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( Denver, Colo.)—August 27, 2009—Beauty and function meet in the newly installed Walter + Mona Lutz Gallery in the fifth level Asian art space in the Denver Art Museum’s North Building. The inaugural exhibition, Shape & Spirit: Selections from the Lutz Bamboo Collection, opening September 26, 2009, showcases the wonder of bamboo through more than 200 objects that capture the spirit and cultural character of their makers. Woven baskets, carved figures and everyday tools are displayed in the new space designated for bamboo pieces from East Asia. All objects on view are from the extensive Lutz Bamboo Collection at the DAM.

“Bamboo is a plentiful natural resource in East Asia that people can build with, carve, weave and create many useful objects,” said Ronald Otsuka, who was recently endowed as the Dr. Joseph de Heer Curator of Asian Art. “It also holds a spiritual quality that signifies human strength and resilience, making it a sought after material.”

The gallery will feature artwork from China, Japan and Korea displaying the numerous varieties of bamboo used throughout the countries and symbols important to each culture. Visitors will see how styles and uses have evolved over time and discover how bamboo is being handled by 20th century artists. Although many pieces by named artists will be exhibited, most objects are anonymously produced.

“When an artist signs a name on a piece of work, it is no longer the art of real people,” Otsuka explained, referring to the mingei movement in Japan. “Therefore, the only true art is the art of the people.”

Asian Art Collection
Reflecting the rich diversity and wide-ranging artistic expression of a complex and expansive area of the world, Asian art from the Museum’s collection is displayed geographically and thematically. The collection originated in 1915 with a pledge of Chinese and Japanese art objects and has broadened to include works from the entire Asian continent. Outstanding ceramics, furniture, metalwork, painting and sculpture from the Near and Middle East, India, Tibet, Nepal, China, Japan and Korea are on view. Spanning a period from the fourth millennium B.C. to the present, these objects illustrate the wide-ranging achievements of Asian artists and artisans. Exemplary items of material culture, such as samurai armor, Indonesian puppets and Chinese court robes, are on view and used in innovative educational programs that focus on Asian civilization. In 2009, long-time Asian Art Association member Dr. Joseph de Heer left a generous bequest to the Asian art department in addition to his collection of 20th-century Japanese prints. The DAM established an endowment for the position of curator of Asian art in de Heer’s name to honor his interest in Asian art and culture.
 
Denver Art Museum
The Denver Art Museum is located on 13th Avenue between Broadway and Bannock streets in downtown Denver. Open Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Friday 10 a.m.-10 p.m., Sunday noon-5 p.m.; closed Mondays, 4th of July, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Admission for Colorado residents: $10 adults, $8 seniors and students. Admission for non-Colorado residents: $13 for adults, $10 for seniors and students, $5 for visitors aged six to eighteen, free for children under 6. General Museum admission is free the first Saturday of each month, thanks to Target and the citizens who support the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD). The Cultural Complex Garage is open; enter from 12th Avenue between Broadway and Bannock or check the DAM website for up-to-date parking information. For information in Spanish, call 720-913-0169. For more information, call 720-865-5000 or visit www.denverartmuseum.org.

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“I had a lot of fun digging to the depths of this exquisite collection to create the debut display,” Paddock said. “We’re presenting a wide range of photos, from portraits and landscapes to abstraction and Surrealism that photo enthusiasts and museum visitors will enjoy. This first installation is a way to say hello to the community and start a conversation about photography.”

 

The Museum began collecting photography in 1937, adding pieces to many curatorial departments over the years including the 1991 acquisition of the Daniel Wolf collection of 19th and early 20th century American landscapes and frequent donations of contemporary work through the 1980s and 1990s. In 2008, the DAM formed a standalone Department of Photography and brought on veteran curator Eric Paddock to lead the charge in creating exhibitions and collection experiences with the museum’s strong collection of historic and contemporary photography.

Exposure is just the first of the department of photography’s upcoming programs that will include traveling and temporary exhibitions. The Place We Live, a comprehensive Robert Adams retrospective organized by the Yale University Art Gallery, will open in Denver in fall 2011. Adams, a Colorado native, photographed the landscape of the American West for more than 40 years. He rose to prominence as part of the photographic movement known as New Topographics which sheds light on man-altered landscapes. His work is inspired by the natural beauty of the world, but also notes the destructive effects of urbanization and population growth. This temporary exhibition will showcase over 200 works highlighting various stages of Adams’ career.

 

“Forming this new department has allowed the DAM to come to the forefront of photography and actively engage our attentive photography community,” said Christoph Heinrich, DAM director. “We are thrilled to have enthusiastic and dynamic donors who helped realize the DAM’s first photography department and continue to help us be relevant in the local and national photo community.”

 

The photography department was founded through the vision and energy of Evan Anderman, John Grant, Robert G. Lewis, Anthony R. Mayer and director emeritus Lewis Sharp. Major funding for the gallery is provided by Delisa and Anthony R. Mayer. Additional support is graciously provided by Mrs. Frederick R. Mayer, Evan and Elizabeth Anderman, Julie and Robert G. Lewis, Cathey and Richard Finlon, Frederick M. Mayer, Devon Dikeou and Fernando Troya, Polly and Mark Addison, Nancy Tieken, the citizens who support the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District and the members of the Annual Fund Leadership Campaign. Promotional support is provided by The Denver Post and 5280 Magazine.

 

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Denver Art Museum presents Charles M. Russell retrospective

Holiday visitors treated to first-ever retrospective of renowned artist’s greatest paintings and sculpture

 

( Denver, Colo.) — The Masterworks of Charles M. Russell: A Retrospective of Paintings and Sculpture will highlight more than 60 major works in oil and bronze by the renowned western artist (1864-1926). Revising conventional concepts about the artist, the exhibition will open at the Denver Art Museum (DAM) on October 17, 2009 and continue through January 10, 2010. This exhibition, the first-ever major retrospective of Russell’s painting and sculptural work, was co-organized by the Denver Art Museum’s Petrie Institute of Western American Art and Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Okla.


