pARTy and Rigsby Revisited: The Arvada Center Turns 50

Fifty years is long enough that the Arvada Center can exhibit its own history, and it is doing that two ways at once. The Main Gallery gets pARTy: Celebrating 50 Years, an 18-artist show built to be walked through rather than studied. The Upper Gallery gets Rigsby Revisited: 50 Years Later, which reassembles work from the 1977 solo show by John David Rigsby, the first artist the Center ever gave a solo exhibition.

Both open Thursday, September 10 with The Birthday pARTy, 6 to 9 PM, free with an RSVP. That night the Main Gallery adds pinatas, cake, jugglers, face painting, stilt walkers, a caricature artist and an inflatable rainbow. The pARTy roster runs 18 artists including Koko Bayer, Phil Bender, Moe Gram, Robin Hextrum, Jared David Paul and Mami Yamamoto.

While you're at it

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Arvada Center curator Collin Parson built the Rigsby show with the artist's children, Lisa Rigsby Peterson and David Rigsby, pairing pieces from the 1977 presentation with archival material. Both shows run through November 8 and both are free every day the galleries are open, so the September 10 reception is the only part that needs an RSVP. A free Walk and Talk tour with the curators and the Rigsby family follows on Saturday, October 10, 10 to 11 AM.