More Than Weed And Beer, Downtown Denver Is Rich In Arts

The Mile High City may be best known for outdoor lifestyles, plentiful breweries and its thriving green culture, but it’s time to start considering Denver for its legitimate art offerings. From fine art to street art, on the walls and on the plate, the Rocky Mountains region’s favorite city is cultivating a thriving culture of creativity throughout its diverse neighborhoods, but the concentration of artistic expression in Downtown alone offers easy entrée to the city’s wider scene. Here’s what to see, where to stay and what to eat for a whirlwind weekend of art in Denver this season.

Denver Art Museum

Currently showing at the Denver Art Museum in Downtown’s Golden Triangle, Whistler to Cassatt: American Painters in France presents more than 100 works from the 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Exploring Parisian influence on American painting of the period, from education and formal training to intellectual endeavors and cultural subversion, the exhibition opens with a monumental homage to the Paris Salon and continues through six additional galleries featuring a variety of styles from realism to impressionism. Headlining artists go beyond the titular Whistler and Cassatt to include Sargent, Hopper and Homer, with dozens more illustrating the intricate story of artistic development influenced by the bicontinental experience of the time. After more than a decade of development, the triumphant Whistler to Cassatt remains at the DAM through March 13, before traveling to Virginia Museum of Fine Arts for a three-month presentation beginning April 16.

Museum of Contemporary Art

On February 18, the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver reopens with two new exhibitions for spring. Dyani White Hawk: Speaking to Relatives highlights Native American visual history in its consideration of United States art history, especially as it relates to abstraction. Encompassing a variety of disciplines from painting to sculpture, the Lakota artist spotlights shared history to promote cross-cultural exposure and understanding. Debuting with the exhibition, MCA commissioned a Colorado-inspired chapter to White Hawk’s LISTEN video work, with Native American women speaking in their traditional, untranslated tongues to introduce the rhythms and cadences of indigenous languages to the unfamiliar, without the intention of literal understanding.

Eamon Ore-Giron: Competing with Lightning / Rivalizando con el relámpago follows two decades of work through more than two dozen paintings, the majority of which have never before been publicly presented, including six new large-scale pieces that bring Pre-Columbian abstraction into focus, reconsidering the false narrative that American abstract art stems squarely from 20^th-century modernism. Ore-Giron will also create a new mural on the second floor of MCA Denver, and the installation will additionally include sound from the multi-disciplinary artist’s work as DJ Lengua.

Public Sculpture

While Downtown is packed with curated art (there are nearly two dozen museums and galleries in the Golden Triangle alone), you can score plenty of free art experience simply by walking around. The city is home to more than 60 pieces of public art with new works presented annually, and many of the most famous are found in the Downtown area. The most iconic sculpture in town may be Lawrence Argent’s I See What You Mean (it’s the 40-foot blue bear peering into the windows of the convention center), but don’t miss Fernando Botero’s oversize Man and Woman outside of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, the Chihuly chandelier at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House or the 60-foot Dancers at Sculpture Park. There are plenty more works on the sidewalks and walls you’ll pass en route between these monumental pieces, too.

Stay Here

Directly across the street from the Performing Arts complex, you won’t find an artsier stay than the ultra-designed The Curtis hotel. Theme is the name of the game at The Curtis, where the fun starts on the ground floor with both a swimming pool-themed seating area and an indoor drive-in-themed lounge (complete with movies showing daily), but the showstoppers here are found above, and you’ll want to try each of the four themed elevators on your way up and down throughout your visit. Floors 4­–16 contain the hotel’s 336 guest rooms and suites and each floor has its own distinct theme, often encompassing floor-to-ceiling immersion that, of course, includes in-room elements. Pick your poison from Horror (13^th floor, obviously) or Sci Fi to Big Hair or Superhero and you’ll find quirks around every corner, but spring for the “hyper themed room” on your favorite floor for the complete, over-the-top experience with custom inclusions not found anywhere else on property or, likely, anywhere else in Denver (and sometimes beyond) at all. Downstairs, The Corner Office offers a unique brand of casual comfort surrounding curated plates of breakfast, dinner and weekend brunch that cross upscale indulgence with accessible ambiance. The Boston cream brunch pancakes are a decadent selection you won’t regret.

Eat Here

Sample an impressive variety of Denver’s culinary creativity with a visit to Denver Milk Market. Come hungry, as this modern food hall is home to 16 venues offering all-local bites and sips from the city’s most inspired kitchen and bar talents, all housed within stylized segments of the renovated Dairy Block. Handmade pasta, fresh pokē bowls, a butchery honoring family traditions and margaritas on tap are among the many sips and bites you’ll want to make space for, but don’t fill up before finishing with creamy, house-made gelato. Among the many difficult choices here will be the selection of your favorite chic space to sit down and enjoy your feast; if you can’t decide, feel free to table hop as you make your way around the sprawling festival of fresh food.