Snapshots

Snowmass Villages Anderson Ranch Arts Center will honor artist George Condo, and arts patrons Mera and Don Rubell, at its annual Recognition Dinner, July 9, at the Snowmass Club. Condo will be presented with the National Artist Award, and the Rubells will be presented the Service to the Arts Award.A New Hampshire native, the 50-year-old Condo has worked in painting, drawing, printmaking and sculpture. He has called his style, informed by European traditions, Artificial Realism. Condo is one of the New York artists credited with bringing about an international revival of painting in the 1980s. His work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, and he has received an Academy Award from the American Academy of Art and letters.Mera and Don Rubell launched the Rubell Family Collection in 1964, soon after marrying. The collection, featuring works dating from the 1960s to the present, is housed and exhibited in a converted 45,000-square-foot warehouse in Miami, and has been open to the public since 1996. The museums 27 galleries feature rotating exhibitions of work by Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Cindy Sherman and others. The museum also houses a research library, a film and lecture theater, a bookstore and a sculpture garden.The Recognition Dinner will feature an awards presentation, a silent auction of wooden stands specially decorated by Anderson Ranch artists, and live music.For further information, contact Nicole Garrett at 923-3181, ext. 211, or by email at ngarrett@andersonranch.org.

The Wheeler Opera House will host the debut Aspen Rooftop Comedy Festival, May 30-31. The festival, co-produced by the San Francisco-based Rooftop Comedy agency and content website, will feature six events over two days at the Wheeler.A centerpiece of the festival will be the finals of the National College Comedy Competition. The finalists have been selected after preliminary competitions at some 50 campuses across the country, and 16 regional events. The competition is scheduled to be broadcast live on the Internet.Additional programs in the Aspen Rooftop Comedy Festival include Best & Brightest; a showcase for rising young stand-up performers; the adult-themed After Dark; and The Big Show, featuring comedians who have appeared on Comedy Central Presents, Last Comic Standing, The Sarah Silverman Program and Late Night with Conan OBrien.A limited number of Independence Pass packages, providing preferred seating to all six programs, are available for $65. The Pass is being offered at a discounted price of $55 with hotel room packages, or for residents of the Roaring Fork Valley. For hotel-and-ticket packages, call the Aspen Chamber Resort Association at 1-800-673-5043 or go to rooftop.bookaspensnowmass.com. Local residents can purchase the Independence Pass in person at the Aspen Show Tickets box office in the Wheeler Opera House. Tickets for individual shows will be sold, as available, during the week of the festival, and will be priced between $15-30.For further information, go to wheeleroperahouse.com.