The monthly First Friday art walk in Boulder, Colorado, has expanded its footprint to include the Pearl Street Mall and surrounding downtown area. This expansion adds over 20 new participating venues, including galleries, shops, and restaurants, to the existing circuit that traditionally focused on the East End and North Boulder.
Estes Park News has issued a call for artists to participate in the Dead of Winter Exhibition & Art Sale, held in conjunction with the Frozen Dead Guy Days festival. The event invites visual artists to submit work for a themed winter exhibition and sale, offering a platform for local and regional creatives to showcase and sell their art during the quirky Colorado festival.
The CU Art Museum at the University of Colorado Boulder is presenting "Fairy Tales and the Power of Wonder," an exhibition running from February 6 through May 2026. The show brings together artworks, books, and maps that explore the themes and narratives of fairy tales, featuring hybrid creatures, magical beings, and imagined landscapes. It is supported by CU Boulder Student Arts and Cultural Enrichment fees and coordinated with concurrent exhibitions at the CU Museum of Natural History and Norlin Library.
D'art Gallery in Denver will host "She Makes an Impression: Colorado Women Take a Look at Themselves," an invitational exhibition of self-portraits by over sixty Colorado women-identifying artists, from December 18, 2025, to January 11, 2026. Organized by the Colorado Women's Art Museum (CWAM), the show features works in diverse media including painting, printmaking, ceramics, fiber, mosaic, and photography, ranging from realistic depictions to abstract and non-representational pieces that explore personal experiences and emotions.
The Salina Art Center has issued a call for entries for the 2026 Mountain Plains Contemporary Art Biennial, a juried exhibition open to visual artists from ten U.S. states: Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming. Submissions must be made via CaFÉ by January 20, 2026, with a $35 entry fee for up to three artworks completed in 2024 or 2025. The exhibition encourages themes of identity, place, belonging, and transformation ahead of the nation's 250th anniversary. Awards totaling up to $5,000 will be given, including a $2,250 first prize, and the juror is Hesse McGraw.
Curator and artist Louise Cutler has organized the Inside Out Pop-Up Art Exhibit at the Shops at Foothills mall in Fort Collins, Colorado, filling empty storefronts with works by 11 local artists. The exhibit, open through June 30, features a variety of art forms including abstract pieces and landscape paintings, and held a reception on April 24 to draw attention to the spaces. Artists like Cherokee Carr and Chavez (mononym) participate, using the platform to connect with the community and spark conversations.
The Aspen AIR Festival returns for its second edition from July 27-31 in Aspen, Colorado, featuring performances, exhibitions, and talks under the theme “Figures in a Landscape.” Returning artists include Matthew Barney, who will present sculptures related to his TACTICAL parallax performance, and Lucy Raven, who will show her film Murderers Bar with a new score by Deantoni Parks. New commissions include Camille Henrot’s operatic work Commedia dell’arte, a performance by Los Thuthanaka blending Andean sounds with electronics, and a piece by Kali Malone and Stephen O’Malley originally created for the Holy See Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. The festival also includes talks by Adrián Villar Rojas, Lyle Ashton Harris, Ivan Cheng, Morgan Bassichis, and a keynote by filmmaker Julie Dash.
Le sculture biomorfiche di Alma Allen nel Padiglione USA alla Biennale d’Arte di Venezia 2026 (tra le polemiche)
Alma Allen, a self-taught American sculptor, has been selected to represent the United States at the 61st Venice Biennale in 2026 with the exhibition "Call Me the Breeze." The pavilion, curated by Jeffrey Uslip, will feature site-specific biomorphic sculptures that explore the concept of "elevation" through a hybrid creative process combining pre-industrial carving and hand-modeling with advanced robotic sculpting. Works will incorporate local American materials such as walnut burl, Cantera green volcanic rock, and Yule marble from Colorado, and the pavilion is tied to America250, the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence.
Danielle SeeWalker, a Húŋkpapȟa Lakȟóta artist and citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Nation, settled a lawsuit with Vail, Colorado, after the town canceled her artist residency in 2023. The cancellation followed her posting of a pro-Palestine painting titled "G for Genocide" on Instagram, which linked Palestinian and Indigenous liberation movements. The American Civil Liberties Union sued Vail on her behalf, alleging First Amendment violations. Under the settlement, SeeWalker may hold a powwow in Vail for five years, and the town will host a non-public community forum on Israel and Palestine involving Jewish, Palestinian, Muslim, and other community leaders.
Buku Gallery, a new pop-up art gallery in Broomfield, Colorado, has announced its upcoming exhibition “Rekindled Spaces,” running from September 12 to October 4, 2025. The show features eight Colorado artists—Mike Andrews, Missy Borden, Elissa Quist, Parker Rice, Lydia Riegle, Camie Rigirozzi, Eric Wall, and Mary Williams—presenting works in painting, sculpture, photography, and mixed media. Highlights include steel sculptures, abstract paintings, vivid oil works, and hand-cut weavings. The opening reception will be held on September 12 from 6 to 9 PM at the gallery, which operates as a rental space within Missy Borden Art Studio.
