ASPEN/DENVER— Last week was an unusually great time to be an art partier in Colorado. On August 1, the Aspen Art Museum hosted its fourth annual artCRUSH fundraising gala. The event honored Ed Ruscha with the 2008 Aspen Award for Art, included a live auction hosted by Sotheby's auctioneer Tobias Meyer, and raised over $1 million for the museum. Art world celebs abounded, including artists Judy Chicago and Lawrence Weiner, photographer Donald Woodman, gallerist Marion Goodman, and collector Melva Bucksbaum.

And in Denver the weekend before, ARTINFO made the rounds to a series of gallery openings, catching up with some dealers and artists as they kicked off new exhibits in the lead-up to the Democratic National Convention, to be held August 25–28.

Check out of the photo gallery to the left for pictures of the parties in Colorado.