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Jimmy Sellers, director of the Sellars Project Space (4430 Tennyson Street, 303-242-5563, www.sellarsprojectspace.com), is constantly plugging into artists around the world whose work he finds on the Internet. That’s how he hooked up with artists and pals, Massimiliano Boschini and Mauro Manuini, who both live in romantic Mantua, Italy.

The two frequently work together and are members of the international art group, Pommefritz, so Sellars has paired them together for the current exhibit, Stanza. Boschini and Manuini are interested in combining traditional analogue photography with digital printing to lay out complicated and ambiguous narratives in series of photos.

These recent pieces are about run-down rooms that were once grand and elegant. In addition, the photographers sometimes serve as models and occasionally make appearances in their images as seen in the Boschini photo that’s pictured.

Stanza opened last week, but there’s a reception planned for tonight, May 2 -- which is First Friday -- from 6 to 9 p.m. at Sellars Project Space, which is right behind the Oriental Theater in the Tennyson Street art district. -- Michael Paglia

Denver’s art community has thrown out the welcome mat for the American Association of Museums, which is hosting a conference is in town right now. Tonight, April 30, from 7 to 10 p.m., the Museo de las Américas (861 Santa Fe Drive, 303-571-4401, www.museo.org) is hosting a progressive dinner along the ArtDistrict on Santa Fe Drive called “Salsa y Salsa.” It is being promoted with the tag-line “Come dance the night away” and the disturbing image on the invitation (pictured above).

But go anyway. If you do, you’ll enjoy Latin American delicacies at art shows located at various stops along the six-block-long gallery row. Music will be provided by Conjunto Colores, a salsa group, and by Real del Oro, a mariachi band.

Combining cocktails, food, art and music for museum officials, art experts and other art professionals from around the country is meant to showcase a slice of Denver’s vibrant art scene. Locals are welcome, too. Tickets are $45 and include dinner and two drinks. Spots are limited, so call the Museo’s Nicole Rousch as soon as possible to make reservations at 303-571-4401, ext. 25. -- Michael Paglia

The Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (1750 13th Street, Boulder, 303-443-2122, www.bmoca.org) hosts a panel discussion tonight (April 24) called “Mickey, Mao and the State of Contemporary Chinese Art.” It will take up the topic of why and how Chinese art has become such a major force in the U.S.

BMoCA currently has four shows on display featuring the work of four Asian or Asian-American artists. There’s Susan Lee-Chun, a Korean-American who works with photos, videos, performance and installation art exploring herself, often in a humorous way. Yumi Janairo Roth, who is partly of Philippino descent, works with installations based on everyday objects like barricades and traffic cones. Japanese-American photographer Hiroshi Watanabe does character studies of people, while Wang Jing concentrates on pop-related paintings like “What! No Rat on the Menu Tonight?” (pictured), an acrylic on canvas from 2007.

The Wang exhibit was curated by David Raddock who was among the first American scholars to explore and write about vanguard art in China. The three other shows were pulled together in-house at BmoCA. All of them close on May 4.

Thursday’s panel include Raddock and Jing; Boulder’s own Jennifer Heath will serve as the moderator. The event gets underway at 7 p.m. and is free and open to the public. — Michael Paglia

The idea of having a separate curator to oversee photography at the Denver Art Museum has been kicked around for many years. Over the last decade, there have been times when a sympathetic curator like Jane Fudge, or a curatorial assistant like Blake Milteer, mounted photo shows, but there has never been a photography department headed up by its own curator. Until now.

On April 17, the DAM announced that it had hired a photo curator in the person of Eric Paddock, who will oversee a new photography department. Funding for that department has been contributed by a group of longtime supporters of photography, notably Evan Anderman, John Grant, Robert G. Lewis and Anthony Mayer. Paddock will start at the DAM this summer.

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Ironton Studies and Gallery (3636 Chestnut Street, 303-297-8626, wwwirontonstudios.com) is definitely one of the best spots in the art district along the Platte River north of downtown known as RiNo (www.rivernorthart.com).

The gallery portion is an informal place that’s accessed through the complex’s kitchen, but exhibition director, Jill Hadley Hooper, makes sure the shows there are, for the most part, top notch. The latest effort, Passages, which clearly fits this description, opens tonight, Friday, April 18, with a reception slated for 6 to 9 p.m.

The exhibit juxtaposes the contemporary realist paintings by Sharon Feder with neo-modernist sculptures by John Ferguson.

Feder looks for romance in industrial settings and finds it in “Train Yard #1,” which shows railroad tracks that have been dreamily lit and rendered.

Ferguson uses steel, sometimes supplemented by other materials like stone, to suggest -- but not depict -- the human figure as in “Holding On” (pictured).

