Art Attack: Where to Find Art on First Friday Weekend in Denver – Westword

First Friday is jam-packed in June. Thats the bottom line for planning your itinerary, and while we definitely recommend the various grand-opening celebrations in 40 West, there are other options.

You can follow the rhinos during RiNos Rhino Week festivitieswhile hitting art events at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, Alto and Dateline galleries, Lane Meyer Projects and (on Saturday) the Globeville Riverfront Arts Center. Or you can just follow your heart and visit your favorite Denver art haunts.

Heres some help:

Jody Guralnick, Noetics, 2022, oil and acrylic on panel.

Jody Guralnick, Michael Warren Contemporary

DeMarcio Slaughter holds down the main stage at Denver PrideFest.

Courtesy of DeMarcio Slaughter

Tara Kelley-Cruz and Ashton Lacy Jones make mischief at D'art Gallery.

Courtesy of D'art Gallery

Michael Hedges and Karine Lger Space Gallery, 400 Santa Fe DriveFriday, June 3, through August 20Opening Reception: Friday, June 3, 6 to 9 p.m.Space Gallery presents a summer run by gallery artists Michael Hedges, whose work corrals blasts of color in rapidly painted marks that leave a lasting impression of movement, and Karine Lger, a collage artist who defies the rectangle by joining subtly colored shapes into changeable compositions.

Belgin Yucelen, Power of Harmony, 2016, bronze.

Belgin Yucelen, courtesy of BMoCA

Guadalupe Maravilla, Disease Thrower #17, 2021, gong, steel, wood, cotton, glue mixture, plastic, loofah, and objects collected from a ritual of retracing the artist's original migration route.

Courtesy of Guadalupe Maravilla and P.P.O.W, New York

Brazilian artist Clarrisa Tossin looks upward, leaving Candianis sounds of the earth far behind, propelling into space to explore the desire to groom the moon or the planet Mars for colonization. "The 8th Continent," a trio of large-scale tapestries representing mineable resource areas on the moon, lends a focal point to Falling From Earth, which also includes commissioned works of sculpture incorporating repurposed industrial materials and meteorite powder, NASA satellite images, tree bark and clay. Finally, the 62-foot-long silicone sculpture "Death by Heat Wave (Acer pseudoplatanus, Mulhouse Forest)" basically mourns the slow death of precious trees.

Finally, Salvadoran Guadalupe Maravilla wrestles with the issues of migration and the harm it can bring to the mind, body and sense of belonging. Central to Purring Monsters With Mirrors on Their Backs is a trio of what Maravilla calls "Disease Throwers," sculptures that compris metal tubing, gongs and plastic representations of human organs that reference his own battle with colon cancer. Accenting the overall narrative of the exhibition are a Tripa Chuca mural (meaning dirty guts, after a childhood game played in El Salvador) and a retablo painting.

Luca Rodrguez, Untitled III, 2019, oil on panel.

Luca Rodrguez

Speaks hangs new art from the streets at Dateline Gallery.

Devin "Speaks" Urioste

John Lake, Juan Fuentes and Colby Deal hang together at Lane Meyer Projects.

Lane Meyer Projects

40 West Colfax Art Crawl/The Hub Grand Opening Celebration 40 West Arts District, West Colfax Avenue Corridor, from Lamar Street to Wadsworth Boulevard, and the Hub at 40 West Arts, 6501 West Colfax Avenue, LakewoodFriday, June 3, 6 to 11 p.m.If you have to choose one place to park yourself on First Friday, head to 40 West, where an orchestrated game of musical chairs has placed numerous art-district galleries in new homes, making way for others to also move into the area.

