creative and curious Coloradans building community with a purpose.
Biennial Culture Club
Welcome to the Biennial Culture Club! We’re a community of curious and creative Coloradans coming together with purpose. Through arts and culture, we build connections here in Colorado and across the Americas.
As a member, you’ll join us for unique experiences—artist studio visits, cultural outings, community gatherings, and behind-the-scenes access to creative spaces. Together, we support local arts, foster meaningful exchange, and celebrate the diverse voices that shape our region and beyond.
We’re so glad you’re here—your participation makes this community thrive.
What We do
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Curated Monthly Events
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
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Weekly Culture Hops
CultureHops are a weekly Friday morning gathering that takes members inside artist studios, galleries, museums, and cultural landmarks across the city. These gatherings foster deeper engagement with Denver’s arts community, often featuring coffee and pastries from small, locally owned businesses with roots across the Americas.
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Culture Trips
From artist studio visits and art fairs to architectural walks, curated tours, and meals at acclaimed restaurants, Culture Trips immerse members in the vibrant fabric of arts and culture across the Americas. Each journey offers behind-the-scenes access and unforgettable connections with local leaders, creatives, and communities. Check out where we are headed next!
ARTS & CULTURE
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ARTS & CULTURE •
More about the club
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The Biennial of the Americas is all about creating connections and building community, so we’ve crafted a space to bring together the most exciting leaders, artists, professionals, and creators from Colorado to further this mission.
The Biennial Culture Club is a group of innovative and creative individuals who are passionate about cultural exchange with the Americas and eager to be part of a community that is, too!
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As a member of the Culture Club, you will be invited to join us for unique events throughout the year that celebrate our connection with the Americas, including:
• artist talks
• studio tours
• exhibition openings
• curated dinners
• cocktail events
• brunches,
• and more!
Members will also have access to early registration and special discounts for our Cultural Summits hosted in locations around the Americas twice each year.
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Weekly CultureHops – Start your Friday mornings with inspiring visits to creative spaces, museums, galleries, artist studios, and more.
Monthly Gatherings – Enjoy happy hours, ticketed performances, artist talks, behind-the-scenes experiences, film screenings, readings, brunches, and other exclusive events.
Priority Invitations – Receive advance access to exhibition openings at partner institutions like the Denver Art Museum, Museo de las Américas, MCA Denver, and BMoCA.
Year-Round Connections – Meet fellow members at signature events, including the Americas Leadership Luncheon, partner gatherings, curated cocktail hours, networking meetups, and more.
Dedicated Members' Community – Stay connected through an exclusive WhatsApp group.
Monthly Newsletter – Keep up with the latest events, opportunities, and insider updates.
Friend - $250
Weekly CultureHops – Start your Friday mornings with inspiring visits to creative spaces, museums, galleries, artist studios, and more.
Monthly Gatherings – Enjoy happy hours, ticketed performances, artist talks, behind-the-scenes experiences, film screenings, readings, brunches, and other exclusive events.
Priority Invitations – Receive advance access to exhibition openings at partner institutions like the Denver Art Museum, Museo de las Américas, MCA Denver, and BMoCA.
Year-Round Connections – Meet fellow members at signature events, including the Americas Leadership Luncheon, partner gatherings, curated cocktail hours, networking meetups, and more.
Dedicated Members' Community – Stay connected through an exclusive WhatsApp group.
Monthly Newsletter – Keep up with the latest events, opportunities, and insider updates.
All the benefits of a Friend PLUS
• Registration for one Culture Trip a year (valued at $300 each)
• One ticket to the Americas Leadership Luncheon
• Special gift
*Insider memberships include a $150 tax deductible donation to the Biennial of the Americas.
Champion - $2,500
All the benefits of an Insider PLUS
• A scholarship for a young community member (valued at $1000)
• Two tickets to attend the Americas Leadership Luncheon, hosted annually
• Special gift
*Champion memberships include a $1500 tax deductible donation to the Biennial of the Americas.
from our members
CultureHop: The Perfect Petal
This week’s CultureHop is excited to gather at one of our very own Culture Club member businesses, The Perfect Petal; a beloved Denver floral design studio and boutique with more than 25 years of creative practice. The team will share their story, offer a behind-the-scenes look at their values and creative process, and lead a hands-on floral design tutorial, followed by time to mingle and connect.