On May 2, which is First Friday, they’ll be another reception for the show, this one scheduled for 6 to 10 p.m. and with the added attraction (distraction?) of live music to be provided by Andy Monley and the High Horses. Passages runs through May 17. -- Michael Paglia

Tonight at 6 p.m., Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art (1485 Delgany Street, 303-298-7554) will be hosting a reception for members, followed by the 12th annual members meeting. Although the museum has been around for a dozen years, this is the first time it has marked a birthday in the new David Adjaye-designed building.

Karl Kister, the outgoing president of the board of trustees will welcome the group and introduce the new board members. Kister is being succeeded by Mark Falcone, of the real estate development firm, Continuum Partners. Falcone and his wife, Ellen Bruss, are as responsible as anyone for seeing the MCA’s dream of having its own dedicated structure come true since they donated the land and live right next door in the steel panel-covered townhouse that is also the work of Adjaye.

Museum director Cydney Payton, who wove the upstart institution out of whole cloth, will then review MCA’s remarkable year, including the completion of the building and the installation of several permanent pieces of art like “Toxic Schizophrenia” by British duo, Tim Noble and Sue Webster (pictured), in and around it. She also plans to discuss the Star Power exhibits that were on display when MCA opened last October.

There will also be a presentation of awards, the most important of which is the Sue Cannon Award. Cannon, MCA’s original founder and donor will present the award herself, to Karin Bond. The events are open to members only, but it is possible to join on arrival at the front desk. -- Michael Paglia

Christoph Heinrich, the newish curator of modern and contemporary art at the Denver Art Museum, is obviously using the 2008 Logan Lectures -- underwritten, as you might imagine, by super donors Vicki and Kent Logan -- as a way to give the art-erati some insight into his interests. For this year’s series, “Artists on Art: The Next Generation,” Heinrich has invited a selection of creative talents whose work will be featured in the full rotation of the third- and fourth-floor galleries of the DAM’s Hamilton Building. He’s also picked some who will be involved in Embrace, an exhibit Heinrich is organizing for next year that will showcase site-specific installations, in particular paintings.

German artist Katharina Grosse, who does painted installations akin to graffiti, will be the first featured speaker at an event today, April 10. Grosse, who works in Dusseldorf and Berlin, is known for her total environments of color and for her taste for ad hoc and unlikely materials, like painted balloons, as seen in “Atoms Inside Balloons” (pictured). Notice that Grosse has painted the floor as well -- a signature of hers.

Later this spring, events are planned featuring Shinique Smith, Bjørn Melhus and Jessica Stockholder; Daniel Richter, Candice Breitz, Dasha Shishkin, Matthew Brannon and Jonas Burgert will appear in the fall.

The Grosse event, sponsored by DAM Contemporaries, gets under way at 6 p.m. in the Sharp Auditorium on the lower level of the Hamilton, with the lecture itself starting at 7 p.m. Tickets range from $8 for students, $12 for artists and DAMC members, $15 for DAM members, and $18 for non-members. Series tickets for all nine lectures are also available. Call 720-913-0150 for information and reservations. -- Michael Paglia

Bob Gamage died a year ago this month after a dreadful, year-long struggle with lung cancer. The painter and owner of Berkeley Park Art Gallery came to the art world gradually, having first studied psychology at the C. G. Jung Institute in San Francisco and earning a masters degree in Archetypal Psychology.

But in 1980, while still at the Institute, he began to paint, at first as a part of his academic interests. As an enthusiastic Sunday painter, he was initially drawn, as are so many self-taught artists, to the plein air movement that dominates current-day impressionism. In these paintings, he captured the landscape or city landmarks in an old-fashioned way.

But at the Art Students League of Denver, where he took classes and participated in workshops, he came in contact with an artist who eschewed representational imagery: Dale Chisman. One of Colorado’s greatest abstract painters Chisman sparked Gamage to radically change his style. Though his oeuvre is uneven in quality and wildly varied in style, Gamage’s best works, like “Pacific Sailer” (pictured), are darned good.

To honor the anniversary of his passing, the Berkeley Park Art Gallery -- now owned by Gamage’s sister Betty Arca -- is presenting Paint It Like Bob, a group show anchored by Gamage paintings and supplemented with works by other artists who studied with Chisman at the Art Students League. They include Leslie Allen, Catherine Dixon, Vicki Johnson, Lela Kay, Barbara Kloehn, Time McKay and Jahe Smith.

