Denver Art Museum
Today I spent an hour at lunch at the Frederic C. Hamilton Building – the brand new the expansion of the Denver Art Museum. The museum has been closed for a while but it reopens this weekend with a 35 hour celebration. Want to view art at 3am? I bet it won’t be too crowded. This week they’ve been doing member-only previews with today being the last day. I was expecting it to be more crowded since I waited until the last moment but it wasn’t bad.
The building is itself is a work of art, designed by Daniel Libeskind (the architect selected to design the rebuilding of World Trade Center site). The art museum building has a lots of funky angles and bumps. He says he was inspired by the Rocky Mountains for this project.
Best website I’ve found with pictures of the building, which are definitely worth checking out, is Cubistro. It’s a pretty amazing piece of engineering. They took pictures from March 2004 through September 2006 so you can watch the building progress.
I found the inside of the building a little disorienting. There are few right angles, which threw off my normal navigational sense. I felt a little lost most of the time. I’m not sure if I’ll get used to this or if it will always be difficult to not be distracted by the angles.
The thing I most appreciate is this building now gives the museum a nice large space to permentantly display portions of its modern and contemporary art collection. I had seen many of the pieces they have on display in previous special exhibits but there was a lot of art I don’t remember or had never seen.
With only an hour I didn’t have time to see much of the art but two pieces stood out as favorites for the day.
Jason Martin’s piece Rodeo is a large abstract oil on aluminum painting. It is highly textured with long flowing grooved lines in the paint moving across the piece from left to right. It reminded me of an old record album in ways. At first glance it appeared to be all black but as I moved around the piece bits of blue were discovered here and there.
The other piece that captured my attention was huge painting by Sean Lander titled Pater Noster. The white surface is covered in black painted text that forms an abstract design, with 2 areas at the top and bottom of the piece where the text runs in long undulating parrallel lines. In the center the text is group together in small chunks or thoughts. The shapes created with these two different patterns reminded me of a map, and when I first saw it from across the room I thought that is what it might be. I would have like to spend more time reading the words but time was short.
One snippet said “Making a beautiful abstract painting of the reality of my banality. That is what I’m doing”.
In the upper left hand corner it says “Every great artist fears that they are the emperor in new clothes. Unfortunately so do the bad ones.” There’s something to think about. Or maybe worry about?
I’m looking forward to spending more time at the museum in the months to come to see what else it has to offer.
I was fortunate enough to spend today with a good friend of mine that just moved to Colorado from my old stomping grounds of Williamsburg, Virginia. It was great fun to wander around and appreciate the art with her and laugh.
Our favorite over heard comment in the contemporary art gallery: "I guess this doesn’t pass the ‘would you want this in your home’ test."
Posted by Lisa in: The Art World
Being in construction management and being a very pratical person, all those funky angles makes me cringe. Yes, it looks very cool but it is a budget buster and a maintenance nighmare. The Akron Art Museum is going thru an addition right now (all funded with private money) with angles and lots of curtainwall (glass) too. I will be excited to see it re open next year, but am concerned about the future costs with the possiblity of constant maintenance with leaking like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland goes thru with the pyramid of curtainwall. I hope I am wrong, but this direction that architecture is going scares me.
A couple of weekends ago, we were going to go to a member party but an emergency came up and we didn’t get to go. Lucky you for getting to go before the crowds! I am so excited to see the new wing and frankly more art including contemporary art.
My husband works across the street from the Museum and Library and I’ve watched construction on it for the past 2 years. It has been interesting and fun to watch the progress.
A good friend of mine is an architect and I just found out that one of the women I run with on Saturday mornings is the head of Historic Denver so I have been talking about Daniel Libeskind for awhile now and the star quality that he brings to the project…good or bad? They have 2 different viewpoints on the project and it’s interesting to listen to their perspectives. As for myself, I can’t wait to see the museum project, though I think he needs to leave Civic Center Park alone.
I just mentioned to my husband that we should go to the museum this weekend because it will be open 35 hours straight. He didn’t believe me, so I had to pull up the website to confirm.
I love the quotes you included! I’ll look for the artwork and artists that you mentioned.
Patty – good to get your view point on the project. DAM is all titanium – no glass. Hopefully it won’t leak on some awesome art!
Cynthia – I’ve just been reading about the building and all the different opinions – how cool for you to have some more connection to some of the people not directly in the art world that are concerned. Here at work the geeks don’t even know they built a new museum.