CultureHop: Flamboyán Theatre
This week, CultureHop takes us to Flamboyán Theatre, led by Culture Club member Jon Marcantoni, a Denver-based home for Puerto Rican (Boricua) storytelling that expands the city’s Latino cultural landscape. With Puerto Ricans representing the second-largest Latino group in Colorado, Flamboyán centers narratives shaped by the island’s distinct history and relationship to the U.S., offering perspectives often missing from local stages. The theatre pushes artists to take creative risks across genres and multimedia, challenging expectations while building new narratives that resonate across communities. Through performance and storytelling, Flamboyán unites the Puerto Rican community and invites audiences of all backgrounds to engage more deeply with Boricua culture and lived experience.
CultureHop: Visions West Contemporary
This week, CultureHop takes us to Visions West Contemporary, a dynamic art gallery, striving to push the boundaries of Art in the western region. Since their inception in 2000, the gallery has been motivated by a passion for nature, animals, environmental issues, and the West. The gallery’s program has evolved to include a heavy focus on art which references nature’s influence and the importance that its presence plays on the individual and society as a whole. Vision West has built a unique international roster of artists who have authentic voices and whose work demonstrates technical diversity, independence of thought, courage, and passion. The gallery provides an interesting and fresh platform for art in the Rocky Mountain region, and they have searched the world to bring you art that surprises, delights, and provokes further discourse and thought.
CulturePop: Urban Cowboy
Join us for a relaxed Culture Club happy hour at Urban Cowboy Denver, one of the city’s most distinctive boutique hotels. We’ll enjoy a guided walk-through of the property and wrap in the Public House to grab a drink and catch up with fellow Culture Club members.
Coffee as Culture: The Stories behind what we consume
Join Culture Club for a thoughtful morning exploring coffee as culture, craft, and connection through the lens of Panama. Hosted at Sie FilmCenter, this special gathering pairs a tasting of Panamanian Geisha coffee with a screening of Higher Grounds, followed by a post-film conversation examining the global coffee trade and the relationships behind it.
CultureHop: SA Bennet at Pulse Art Gallery
This week, CultureHop takes us to Pulse Visual Art, a gallery and creative solutions space dedicated to supporting artists through both physical exhibitions and innovative software for sales and organization. The current exhibition features SA Bennett, a local artist whose work portrays the African Diaspora and reflects her decades of teaching experience in Denver and Jamaica. Returning to painting full-time in retirement, Bennett blends representational and abstract styles, creating works that are both human and relatable while exploring new techniques. Pulse Visual Art offers visitors the chance to engage with her evolving practice while experiencing a space designed to connect, showcase, and celebrate artists in all stages of their careers.
CultureHop: 11 x 17 Architecture
This week, CultureHop takes us to 11 x 17, an award-winning design practice with offices in Denver and Toronto, founded by Alex Yueyan Li and Mahsa Malek. The firm works across scales—from exhibitions and interiors to furniture, books, and buildings—always guided by a critical exploration of material origins. In 2025, 11 x 17 was recognized with the League Prize for Young Architects + Designers from the Architectural League of New York. Their thoughtful, boundary-crossing approach invites visitors to consider design as both a practical and conceptual experience.
CultureHop: MCA Denver
This week, CultureHop takes us to MCA Denver to explore its Spring 2026 exhibitions, featuring Ana María Hernando, Sammy Seung-min Lee, and Bethany Collins. The shows engage with themes of identity, migration, language, and resilience, offering poetic reflections on belonging and voice amid personal and collective transformation. Working across diverse materials—from tulle and ceramics to cast aluminum and paper—the artists present commissioned works that push the boundaries of form and scale. These exhibitions invite visitors to experience contemporary art that resonates deeply with the human experience.
CultureHop: Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art
This week, CultureHop takes us to BMoCA to experience Yes &…, an exhibition featuring 18 artists united by a human-centered approach to art. Rooted in the improvisational ethos of “Yes, And,” the show celebrates the poetic imperfections and deliberate choices that reveal the artist’s process—from wavering lines and thick brushstrokes to hand-squished clay and rough-hewn wood. Each artist presents two works, highlighting both continuity and departures from their usual aesthetic, while an accompanying zine explores other facets of their lives beyond the studio. Together, the exhibition and zine invite visitors to reflect on the human fingerprints embedded in art and the ways context shapes our understanding and appreciation.
