead guilty to similar charges during the Democratic National Convention for wheatpasting posters near downtown. While his arrest in Denver was much more dramatic than the one in Boston -- he and other street artists were thrown to the ground by gun-wielding riot police and spent the night in a makeshift jail -- Fairey was only slapped with a $100 fine.
So will Fairey be making any return trips to the Mile High City? One can only hope.
I must have driven past this old set of row-homes just off Speer Boulevard in the Highland neighborhood a thousand times before I happened to notice the odd little symbol embedded in the brickwork: a swastika. I knew the upper Highlands was getting more white, but not this white!
But wait. According to city records, the duplex was built in 1905, many years before the Nazi's began using the swastika as a symbol for the Third Reich. Prior to that, the swastika was used for centuries by multiple cultures around the world to "represent life, sun, power, strength, and good luck." This included Native Americans in the old West.
Are those kids playing catch with an eyeball? Grody.
Spilled entrails. Dogs guarding picked-over bones. Men dangling raw flesh above their mouths like bunches of grapes. Children tossing an eyeball back and forth.
Sound like the apocalypse? A cannibal's birthday party?
No, it's the best diorama ever -- and lucky for Denver, it's sticking around.
Looks like yet another art print on a temporary display at the Denver Art Museum has been sliced out and stolen by some sneaky sneak.
This brings the count to four. Whereas all of the previous thefts were rock art posters from the museum's Psychedelic Experience show, the latest print to disappear featured... Spanish Colonial Art?
Could this be a sign that the thief or theives' tastes are evolving? Maybe they're taking an art history class? Might the city's other classic works of public art be at risk? Somebody better keep an eye on the Dancers.
I could talk about how Thriller was my first cassette and what it felt like listening to those foreboding synthesizers and Vincent Price monologue coming out of my dinky one-speaker tape player. Or I could talk about what it's been like watching my two-year-old son grooving to "Billie Jean" on his Fisher-Price ghetto blaster as of late. But since everyone's already written that treacly stuff about MJ today, I figured I'd focus on the King of Pop's real legacy: He's left behind a planet united not by love or understanding, but by bad moonwalk attempts.
Ever since Jackson first unveiled his signature move to an awestruck crowd on the 1983 special Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever, people have been attempting to slide their uncoordinated feed across linoleum floors the world over. We've compiled a bunch of attempts from around Denver that we found on YouTube, including the one above at DIA which is priceless for its brilliantly timed let-down. Taken together, the clips are slightly beautiful and slightly awkward -- which, come to think of it, is just like Michael Jackson himself.
Alfred Packer, enjoying a finger-lickin' good meal
Good news for all those people hankering for unrealistic facsimiles of dead people: The Denver Wax Museum, which officially closed its doors circa 1981, lives on in an even stranger manner than the one displayed the grotesque operation's original 919 Bannock Street location. Turns out that when the wax museum closed, the Forney Museum of Transportation purchased its figures -- and when the Forney moved from its cramped digs on Platte Street, now home to REI's flagship store, to its spacious new 140,000-square-foot facility at 4303 Brighton Boulevard, the museum decided to stick a bunch of its waxy acquisitions in its vehicles.
As noted in a previous blog, "Doing the Math on Christo's Arkansas River Wrap," Colorado art mavens and opinion leaders are just crrraaaazy about Over the River, the proposal by husband-and-wife artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude to suspend six miles of silvery fabric over the river between Canon City and Salida. They can't wait to get the permits cleared for the fabulous, massive installation, even if the thing's only going to be gawkable for a couple of weeks in, maybe, 2012.
Now the project has received yet another boost from both of the state's U.S. senators and six of its seven congressional representatives. Here's their letter to Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, urging a speedy and high-priority environmental review of the project by the Bureau of Land Management.
Is it nostalgia for Christo's 1972 Valley Curtain, his last foray into Colorado, that prompts all this attention? Is it the fact that we're suckers for blue demon steeds, piles of red boobies, neutered aliens and other imposing bits of public humiliation? Or could it be the heady projections of added tourist dollars from art pilgrims -- close to $200 million, according to the project's backers -- flowing into the state?
We like things big in the West -- and that's true when it comes to art, too, as the just-posted YouTube video demonstrates. The montage spotlights the big Borofksy dancers at the DCPA, the big Blue Bear at the convention center, the big red chair with horse and the big broom and dustpan at the Denver Art Museum, plus such lesser-known artistic marvels as a big muffler man and a big bee. Does this mean we're insecure? Hell, no! We'll show you ours if you show us yours!
Cool art -- or one of the four horses of the apocalypse?
Plenty of folks in these parts despise and/or are terrified by "Mustang," the demonic sculpture at Denver International Airport that managed to kill its creator, Luis Jiménez . Rachel Hultin's Facebook page, entitled "DIA's Heinous Blue Mustang Has Got to Go," neatly encapsulates negative views about the piece, which has been valued at $2 million -- proof that money is the root of all evil. But not everyone wants to send this horse to the glue factory. In the July issue of Cowboys & Indians, a popular magazine devoted to the old and new West, writer Wolf Schneider declares the steed to be as "big as the Denver sky." As for her opinion of the piece, she writes: "I love it. I believe Blue Mustang's intensity shows fright provoked by a changing Western landscape, and the sculpture reminds me I'm in the West."
I got a call a few weeks ago from Jolt, local graffiti OG and head of the graffiti advocacy group Guerilla Garden.
"Hey, man," said Jolt, aka Jeremy Ulibarri. The background was noisy, like a freight train or an... indoor swimming pool? "We're doing that project I was telling you about today. You should come down and check it out."
It's getting hot in here...so go look at some graf.
One advantage of traveling through Denver's offbeat locations while reporting for Westword is that you sometimes get a first peek at some fresh graffiti pieces or notice little random blips of street art.
It was a long weekend, and we've got lots of content to prove it. See photos from the Gin Mill and LoDo's, plus the downtown arts festival, at westword.com/slideshow. Read reviews of the weekends shows -- Iwresttledabearonce, Moderat, and Trouble Andrew -- on the Backbeat blog. And read a dispatch from the Boulder Farmer's Market on the Cafe Society blog.
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