This heartfelt tribute gets underway at 6 p.m. today (Friday), April 4, at the Berkeley Park Art Gallery, 4999 West 44th Avenue, 303-809-5043. -- Michael Paglia

Get it Threw Your Thick Skull, promises to be a great exhibition of works by artists Antonio Diaz and David P. Madson -- aka Odd Nosdam of anticon records -- opens tonight at Andenken Gallery, 2990 Larimer Street, and will run through April 25. The opening reception, which starts at 7pm this evening, however, will feature a special treat: Odd Nosdam will be on hand to DJ the reception. This is a rare treat for art and music fans alike and should be one hell of a party, Denver. Here's a slide show sample of the work that will be on view:

-- Sean Cronin

Denver has been getting a lot of plugs in the national media over the last few months, and nearly all of it has to do with the Democratic National Convention. The city is typically characterized as a vital and prosperous regional center with a personality reflecting both its status as a capitol of the Old West and as a fountain head of the New West. But despite these strokes -- they do like us, they really do -- Denver has a collective low sense of self esteem, which is clearly demonstrated in the way the city government throws tons of money to artists from elsewhere while offering only tepid support for Denver artists.

What’s brought this to mind most recently is the announcement of an art festival called Dialog: City to be held during the DNC this August, which includes participants from just about everywhere but here. It is being put together under the auspices of the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs and the Denver 2008 Host Committee by two contract players, Seth Goldenberg and Liz Newton. The two had been the deputy director and the education curator, respectively, at the Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver before their jobs were eliminated shortly last fall in a general belt-tightening at the institution. (I think there are many more credible artists in Denver than credible arts administrators.)

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Mayor John Hickenlooper and Erin Trapp, director of the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs will announce today -- from New York, no less -- that Denver will host a biennial art extravaganza beginning in 2010. (The pair is in the Big Apple for a confab of the tourist press.) The idea, which has been kicking around for a while, is that once every two years, the city would host an exhibit featuring contemporary art from the Americas -- along the lines of SITE Santa Fe (a catalogue from it is pictured at left).

The Biennial of the Americas, as it is being called, will either be fabulous or a civic embarrassment. Guess which one I think has the edge considering that the city administration is in charge? Here’s a clue: think about the cascade of disappointments coming out of the Justice Center, notably the removal of lead architect Steven Holl. That was about fifteen minutes before Holl achieved international fame with his Nelson-Atkins Museum addition in Kansas City.

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Internationally-renowned contemporary artist Roberto Juarez, who is based in New York, is in Denver now for a stint as a visiting artist at Metropolitan State College of Denver. But even non-students have a chance to learn from -- and about -- him.

That’s because Juarez will discuss his work and art in general Thursday, March 13 at 7 p.m. at the Denver Art Museum. The presentation, In the DAM Collection: Roberto Juarez, is jointly sponsored by Metro and DAMContemporaries, the support group for the modern and contemporary department at the museum (formerly called AfCA, Alliance for Contemporary Art). The idea for the lecture series is to invite artists to town whose work is part of the DAM’s collection. Since Juarez (whose other Colorado connections include having been a fellow at Anderson Ranch in Snowmass and having done prints at Sharks in Lyons) was already in town, he was a natural choice.

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Two shows open this week at the Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver, with public receptions to be held Friday, March 14 from 6 to 10 pm.

Split between The Whole Room on the lower level and The Promenade on the second floor, is Making Public Buildings featuring recent work by David Adjaye, architect of the MCA’s stunning new building (pictured). The traveling show includes materials related to the MCA, the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, Norway, and the Idea Store in Whitechapel, England, for which he was nominated for the Stirling prize.

In the Paper Works Gallery on the second floor is Jasper de Beijer, a Dutch artist who builds scale models and then photographs them. The constriction and artifice of the models allows de Beijer to comment on the nature of photography since the medium’s typical role is as a recorder of external -- and objective -- reality.

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The unfortunate thing about cutting-edge graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister’s stopover in Denver on Friday, March 7, to deliver a lecture at the Oxford Hotel, courtesy of local American Institute of Graphic Arts chapter, is that it’s completely sold out. But one reason for his visit, his unique new publication called Things I Have Learned in My Life So Far, can still be found for purchase at local bookstores like the Tattered Cover, and it’s fascinating.

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A painting a day keeps the gloomy monotony of nine-to-five corporate clock-punching away. That’s the idea behind www.30days30pieces.com, the brainchild of David Schell, a Denver graphic designer who decided he needed to structure creative motivation into his life so he could get back to his heady art-school roots. “A lot of designers like myself would love to be professional artists,” he says. “I went to school as fine artist. But when most of us got out of school, we found out that graphic design was where we were going to make our money – at least enough to buy mac and cheese. But a lot of us still love to paint.”

Hence the website, on which Schell and nineteen of his similarly minded colleagues have pledged to post a new piece of artwork every day all month long. It’s like having homework back in school, but now it’s not the teacher who knows when you miss your assignment, it’s all the other artists and everyone on the Internet – the perfect fear factor to get those paint brushes a-swirlin'. “We will start giving each other shit if we fall behind,” says Schell.

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