All the Best Art Shows and Events to See This Weekend in Denver

Whether your community is under- or over-served, see how the other half lives and learn what you can do about it at RedLine with its 48 Hours Summit and Conversation: Stories_UnderScored and new art exhibition, The Other Side of the Tracks, which puts the paradox in perspective. You can also check out street photography at the Colorado Photographic Arts Center and find out what Andenken Gallery’s Hyland Mather has been up to since he left town at the Space Annex.

That’s already a lot! Get your plan together with our help.
48 Hours Summit and Conversation: Stories_UnderScored
48 Hours: Friday, August 16, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday, August 17, 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
48 Hours Block Party: Saturday, August 17, 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m.; all events are free, RSVP is required for workshops, block party events and gallery reception here.
The Other Side of the Tracks
August 16 through October 6; Opening Reception: Friday, August 16, 6 to 9 p.m.
RedLine Contemporary Art Center, 2350 Arapahoe Street
This year RedLine’s 48 Hours Summit runs with the art center’s 2024 theme of Stories_UnderScored, unraveling its meaning in every possible direction with speakers, performances, workshops, activities and discussions. Accompanied by the art exhibition The Other Side of the Tracks, the two-day cultural conference is focused on America’s unrepresented communities, giving voice to their alternative histories.

The art show, curated by Jorge Rojas, leads the way by referencing the contrast between voiceless communities — the Chinese laborers who risked their lives to build the Transcontinental Railroad, the Indigenous people whose land and lifestyle were stolen, Black slaves whose free labor fattened colonialist purses and Mexican workers taking their chances across the border — and the free European cohort ruling the land and the railways. The metaphor of the railroad tells opposing stories of the used and the users, both visually and through collaborative research by the nine artists, including a writer, a photographer and a videographer, who all took a train journey together to gain and share insights. Find details and the complete 48 Hours schedule here.
Views From the Street
Colorado Photographic Arts Center (CPAC), 1200 Lincoln Street
August 16 through October 5
Opening Reception: Friday, August 16, 6 to 9 p.m.
Instagram Live Conversations with host Samantha Johnston: Vanessa Charlot: Thursday, August 22, and Gulnara Lyabib Samoilova: Wednesday, August 28, 1 p.m. daily; free on Instagram
Photo Walks: Saturday, September 21, with Kenneth Wajda and Stephen W. Podrasky, and Saturday, September 28, with Rudy Ortega and Jeff Tidwell, Saturday, September 28. Register for September 21 here and September 28 here.
CPAC taps the collective consciousness of street photography, an in-the-moment genre marked by the unexpected, a good eye, quick thinking, serendipity and plain dumb luck. Views From the Street showcases work by eighteen snap artists — nine of them local and the other nine international members of Women Street Photographers.
CPAC director Samantha Johnston, who curated the new show, notes that because male photographers have long dominated the genre, she wanted a fair representation of women. Another hope is that everyday folks with cell-phone cameras will be encouraged to try it themselves; to that end, CPAC is hosting two artist conversations via Instagram and two walking tours on the street for trigger-happy novices during the run of the show. As you’ll see in the show, street photography is wildly varied and diverse, capturing everything from interesting people seen by chance to perfect alignments of converging light, movement and shadows.
201 Kimonos, August 16 through January 5
Seeking Beauty: Works by Heidi Love Larraz, August 16 through September 29
Timeless, August 16 through January 5
McNichols Building, 144 West Colfax Avenue
Opening Receptions: Friday, August 16, 5 to 8 p.m.; free, RSVP here
The McNichols Building galleries reopen with new shows this week, bringing three unrelated exhibitions — the textile display 201 Kimonos; giant florals by Heidi Love Larraz in Seeking Beauty; and Timeless, a group show of black-and-white works by artists of all statures, from locals to the twentieth-century sculptor, painter and printmaker Alexander Calder. Don’t forget to RSVP for the openings.
Hyland Mather, Here by Accident
Space Annex, 90 South Cherokee Street
August 16 through September 21
Opening Receptions: Friday, August 16, 6 to 9 p.m.
A former Denverite who ran the progressive Andenken Gallery here in the days before RiNo was RiNo, Hyland Mather moved on to Amsterdam and now Portugal, taking the gallery with him. An artist in his own right, Mather (aka the Lost Object) makes large pieces of wood bricolage, assemblage and sculpture, and will bring a collection of new work to the Space Annex in the Baker neighborhood. By the way, the big Space Gallery at Fourth Avenue and Santa Fe Drive will open a new group show on the following Friday, August 23, with work by a family of Andenken friends and gallery artists. More on that next week.
TAD@T-Shop: Season Two Finale
Terrorium Annex, 3611 West 49th Avenue
Friday, August 16, 5 to 8 p.m.
Artists Stephen Batura, Andrea Caretto, Max Kaufmann, Aitor Lajorin-Encina, Sarah McKenzie and Collin Parson close down this year’s TAD@T-Shop exhibition series with works exploring the relationship between architecture and space in the unorthodox crannies of a taxidermy shop. Between this classy collection of artists and the unlikely gallery walls, this should be well worth seeing.
BRDG Summer Art Auction
Friday, August 16, 6 to 9 p.m.; free admission
Big Hair Rock & Roll ’80s Dance Party and Fundraiser
Saturday, August 17, 7 p.m. to midnight; $39.19 ($71.21with T-shirt) at Eventbrite
BRDG Project Gallery and Event Space, 3300 Tejon Street
The artists of the Northside’s BRDG Project are throwing their hearts into fundraising this weekend with a free art auction on Friday and a ticketed Big Hair ’80s Dance Party on Saturday. Fifty artists have donated work for the silent auction, which benefits the gallery, though a portion of the proceeds will also serve as a “thank you” for the donated art. Bids can be made until 8:20 p.m., when the highest bidders will be announced. A partial preview of works is available online.

Saturday’s party is a whole different animal: The BRDG Project’s three directors — Brett Matarazzo, Michael Vacchiano and Michael Dowling — will be going by “Brett Michaels” (one can only hope they’ll be dressed to the nines in glam-metal head scarves, J.D. Vance eyeliner and sleazy rock tank tops, just like the real Bret Michaels), and guests are invited to get out their leather, Spandex and studs for a high-spirited evening of dancing to ’80s hits.

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