Calendar
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Exhibitions
Drawn from the personal collection of former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, this exhibition features more than 200 pins, many of which Secretary Albright wore to communicate a message or a mood during her diplomatic tenure. Read My Pins: The Madeleine Albright Collection examines the collection for its historical ties as well as the expressive power of jewelry and its ability to communicate through a language of its own.
Nampeyo: Excellence by Name is on view in the American Indian art galleries. Nampeyo is recognized as one of the greatest ceramicists of the 20th century. This exhibition traces the full spectrum of the famed Hopi artist’s career, highlighting key elements of her innovative forms and designs and the work of successive generations of her family.
On view through July 1, 2012.
Focus: Earth and Fire showcases ceramic work in the DAM’s modern and contemporary art collection, as well as paintings that respond to earth and fire. This presentation takes the widest approach to the theme and celebrates the myriad artistic responses to rugged mountains, powerful earthquakes and volcanoes, blazing forest fires and even the hot sunlight pouring down from millions of miles away.
A sweeping retrospective of the designer’s 40 years of creativity, Yves Saint Laurent: The Retrospective features a stunning selection of 200 haute couture garments along with numerous photographs, drawings, and films that illustrate the development of Saint Laurent's style and the historical foundations of his work. Organized thematically, the presentation melds design and art to explore the full arc of Saint Laurent’s career, from his first days at Dior in 1958 through the splendor of his evening dresses from 2002.
Focusing on Japanese woven bamboo, over 70 beautiful pieces will be displayed in this installation, including baskets, screens, trays, containers, accessories, hand warmers, and a chair. Among the works on view are pieces by basket makers who have been designated Living National Treasures. Texture and Tradition: Japanese Woven Bamboo highlights works from the Lutz Bamboo Collection and gifts from Paul M. Hoff III and Hazel W. Hoff in memory of Paul M. Hoff Jr.
Olivetti: Innovation and Identity showcases the Italian company's groundbreaking approach to product design and promotion. After World War II, Olivetti's quality office machines and distinctive advertising graphics helped establish Italy’s reputation as the cradle of modern design. The company's graphic designers, architects, artists, writers, and advertising experts took an active part in the design of not only the company’s products and advertisements, but also the visual appearance of its showrooms and corporate architecture.
Experience one of the world's premier collections of Native American art. Reopened on January 30, 2011, our remodeled galleries of American Indian and Northwest Coast art focus on artists and their creations, revealing the hand and eye of each individual artist.
The technique of creating blue-and-white ceramics was a great innovation of Chinese ceramic history and they became a vital component of China’s export trade. Blue and White: A Ceramic Journey conveys the popularity of blue-and-white pottery throughout the centuries in different parts of the world. The exhibit will feature objects ranging from early periods of blue-and-white ceramic production to present day examples.
Garry Winogrand photographed in crowds and on the street from his early days as a New York magazine freelancer in the 1950s to his last years in Los Angeles. When he sensed the composition of a picture falling into place, Winogrand would quickly raise his camera to his eye and take candid photos of anonymous people. He used a 35mm Leica camera that enabled him to photograph quickly and freely. Often he focused on women—in parks, getting into cars, at parties, exiting stores—creating photographs that highlighted the changing role of women and, at times, the uncertainty of their new place.
Columbus’s encounter with the Americas and Magellan’s circumnavigation of the world marked the beginning of the modern era of global trade. Mexico sat at the crossroads where Asian objects traversed the Pacific, European goods came over the Atlantic, and Mexican products were exported in return. Objects from all these areas came together in colonial Mexico, inspiring local artists to alter and mingle details in new ways. Nowhere is this new dynamic more evident than in art made from clay.
Meet 14 contemporary artists whose works surprise the eye while challenging and intriguing our powers of perception. Masters of alchemy who employ materials ranging from anticipated to astonishing, these artists push time-honored textile techniques—embroidery, quilting, weaving, netting, crochet, coiling, and ikat—to unexpected extremes and invent new methods to achieve their creative vision.
Theodore Waddell arrived in New York in the early 1960s, only a short decade after abstract expressionists like Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, and Clyfford Still dominated the art world. Gleaning elements from this art movement, Waddell returned home to his native Montana and created works of nearly abstract backgrounds that suggest the landscape. By painting figures that symbolized cattle in snow-filled backgrounds, the painter walks the line of abstraction and realism.