CultureHop: Michael Warren Contemporary
This week, CultureHop takes us to Michael Warren Contemporary, a gallery dedicated to showcasing contemporary art that speaks to the heart and invites living with art. The current exhibition features Dorian Agüero, a young Cuban artist whose colorful abstract and figurative works, as well as contemplative sculptures and installations, explore material and process with care. Agüero’s work has been exhibited in Cuba and internationally, and is held in private collections across the U.S., Chile, Cyprus, Germany, and Australia. The gallery celebrates artists from across the country, offering visitors a chance to engage with compelling contemporary art and discover pieces that resonate personally.
CultureHop: Friend of a Friend
This week, CultureHop takes us to Friend of a Friend, a ground-floor gallery space along the Platte River Trail rooted in connection and experimentation. Led by founder and Co-Director Derrick Velasquez alongside Co-Directors Jenny Nagashima and Ilan Gutin, the gallery reflects a collaborative vision shaped by experience across Denver, Chicago, and Montana. Together, the team is intentionally filling a niche between project space and commercial gallery, supporting both emerging and established artists. With its accessible location and open-door ethos, Friend of a Friend continues to invite Denver’s creative community to gather, engage, and connect face to face.
January Monthly Event: Community & Connection at Malinche Audio Bar
Surround yourself in good company with old and new Culture Club friends for an evening of connection, curated cocktails, and easy vinyl listening at Malinche Audio Bar. Founded by Chef José Avila and inspired by Japanese listening bars, Malinche offers an experience all its own, where Japanese influences blend seamlessly with an homage to Mexico through sound, space, with mezcal and thoughtfully crafted non-alcoholic drinks available throughout the night.
CultureHop: Lumonics Light & Sound Gallery
Lumonics Light & Sound Gallery, an extraordinary art studio, gallery, and immersive performance space founded by pioneering light artists Dorothy and Mel Tanner. Among the first and longest-running light art projects in the U.S., Lumonics combines sculpture, music, and video projection to create transformative sensory experiences. The Lumonics Legacy Project carries forward the founders’ vision, showcasing more than 200 light works spanning 50 years. Visitors can explore the Tanners’ influence on the evolution of light art and its connection to healing, education, and community. With partnerships including Denver Public Schools, The Phoenix, and Meow Wolf, Lumonics continues to expand how art can inspire connection and wonder.
CultureHop: Francisco Souto at K Contemporary
This week, CultureHop takes us to K Contemporary for Dichotomies, a new body of work by Francisco Souto following his acclaimed showing at the 60th Venice Biennale. Deliberately distancing itself from Souto’s personal history as a Venezuelan immigrant, the work grounds itself in universal human experience and political immediacy shaped by today’s global crises. His photorealistic drawings feature universally recognizable objects—boots, sneakers, gloves, stones—rendered with meticulous care and finished with a glass-like depth that draws viewers in. Stripped of context and floating in open space, these symbols invite empathy, prolonged looking, and reflection on displacement, resilience, and human connection.
CultureHop: Emma Balder Studio
This week, CultureHop visits the studio of Emma Balder, a contemporary artist whose work bridges painting and textiles. Balder deconstructs her paintings and reassembles them using thread and fabric, creating what she calls “quilted paintings” and “fiber paintings.” Her tactile process transforms fragments of canvas and textile waste into poetic compositions that explore regeneration, connection, and transformation. With a BFA in Painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design, Balder continues to push the boundaries between mediums, redefining how we perceive the relationship between surface, texture, and story. Her studio offers a look into a practice grounded in sustainability, experimentation, and quiet beauty.
December Monthly Event: Holiday Brunch and Celebration
Celebrate the joys of the year and raise a glass to the holiday season at our annual Culture Club Holiday Brunch, hosted at the new Molino Chido
CultureHop: Ravi Zupa Studio
This week, CultureHop takes us inside the creative world of Ravi Zupa, a self-taught artist whose work blends global artistic traditions with deeply human storytelling. Zupa draws inspiration from sources as diverse as German Renaissance printmakers, Japanese woodblock artists, and Pre-Columbian iconography. His art often incorporates religious and revolutionary symbols, woven together to explore universal human experiences. Entirely hand-made—never digital—his works embody both discipline and rebellion. Zupa’s pieces invite reflection on how cultures, histories, and myths intersect to shape our shared humanity.
