Blazing Chicken Shack II’S soul food is a family affair
Editor’s note: This is part of The Know’s series, Staff Favorites. Each week, we offer our opinions on the best that Colorado has to offer for dining, shopping, entertainment, outdoor activities and more. ( We’ll also let you in on some hidden gems).
I was lucky enough to move to Northeast Denver from Capitol Hill in the early 2010s, when housing prices were low and a handful of neighborhood favorites still remained — undisturbed by landlords who would soon jack up rents and renovate storefronts to attract yoga studios, CBD retailers and condo developers.
Minus the condos, that didn’t pan out so great. The drive pushed out mainstays from this formerly working- class, fast- gentrifying residential area such as A& A Fish Market at 29th and Fairfax streets, or Cora Faye’s Cafe ( formerly Colorado and 29th, now in Aurora).
It’s an outpost in this neighborhood surrounded by a grocerystore desert and bordered mostly by fast food. North Park Hill has a rich and complex history that runs from activism and redlined housing discrimination to beautiful parades, parties and parks springing from the historically Black culture. Blazing Chicken Shack II, as it turns out, is located in a strip mall in one of the city’s most infamous corners — 33rd and Holly streets, where “The Holly” documentary is set — but has been holding it down for nearly a decade now.
Professionals, road crews and neighborhood elders trickle into the barstool- laden spot just before lunch, Tuesdays through Saturdays, ordering meals that arrive steaming hot and in huge portions. I’m a fairly pedestrian guy; my go- tos are the catfish meal ( with fried okra and French fries), the half- chicken fried chicken meal, and spare ribs and wings. I didn’t grow up eating oxtail, pork neck- bone and pig
other is Kerry Brougher, a writer and curator who has worked prestigious gigs at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and at the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles.
Each brings a solid reputation, and both are the sort of professionals artists want to get noticed by. When Emmanuel put out its invitation to artists across the state, the jurors were featured prominently on the cover page with headshots and thorough bios that promoted their credentials. No doubt, that inspired the large number of entries — a whopping 1,400 — that were submitted. From that, and some keen decision- making by the out- of- town judges, came a show that is a cut above the usual open- call effort.
These shows — built around geography rather than a strong curatorial concept — can be ordinary, even boring, but “Made in Colorado” is enlivened by quality.
There are strong regional names on the walls and floors of Emmanuel, a former church that is now the visual arts headquarters of Auraria Campus on the edge of downtown. There is also a small sampling of spillover work installed at Emmanuel’s satellite space, the CU Denver Experience Gallery, on the grounds of the Denver Performing Arts Complex.
On the roster: paintings and drawings by Gregg Deal, Melissa Furness, Margaret Kasahara and Trine Bumiller; photos from Gretchen Marie Schaffer and Eric Hagemann; threedimensional pieces from Floyd Tunson, Amber Cobb, Jennifer Pettus, Lauri Lynnxe Murphy and Matthew Harris; and video by Christopher Coleman and Noah Phillips.
That is, for sure, a long list of mentions, but these are the artists, teachers and trouble- makers who regularly fill galleries here; “Made in Colorado” holds prime examples of their signature moves.
There are also some pleasant surprises, from artists whose names are likely less familiar to audiences.
• Newcomer Chelsea James contributes an abstract, and surreal, mixedmedia painting that the gallery is featuring prominently near the show’s entrance.
• Paul Kenneth offers a complicated, graphite drawing of horses, dozens of them at varying shapes and sizes, that took 300 hours to complete.
• Jaycee Beyale and Porfidia Beuke worked together on a showpiece called “Ha’ahóni ( Perseverance),” which features long strands of fiber suspended over a Navajo sand painting that was installed directly on the gallery floor.
• Katelyn Odenheimer strung together dozens of porcelain pieces, all shaped like hearts, into a mobile that hangs along a stairway.
• And Laura Merage is showing a piece called “Nausy Nauzy,” made from dozens of hand- sewn plush cushions. The work has been displayed before, but it looks fresh and fun installed over the entire back wall of a loft space at the rear of the main gallery.
Things come together nicely, or as nicely as they might considering the circumstances. By nature, exhibitions like this lack intellectual heft. The individual works here say plenty, but the effort is not guided by any far- reaching exploration of a single idea. It’s all about geography. If a viewer has no connection to Colorado, they might wonder why all this art, in different media and with varied emotional weight, is pushed together in the same rooms.
It also could be edited down a bit more. Placing works in two locations mightily interrupts the experience of consuming this show, and the display at the Experience Gallery will feel to some like an anti- climactic afterthought — even if it does have some of the best pieces on the checklist.
When jurors are faced with so many entries to sort through, they want to let in as many objects as possible, and galleries usually set a number for them, but that almost always leads to excess and detracts from the overall quality. It is difficult though to fault anyone in the highly competitive and often cutthroat art world for showing generosity.
And the show feels generous on every level, from the artists who lent work to the gallery, which put its heart into the installation at Emmanuel, to the jurors who spent the time they needed to pull out captivating examples from the pile.
It is a generous act to go see it, too. These artists are standing up and representing, and making a visit to “Made in Colorado” is a good way to acknowledge that, feel the kinship, and indulge in some home- state pride.