The Roath Collection includes more than 100 works ranging in date from the 1870s to the 1970s with a focus on art of the American Southwest. With iconic works from nearly every artist associated with the Taos Society of Artists, this collection is one of the best groups of Western American art in private hands. The collection also includes major works by Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Remington and Henry Farny, to name a few. The museum has selected 65 works that will be displayed in the permanent galleries for Western American art.
On view through December 30, 2012.
Men of God, Men of Nature is a site-specific work designed by Laleh Mehran especially for the Fuse Box. The daughter of Iranian scientists, Mehran has lived most of her life in the U.S. and has been a professor at the University of Denver since 2007. Her complex relationship with political, scientific, and theological concepts drives her work that often has an interactive component. Her works are intended to be meditative and seductive, inviting viewers to consider their own relationship to the issues she presents.
What Is Modern? features imaginative furniture, industrial, and graphic designs that span more than 200 years, from the early 1800s to the present day. The objects—representing a trajectory of innovative thinking and a variety of methods, materials, and concepts—explore the ways in which design has expressed the modern experience.
The Coors Porcelain Company, now known as CoorsTek, creates specialized scientific forms—crucibles, beakers, evaporating dishes—that have remained virtually unchanged since their earliest iteration. Beauty and function exist simultaneously in vessels that serve scientists’ precisely stated needs.
On view through November 18, 2012.
Herbert Bayer 1900 to 1928: The Bauhaus and Pre-Bauhaus Years is the first in a chronological series of exhibitions that trace Bayer’s development from his earliest days in Austria through his years in the United States. Bayer was first a student and later a master (teacher) at the Bauhaus, generally regarded as the most important school of art and design of the 20th century. In Colorado, Bayer is best known as the designer of the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, where he was able to apply the Bauhaus concept of “total design” across the Institute campus.
To coincide with the opening of the much-anticipated Clyfford Still Museum, the department of Modern and Contemporary Art will present a selection of paintings and drawings from its collection of some 20 works by abstract expressionist painter Robert Motherwell. This extraordinary collection spans the artist’s career from 1944 to 1990 and includes masterpieces such as the artist’s last Elegy to the Spanish Republic.
Motherwell's works-on-paper artworks will go off view after May 27, 2012, while the paintings will continue to be on view into 2013.
Tours
Explore highlights of our collections, including objects in both the North and Hamilton Buildings.
Tuesday–Friday 11 am
Saturday & Sunday 2 pm
Tours meet in the first level elevator lobby of the Hamilton Building and are 45 minutes long.
A 45-minute public tour highlighting Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s pin collection and the stories behind the pins. Tours offered weekdays at 2 pm and weekends at 3 pm, April 15–June 17. Meet in the first level elevator lobby of the Hamilton Building. Free with admission. Reservations are not required.
Explore a different topic every week in a thirty-minute tour, offered on Wednesdays and Fridays at noon.
Upcoming Topics
May 2 & 4: Garry Winogrand’s Women
May 9 & 11: A Portrait of Everyday Peru
May 16 & 18: Pre-Columbian Bling
May 23 & 25: Greek Vases
Explore highlights of our collections, including objects in both the North and Hamilton Buildings.
Tuesday–Friday 11 am
Saturday & Sunday 2 pm
Tours meet in the first level elevator lobby of the Hamilton Building and are 45 minutes long.
A 45-minute public tour highlighting Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s pin collection and the stories behind the pins.
Tours offered weekdays at 2 pm and weekends at 3 pm, April 15–June 17.
Meet in the first level elevator lobby of the Hamilton Building.
Free with admission. Reservations are not required.
Lectures
Enjoy a Powerpoint talk on the Berger Collection’s Tudor portraits presented by curator Kathleen Stuart and choral selections by the Boulder-based a cappella group, The Renaissance Project, led by Arthur Bragg.
$5 for DAM members and students, $10 for general public
Online ticketing is no longer available, but you may purchase tickets at the door with cash or credit card.
Sponsored by the Berger Collection Educational Trust.
Nick Cave creates textile-based sculpture, installation, performance, and collage. The artist trained with Alvin Ailey and modern dance inspires his exploration about community, ritual, and identity.
Enjoy a members-only lecture by artist Theodore Waddell, hosted by curator Thomas Smith. Waddell's work will be on view at the DAM in Theodore Waddell's Abstract Angus, opening May 20.
$8; DAM members only.
Registration begins April 15 by phone (720-913-0130) and online.
