Art Attack: Month of Video Premieres, Cherry Creek Arts Festival Returns and More

The July 4 weekend is traditionally a time for recreational activities, family picnics and fireworks shows lighting up the skies. Art takes a back seat to grilling burgers this week, with a few exceptions, including the premiere of the new Denver Month of Video, with multiple events scheduled throughout July, and a politically driven show of documentary photography from Iran, to name a couple. And the Cherry Creek Arts Festival, now in its 31st year, is an annual ritual for thousands of sweaty art lovers who flock there to eat, drink and browse the beautiful and the wacky booths.

Got time on your hands? Here are some places you can use it:
Middle East Images Foundation, Woman! Life! Freedom!
Leon Gallery, 1112 East 17th Avenue
Friday, June 30, through July 29
Opening Reception: Friday, June 30, 6 to 10 p.m.
It’s been almost a year since 22-year-old Mahsa Jina Amini walked through Tehran with her head bare and was jailed for breaking Iran’s hijab code. She died two days later, after what was suspected to be a severe beating by authorities. The incident sparked citywide protests in the Iranian capital, which were met with violent backlash by the government. During this period, photographers pointed their cameras into the skirmishes and brutality against women, documenting a joint body of work now being spread around the world by the Middle East Images Foundation. See for yourself when Woman! Life! Freedom! opens Friday at Leon for a month-long run.
Denver Month of Video: Local Accomplices
Denver Art Museum, 100 West 14th Avenue Parkway
Saturday, July 1, 8 to 9:30 p.m.
Free, RSVP required here
Denver Month of Video, the ambitious project of local motion media artists Adán De La Garza and Jenna Maurice, will bring a showcase series of screenings, gallery shows and events to several local venues throughout July, with all free to attend. In the art world, experimental video can be a hard sell, but the duo hopes to build a bigger following on the Front Range.

MOV’s opening salvo is Local Accomplices, a classy screening of works by video artists in the Denver Art Museum’s Sharp Auditorium. In addition to De La Garza and Maurice, the fêted artists are among the cream of the Colorado crop, including a mix of motion media educators, freelance artists and videographers: Laura Conway, Jeanne Liotta and Kelly Sears from the University of Colorado Boulder; Cherish Marquez of Denver Digerati; Tobias Fike of the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design, Cyane Tornatzky from Colorado State University, Deborah and Jason Bernagozzi of the new-media collective and residency program Signal Culture, Esther Hz from Union Hall Gallery, and free-roaming artists Eileen Roscina and Kim Shively. Both Conway and the Bernagozzis will add an element of performance to the evening, and an after-party is rumored to be in the works.
More Denver Month of Video Gallery Exhibitions and Events This Week:

ActionHere/BeingThere: Saturday, July 1, through July 31, Understudy, 890 14th Street. Reception and Curator Talk: Friday, July 21, 6 to 9 p.m.

New Red Order: Crimes Against Reality: Saturday, July 1, through August 27, RedLine Contemporary Art Center, 2350 Arapahoe Street. Reception: Saturday, July 29, 6 to 10 p.m.

Wire Taps: Saturday, July 1, through July 31, The Storeroom, 2119 East 17th Avenue. Artist Reception: Thursday, July 20, 6 to 9 p.m.

Night Lights Denver: Saturday, July 1, through July 31, Daniels & Fisher Clocktower, 1611 Arapahoe Street; Tuesday through Sunday nights, 9 to 11:55 p.m.

Video Brunch
Glob, 3551 Brighton Boulevard
Every Sunday, July 2 through July 16, 1 to 5 p.m.
The first week of MOV also marks the July 1 soft openings of several important exhibitions at some of the city’s more innovative art spaces, with formal receptions scheduled later in the month. The collection ActionHere/BeingThere, curated by Quinn Dukes, zeroes in on performative video work by an international cast of creatives at the Denver Theatre District’s Understudy. New Red Order at RedLine jells with the nonprofit’s overarching exhibition theme, Roots Radical: An Exploration Into Indigenous Ancestry and Experience, sharing work collected by a secret society engaged in creating change through Native restorative justice led by Jackson Polys (Tlingit), and Adam and and Zack Khalil (Ojibway). At the window gallery Storeroom, artist Philip Stearns set up a multi-channel video installation, Wire Taps, created during a residency hosted by the collective Signal Culture. Stearns uses analog equipment and found video and imagery to create a visual dreamscape. Night Lights Denver, the nightly looping projection display on the side of the Daniels & Fisher Clocktower, will run programming curated by MOV. Meanwhile, the DIY space Glob will host three Sundays of projectable animation and experimental video art paired with brunch on the sweet side. Yes, this is just week one.
Cherry Creek Arts Festival
Second Avenue from Clayton Street to Adams Street and between Second and Third avenues from Detroit Street to Adams Street, Cherry Creek North
Saturday, July 1, and Sunday, July 2, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Monday, July 3, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
It’s time for the annual Fourth of July weekend pilgrimage to the Cherry Creek Arts Festival, a tradition among art- and fun-seekers for more than thirty years. The only thing that really seems to change is that it keeps getting bigger. This year, a total of 255 local, national and international artists and craftspeople will be manning booths; there will also be food vendors, live music and performances, and family activities at the Creation Station. Everything (except the food) is free to enjoy.
Michelle Lamb and Claudia Roulier, Paradox Prophecies
Valkarie Gallery, 445 South Saulsbury Street, Lakewood
Wednesday, June 28, through July 23
Opening Reception: Saturday, July 1, 5 to 8:30 p.m.
While most galleries are lying low over the holiday weekend, a new show by a couple of old favorites, Michelle Lamb and Claudia Roulier, opens at Valkarie Gallery at Belmar in Lakewood, with fresh assemblage work from both, as well as droll animal paintings by Roulier.
Indigo
Freyer-Newman Center, Denver Botanic Gardens, 1007 York Street
Sunday, July 2, through November 5
There’s no other blue quite like that derived from the plant Indigofera tinctoria (and other plants containing traces of the natural blue dye), which have been used to color fabric for centuries. Though most blue dye used today is man-made, contemporary artists and crafters still uphold the traditions to do it the old-fashioned way, with modern results. An international handful of modern practitioners are showcased in a new exhibition at the Denver Botanic Gardens.

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