Nick Ryan Gallery featuring Bruce Price
This week, CultureHop takes us to Nick Ryan Gallery, located beneath the iconic Flatirons in Boulder. The gallery is dedicated to exhibiting national and regional artists with an emphasis on contemporary works across various media. We’ll be viewing The Surface of the Last Scattering by Bruce Price, a solo exhibition of all-new works by this celebrated Colorado artist. Founder Nick Ryan, who brings over two decades of gallery experience, created the space to showcase bold, innovative programming in one of Colorado’s most beautiful settings. With two floors of exhibition space and a thoughtful curatorial approach, Nick Ryan Gallery continues to elevate Boulder’s growing art scene while connecting audiences to the creativity and vision of contemporary artists.
Cookie Factory with Gary Simmons
This week, CultureHop takes us to Cookie Factory, a creative space housed in a revitalized 1940s fortune cookie factory in Denver’s Baker neighborhood. Dedicated to fostering creativity and dialogue, Cookie Factory collaborates with internationally recognized artists to create site-specific works inspired by Denver’s cultural fabric. During our visit, we’ll experience an exhibition by Gary Simmons, renowned for his evocative chalkboard drawings that blur and erase imagery drawn from popular culture to reveal the impact of racial and social narratives. Simmons’ work challenges how history is written and remembered—inviting us to consider new perspectives and untold stories. Cookie Factory’s intimate, human-centered approach creates the perfect setting for this transformative exploration of art and meaning.
Mona Lucero Design Studio and Showroom
This week, CultureHop takes us to the studio of fashion designer and creative visionary Mona Lucero. A true groundbreaker in Denver fashion, Mona has been outfitting fans from Denver and beyond with distinctive clothing and accessories for over 30 years. Her work embodies her mantra, “Devotion to Style,” blending art, design, and self-expression. Using sketches, paintings, and photography, Mona creates original prints and garments that merge fine art with wearable design. Each piece is handcrafted with sculptural draping and often includes found objects, collage, and painting. Her work extends to stage and screen through collaborations with Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, El Centro Su Teatro, and others. To wear a Mona Lucero design is to make a bold statement of artistry, confidence, and joy.
November Monthly Event: The Secret Agent Film Screening
For our November Culture Club event, we’re teaming up with Denver Film Fest for a special screening of The Secret Agent at Denver Botanic Gardens.
CultureHop: Department of Creative Pursuits
This week, CultureHop takes us to Department of Creative Pursuits (DoCP), a 6,250 sq ft creative studio and community hub in Denver’s Ballpark District. Built by and for working creatives, DoCP combines two professional production studios, coworking, and event space with a membership model designed to keep resources accessible. Beyond the walls, DoCP hosts screenings, classes, and community programs that champion diversity, collaboration, and storytelling — making it a home base for Denver’s creative talent to produce, connect, and grow.
CultureHop: Black Cube Nomadic Museum Headquarters
This week, we are excited to visit the Black Cube Nomadic Museum’s Headquarters to view their show, What We Hold On To, curated by Black Cube Nomadic Museum Chief Curator and Executive Director, Cortney Lane Stell. What We Hold On To is a group exhibition that explores the concept of storage—not just as a logistical process, but as an emotional, psychological, and cultural condition as well.
CultureHop: Museum of Outdoor Arts
This week, we are excited to have a CultureHop visit the Museum of Outdoor Arts and learn more about their sculpture park, Majorie Park, as well as explore their Cabinet of Curiosities and Impossibilities installation.
CultureHop: Melissa Antier Studio Visit
This week, we are excited to conduct a CultureHop studio visit in partnership with RedLine Contemporary Art Center, featuring the work of Biennial x RedLine Resident Melissa Antier. Born in Mexico City, Melissa was awarded the residency at the 2024 edition of Salón Acme. We are thrilled to welcome her to Denver and look forward to sharing her artistry and creativity with our Culture Club community!
CultureHOp: Denver Botanic Gardens
This week, CultureHop brings us to Denver Botanic Gardens to visit three of their exhibitions, Agave: Symbol and Spirit, Nourished: Works by Jazz Holmes, and Xochimilco: Works by Eduardo Robledo Romero. Join us as we enjoy these exhibits and appreciate the natural beauty and inspiration that comes from nature.
CultureHop: D’Art Gallery
This week, CultureHop takes us to D’Art Gallery for Divergens by Taos-based artist KEO, curated by Culture Club Member Lovedy Barbatelli. Rooted in Japanese Zen Shodo calligraphy, KEO’s work flows from a contemplative mind, guided by movement, energy, and breath.
Curator Lovedy Barbatelli reflects:
“Keo’s inner knowing and outer expression transcend and include everything. This creates a coherent way of being—he becomes his creative process. Keo moves as spirit in action.”