Danielle SeeWalker, a Húŋkpapȟa Lakȟótaits artist, reached a settlement with the town of Vail, Colorado, after her art residency and mural commission were cancelled in 2024 over an Instagram post supporting Palestine. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Colorado and law firm Newman McNulty filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in October 2024, citing free speech violations. The settlement includes annual cultural sensitivity training for Vail’s Arts in Public Places employees, an annual powwow organized by SeeWalker, a community forum on Israel and Palestine, a new art program for underrepresented groups, and a confidential payment. SeeWalker’s painting *G for Genocide* (2024) will be exhibited at Art at a Time Like This’s pop-up space in New York City this autumn.
The CU Art Museum at the University of Colorado Boulder will host 'Shaping Time: CU Ceramics Alumni 2000–2020,' an exhibition opening September 5, 2025, celebrating the ceramics program's legacy. The show features works by alumni from the past two decades, curated by faculty Jeanne Quinn, Scott Chamberlin, and Kim Dickey, who have taught together for 25 years. The exhibition explores themes of environment, domesticity, and material meaning, and includes a symposium on September 5.
Sundog Gallery, a newly opened art space in downtown Mancos, will host an exhibition starting September 5 showcasing five decades of work by Cortez-born painter Stanton Englehart (1931–2009). The show includes rare and never-before-seen pieces, along with personal notes and reflections on his creative process. Englehart, known for paintings of the American Southwest, earned a master's degree from the University of Colorado and taught for 30 years at Fort Lewis College before retiring to paint full-time.
Burd's Nest Art Gallery, an artist co-op in Olde Town Arvada, Colorado, opened in February 2024 with about 35 local artists showcasing ceramics, fused glass, jewelry, and other artwork. Owner Judi Mitchell realized a lifelong dream by creating the co-op, but the building will soon become a restaurant, forcing the gallery to find a new affordable space or temporarily close. Mitchell has been unable to find a suitable replacement location and may have only a month or two left in the current space.
Aspen, Colorado's art scene is expanding with two concurrent art fairs and a new festival during Aspen Art Week. The 15th edition of Intersect Aspen, the city's longest-running fair (formerly Art Aspen), will feature 28 galleries including Jackson Fine Art and debutant 212 Gallery. CEO Tim von Gal reports record attendance and sales from 2023. Meanwhile, the Aspen Art Fair returns for its second edition at the historic Hotel Jerome, doubling its exhibitor list to 43 galleries, including Perrotin and Miles McEnery Gallery. Co-founded by Rebecca Hoffman and dealer Bob Chase, the fair emphasizes a convivial, community-focused atmosphere.
London's Natural History Museum has unveiled a new dinosaur species skeleton, valued at £450,000, after the gallery David Aaron brokered a deal with an anonymous American art-collecting couple based in the UK to acquire and donate the fossil. The specimen, excavated in 2021-22 in Colorado and initially thought to be a Nanosaurus, was identified by the museum as a new species named Enigmacursor. It was shown at Frieze Masters in 2023 before the donation, which is permanent and now on long-term view.
Relévant Galleries in Vail, Colorado, is hosting a series of artist meet-and-greet events and exhibitions throughout July 2025, featuring works by renowned photographer David Yarrow, jeweler Dan Telleen, and painter Sarah Winkler, among others. The gallery also highlights its other locations in Scottsdale, Park City, and Denver, while C. Anthony Gallery in Beaver Creek and Vail International Gallery present concurrent shows with artists like Britten and Sarah Winkler.
The Resnick Center for Herbert Bayer Studies in Aspen has opened a new exhibition titled "Sculpting the Environment," the first-ever show dedicated to the site-specific outdoor sculptures and land art of Bauhaus artist Herbert Bayer. Bayer, who moved to Aspen in 1945 at the invitation of industrialist Walter Paepcke, lived there for nearly 30 years and created Denver's iconic "Articulated Wall" sculpture in 1985, the year of his death. The exhibition, co-curated by Koko Bayer (his step-granddaughter) and Adam Thomas, highlights his three-dimensional process and his role in shaping Colorado's cultural landscape.
A legal dispute has erupted over a Banksy mural, *Yellow Lines Flower Painter* (2007), painted on the Bethnal Green Working Man’s Club in east London. The club’s trustees have filed a lawsuit against employee Warren Dent and others, alleging the work was illegally removed and put up for sale in the US. The mural, depicting a workman and a giant flower emerging from double-yellow lines, is currently in Colorado. The club’s former accountant claims secretary Stephen Smorthit agreed to sell the piece to Dent for £20,000 in 2019, after which art restorer Chris Bull removed it and later loaned it to his father’s gallery in Aspen. The trustees argue they never authorized the sale and are demanding the work’s return.