From iconic national artists to talented locals, Denver’s art scene zooms in on photography with three captivating exhibits this month.

Colorado Photographic Arts Center 59th Annual Juried Members Show

July 1 to August 6 – CPAC

Nearly 150 Colorado Photographic Arts Center (CPAC) members, both amateur and professional, submitted more than 800 images—representing an array of capturing, processing, and printing techniques—for consideration in the annual competition. This year’s judge, Gregory Harris, the Donald and Marilyn Keough Family Curator of Photography at Atlanta’s High Museum of Art, then whittled that mass down to about 30 works, including the Moving Pictures series from Manitou Springs’ Brenda Biondo. But there can only be one Best in Show. Find out who wins the top prize on Saturday, July 9, during the free opening reception and award ceremony at CPAC’s gallery in the Golden Triangle neighborhood.

5280 July 2022
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Georgia O’Keeffe, Photographer

July 3 to November 6 – Denver Art Museum

If you were unaware Georgia O’Keeffe was a photographer, you’re not alone. Even the folks at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico, didn’t know whether an archive of 400 photographs belonged to the modernist painter or her husband, the photographer and art critic Alfred Stieglitz. But in 2016, a curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston was finally able to credit some of the works to O’Keeffe’s nature-obsessed eye. The resulting traveling exhibit, Georgia O’Keeffe, Photographer, opens at the Denver Art Museum this month. More than 100 photos will hang alongside 15 paintings and drawings by the late master, showcasing O’Keeffe’s attention to detail: She would take several images of the same pastoral desert scenes at different times of day, creating time-lapses of light she could then study when creating her art.

Outtakes

Through July – Rule Gallery

Massachusetts-born Sandy Skoglund is best known for her conceptual art, most notably her elaborate dreamlike sets that are massive in scale—sometimes taking up an entire apartment or warehouse space. The installations were temporary, so photography became an essential part of recording the scenes. Part retrospective, part re-examination, Outtakes seeks to reframe Skoglund’s work by exhibiting previously unseen photos of her installations. Take, for instance, Skoglund’s 1981 masterpiece, “Revenge of the Goldfish.” The Getty Center in Los Angeles owns the photographs of the work that were originally exhibited; Outtakes scrutinizes unpublished pictures, providing new insights into the celebrated artist.