The biggest celebration is at the new Hub at 40 West Arts, a former Denver Drumstick restaurant in the shadow of Casa Bonita thats been renovated as a home to multiple galleries, including 40 West, Core, Edge, Kanon, Next and Lakewood Arts. Meanwhile, 40 Wests former building now welcomes the Chicano Humanities and Arts Council, ending that gallerys long search for a new home after being priced out on Santa Fe Drive. 40 West enlisted professional party planners the Fantastic Hosts to dress up the district with DJs, art acts, aerial dancers and more for this evening. Pirate, by the way, isnt moving anywhere, but there will be live music there, at 7130 West 16th Avenue. More on the moving galleries below.

Aloria Weaver, Integrity, Piercing the Veil of Obscuration, a portrait of Alicia Cardenas.

Aloria Weaver

Demeri Flowers sees through a child's eyes for Trips Around the Sun.

Demeri Flowers

Eric Havelock-Bailie, "Abandoned."

Eric Havelock-Bailie

Kym Bloom pixelates Prince at Kanon Collective.

Kym Bloom

Dona Laurita, Blue Angel.

Dona Laurita

Dairy Block Summer First Friday Art WalkDairy Block Alley, 1800 Wazee StreetFriday, June 3, 5 to 9 p.m.The Dairy Block brings back open-air First Friday Art Walks in the alley for the summer, with changing group art exhibitions curated by Inside Her Studio. Artists for June include Richelle Cripe, Jessie Blisle and Emily Christyansen. Summer First Friday Art Walks continue monthly through August.

Gregory Forber, Louise, mixed media on canvas.

Gregory Forber

Doug Karhoff, Dirty, mixed media

Doug Karhoff

Out There Art Fest 2022Globeville Riverfront Arts Center (GRACe), 888 East 50th AvenueSaturday, June 4, 3 to 9 p.m.GRACe, the Globeville-based phoenix that rose from the ashes of Wazee Union off Brighton Boulevard, continues in the same communal vein, harboring more than seventy artists in dozens of studios and throwing gallery shows, as it has now for more than five years. Recognizing that its not the easiest place to find, the residents of GRACe annually throw an open house and art show, with live music, demonstrations, food trucks and the whole shebang. Meet the artists and get a feel for how many artists lie under the radar in the Denver metro art scene.

Artist James Holmes is all smiles at a Yard Art event.

Courtesy of Yard Art Contemporary

Ninth Annual Park Hill Art Festival Park Hill Masonic Lodge, 4819 Montview BoulevardSaturday, June 4, and Sunday, June 5, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. dailyAnother summer tradition, the Park Hill Art Festival will open for business this weekend with a solid, juried inventory of original fine art in various categories, as well as photography, jewelry, fiber and wood, from ninety artists and artisans. Visit the website for an artist preview.

Young filmmaker Andrew Carr tells Denver photographer John Davenport's story in a new short documentary.

Andrew Carr

Social Justice Thru the Arts: Amending and A-mending HistoryNancy Richardson Design Center, 522 West Lake Street, CSU Campus, Fort CollinsSunday, June 5, through June 12; Opening Reception: Sunday, June 5, 1 p.m.Visual Arts Building, 551 West Pitkin Street, CSU Campus, Fort CollinsMonday, June 13, through August 15The exhibition Social Justice Thru the Arts results from a one-week student workshop on the subject at Colorado State University, where participants studied with CSU faculty and Fort Collins-based multimedia artist Louise Cutler. The show opens with a reception and a weeklong stay at the Nancy Richardson Design Center, then moves to CSUs Visual Arts Building, where it will become part of the campuss Engaged Art Walk, an arts-based community building project and exhibition space with rotating installations.

"El movimiento sigue (The movement continues)," a sculpture at BMoCA by the Los Seis de Boulder Sculpture Project and Jasmine Baetz.

Courtesy of BMoCA

Primavera City of Thornton Gallery, Thornton Arts & Culture Center, 9209 Dorothy Boulevard, ThorntonTuesday, June 7, through August 26Reception: Friday,June 17, 6 to 9 p.m.This CHAC Group Show in Thornton represents the hope of springtime and changes at one of many venues that supported the arts group during its search for a new home.

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Art Attack: Where to Find Art on First Friday Weekend in Denver - Westword