Spend an evening with Jack Maher, one of the three surviving grandsons of Native Arts founding curator Frederic H. Douglas. Jack, an executive producer at 9NEWS in Denver, will share family memories and a mini-series he produced on Douglas’ early days at the Hiwan Homestead in Evergreen, Colorado.
Kenichi Nagakura, whose bamboo will be featured in Fluid Duality at the Denver Botanic Gardens May 12 through August 5, will give a lecture on his work.
Free with museum admission, but reservations are required.
Enjoy a Powerpoint talk on the Berger Collection’s Tudor portraits presented by curator Kathleen Stuart and choral selections by the Boulder-based a cappella group, The Renaissance Project, led by Arthur Bragg. $5 for DAM members and students, $10 for general public Reservations are recommended. Click Purchase tickets link above or call 720-913-0130. Tickets go on sale March 16.
Sponsored by the Berger Collection Educational Trust.
Valery Taylor Brown of the Valery Taylor Gallery will talk about the fascinating and sometimes misidentified works of art that she has found and sold to museums and private collections over her 25 years as a dealer.
Special Events
On the first Saturday of every month, you can enjoy our art collections and non-ticketed exhibitions without spending a dime!
Free general admission tickets are available on-site starting at 10 am. Special exhibition ticket required for Yves Saint Laurent: The Retrospective.
Sponsored by Target. Made possible by the citizens who support the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District.
Members are invited to a special spring shopping event. On Saturday, May 12, both shops will open one hour early for members only. Enjoy a trunk show featuring local fashion and jewelry artists. Members save 20 percent off entire stock during these three days only.
In celebration of the Denver Art Museum's (DAM) special exhibition Yves Saint Laurent: The Retrospective, we invite you to join Christie’s Catherine Elkies for her presentation on “The Legendary Collection of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé.” An elegant luncheon will follow. Proceeds benefit the Department of Architecture, Design & Graphics at the DAM.
The DAM celebrates the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) Museum Day by inviting individuals who are blind or have low vision to a free tactile experience of Yves Saint Laurent. Trained docents will describe in detail the famous fashion creations and let you to feel fabrics, design features, and embellishments similar to those in some of Yves Saint Laurent’s key designs.
Watch an artist at work in the museum and hear the back story at this Insider Moment. Join master teacher Heather Nielsen for a special look at new media artist Brian Knep and his interactive installation for the museum, Exempla.
Join us for the opening reception for the new exhibition in Fuse Box, Laleh Mehran: Men of God, Men of Nature.
Throughout May, DAM members can take 15 percent off ties and scarves. Other weekly special offers available onsite. Additional member 10 percent discount does not apply to weekly specials. Offer is good at both Museum Shop locations.
Kids & Families
The DAM partners with Central City Opera to present a wild west-themed, interactive opera performance and an artmaking activity in our western collection. Visitors can act, sing, dance, and explore art with the opera and museum! Ideal for kids 5 to 12 years old. All children must be accompanied by an adult.
Drop in with your little ones, aged 3 to 5, and meet up with other tots and their grownups as we plant seeds to watch them grow!
Adult Programs
Discover the extraordinary world of light and color. In this six-week class, you will learn to see the three qualities of color and gain an understanding of how light affects the appearance of color. This class is open to all experience levels and is great for beginners and experts alike.
$160 DAM members, $170 others
Registration for spring classes begins January 10 for DAM members; January 17 for the general public.
Join our conversation about Herbert Bayer’s early years with Dr. Gwen Chanzit, curator of modern and contemporary art and the Herbert Bayer Collection and Archive, as we visit Herbert Bayer 1900 to 1928: The Bauhaus and Pre-Bauhaus Years, the first in a chronological series of exhibitions.
Join us in the Fashion Studio as we celebrate Yves Saint Laurent: The Retrospective. On weekends, watch as a fashion designer takes you through the secrets of fashion design.
Saturdays 11 am–4 pm, Sundays noon–3 pm
Free with general admission. No reservations required.
Designer schedule:
March 24 & 25, March 31 & April 1, April 7 & 8
Join us in the Fashion Studio as we celebrate Yves Saint Laurent: The Retrospective. On weekends, watch as a fashion designer takes you through the secrets of fashion design.
Saturdays 11 am–4 pm, Sundays noon–3 pm
Free with general admission. No reservations required.
Designer schedule:
March 24 & 25, March 31 & April 1, April 7 & 8
At Untitled #47 (LOL) in May, visitors can search for connections between art and humor with scientific chats, funny stories and comedian led-tours.