Of course, art galleries are a place for looking. But lately, they’ve become a place for listening, too, as the region’s best showplaces for painting, sculpture and other creative forms have upped their games when it comes to lecture series.
These places go beyond the traditional practice of inviting an academic to present slides from a podium (though, honestly, we still love that, as well). For them, it’s more about shaking up formats, integrating outsider voices into the mix and recognizing that the act of presenting speakers is not secondary to the visual arts programming; it’s an equal part of what a museum, gallery or art school can do.
Here is a round-up of places that are engaging in the evolved show-and-tell dynamic and making Denver a more interesting place.
Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design, Collapsing Time Lecture Series
RMCAD’s series of talks by visiting artists has grown into one of the city’s most interesting, and under-appreciated, places to hear about contemporary culture. The speakers are culled from the top ranks of professional artists working around the globe and their output tends to be on the experimental edge of art-making. In other words, they are artists who matter now. The events, organized by artist Gretchen Marie Schaefer, are free but RMCAD usually asks guests to register in advance.
Next up: Chicago-based Lilli Carré, who creates comics illustrations, animations and sculpture, on March 20.
More info: rmcad.edu
PlatteForum, Temple Tattle paired lectures
This new series is co-produced by PlatteForum, which works with underserved youth, and its landlord, the Temple, a shared studio space for artists in Curtis Park. The offerings are free-wheeling and unpredictable, pairing a Temple artist and a community “change agent.” Topics can be as varied as gentrification and chess.
Next up: Temple Artist Theresa Anderson and Miguel De La Torre, professor of Social Ethics and Latina Studies at the Iliff School of Theology, who will take on topics of art and civil disobedience. Free.
More info: platteforum.org
Counterpath Press, ongoing speakers
East Denver’s Counterpath is a lot of things, including an art gallery, a printing press and a community center, and its live offerings aren’t exactly a series but an ongoing collection of events that feature authors, artists and other interesting characters. The fare could be as simple as a writer pitching a new book or as off-beat as a group reading of the complicated new federal tax code. It’s always interesting, diverse and forward-thinking.
Next up: Christina Sharpe, associate professor of English at Tufts University and author of “In the Wake: On Blackness and Being,” from Duke Press, on April 5. Free.
More info: counterpathpress.org
The Dikeou Collection, Literary Series
The Dikeou Collection, the underground museum off the 16th Street Mall, brings in a lot of speakers, many of them artists who have objects in the collection. But its Literary Series is definitely worth a look as well. The lineup, currently organized by Ashley Colley, a poet from Ohio, includes readers who are both familiar to the public and unknown, and they are dependably the sort of fresh voices not often heard here.
Next up: Steven Dunn, Kali Fajardo-Anstine, Kelly Krumrie and Blake Guffey (who is described as a “poet misplaced from a mountain holler in Alabama, a heredital tongue dancer and head clapper”), all on March 29, at the Dikeou Pop-Up space on East Colfax. Free.
More info: dikeoucollection.org
Clyfford Still Museum, One Painting at a Time
The Still’s OPAAT, as it is affectionately called, is the kind of deep-dive lecture series that could only happen at a museum that specializes so purely in one artist. It takes a long, slow look at the abstract expressionist’s career, inviting one member of the community — an artist, critic, teacher, writer, curator, whatever — to discuss just one work per evening. The guest picks the painting, it goes up on the wall, and the talk takes place right in front of it. The experience — there have been 50 OPAATs so far, hundreds more to go — can be intimate and profound for both the speaker and audience and it lasts just one hour. Like all of the Still’s best public programming, it’s free.
Next up: Michael Henry, executive director of Denver’s Lighthouse Writers Workshop, on March 20. What painting will a guy who specializes in literature choose to discuss?
More info: clyffordstillmuseum.org
Denver Art Museum, Logan Lecture series
DAM’s Logan Lecture series is universally top-notch and features, simply put, some of the best artists on the planet. Generally speaking, it takes on a traditional format with guest lecturers showing images of their work and explaining the thinking that goes on behind it. The lineup is open-minded but usually centers around artists currently exhibiting at the museum. That means it is diverse and professional enough to include, this season alone, Xiaoze Xie, who was born in Guangdong, China, and Ana Teresa Fernandez, who was born in Tampico, Mexico.
Next up: Hot-right-now installation artist Phillip K. Smith III, known for his large-scale, temporary works placed in remote, outdoor settings.
More info: denverartmuseum.org
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