“Russell’s art continues to influence American western painters and sculptors, and his distinctive way with words has affected entertainers and political commentators from Will Rogers on,” said Joan Carpenter Troccoli, senior scholar with the DAM’s Petrie Institute of Western American Art and curator of the exhibition. “This exhibition will reveal his strengths as a fine artist – and those accustomed to filing Russell away as the original ‘cowboy artist’ will find many surprises.”


One of the surprises is the variety of his subjects and the range of his expression. Russell was known for his detailed depictions of minute elements of cowboy gear and complex movement. The depth of his concern about the destruction of native Northern Plains people and landscapes and his tolerance for human differences are hallmarks of his work. Russell viewed Indians as complex beings who held the only truly authentic claim to the American West, and protested governmental injustices and public indifference to their removal from their ancestral homelands. Indian women often were subjects in his work – in fact, depictions of Native Americans outnumber cowboys in his work by three to one.

 

In addition to revising the concept of Russell as a cowboy artist, the exhibition and accompanying catalogue will invite a close look at his development as an artist. With no formal artistic training, Russell relied on his powers of observation, discipline and commitment, drawing inspiration from magazine illustrations as well as the work of earlier western artists including George Catlin, Karl Bodmer, Carl Wimar and Russell’s contemporary, Frederic Remington.

 

Born in 1864 and raised in St. Louis, Mo., by a well-to-do family, as a child Russell enjoyed sketching and modeling animal figurines in wax and clay. He tended to identify with his pioneering relatives – including an uncle who established a major trading post on the Santa Fe Trail and married a Cheyenne woman – rather than the high society inclinations of his immediate family circle. He left home with his parents’ reluctant blessing at age 16 to live in what was then the Montana Territory and work on a sheep ranch. He eventually took a job as a cow hand and while herding cattle enjoyed his first taste of fame for his watercolor, Waiting for a Chinook, which features an emaciated cow encircled by wolves. The painting was his response to a cattle owner’s query about how his herd had weathered the devastating winter of 1886-87.


Russell became an artist in demand after Waiting for a Chinook, and his work dovetailed with a time in American history when all things western were being consumed in many forms, including magazine articles, novels and western films that eventually became a movie genre of their own. He married in 1896 and shortly thereafter moved to Great Falls, Mont., where he lived and worked for most of his life.

 

The exhibition will open with the action-packed cowboy paintings for which the artist is best known, and will conclude with his heroic portrayals of wildlife in pristine western settings undisturbed by man. Section by section – from cowboys, outlaws and lawmen; the interaction of Indians and whites in the west; native life in all its aspects; white trappers and hunters; to wildlife and wilderness – the exhibition‘s organization corresponds to Russell’s increasing alienation from modern urban civilization and growing devotion to pure nature.

 

“Russell captured the landscapes, people, culture and spirit of the American west in his paintings and sculptures,” said Thomas Smith, director of the Denver Art Museum’s Petrie Institute of Western American Art. “This exhibition is truly a once-in-lifetime opportunity to experience these masterworks in one exhibition, and visitors will see why Russell is the most beloved artist of the American West.”

 

The exhibition will be on view in the Gallagher Family Gallery, located on the first level of the Frederic C. Hamilton Building. A catalogue titled The Masterworks of Charles M. Russell: A Retrospective of Paintings and Sculpture, edited by exhibition curator Joan Carpenter Troccoli with a foreword by Denver Art Museum Director Lewis Sharp and Gilcrease Museum Executive Director Duane King, will be available at the Museum Shop.

 

The Masterworks of Charles M. Russell: A Retrospective of Paintings and Sculpture is organized collaboratively by the Denver Art Museum and Gilcrease Museum.

 

Wells Fargo is the local presenting sponsor, with significant support provided by the Helen K. and Arthur E. Johnson Foundation. Additional support is provided by The Adolph Coors Foundation Exhibition Fund, Sotheby’s, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas A. Petrie, the citizens who support the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District and the generous donors to the Annual Fund Leadership Campaign. Promotional support is provided by The Denver Post and 5280 Magazine.

 

The Denver Art Museum is located on 13th Avenue between Broadway and Bannock Streets in downtown Denver. Open Tuesday-Thursday and Saturday 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Friday 10 a.m.-10 p.m., Sunday noon-5 p.m.; closed Mondays, July 4, Thanksgiving and Christmas. General admission is free on the first Saturday of each month. Free First Saturdays are sponsored by Target, and made possible by the citizens who support the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District. The Cultural Complex Garage is open; enter from 12th Avenue between Broadway and Bannock or check the DAM website for up-to-date parking information. For information in Spanish, call 720-913-0169. For more information, visit www.denverartmuseum.org or call 720-865-5000. between Broadway and Bannock or check the DAM websites for up-to-date parking

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Embrace! 17 Artists Take Over Libeskind’s Architecture
Denver Art Museum to debut new site-specific commissions
celebrating the Hamilton Building

 
( Denver, Colo.) August 2009 —This November, the Denver Art Museum will present Embrace!, an exhibition of unique, site-specific installations in the Museum’s Daniel Libeskind-designed Frederic C. Hamilton Building. Featuring 17 new works in a range of media, Embrace! marks one of the largest exhibitions of site-specific commissions in a U.S. museum, including never-before-seen works from Katharina Grosse, El Anatsui, Shinique Smith, Matthew Brannon, Jessica Stockholder, Lawrence Weiner and Tobias Rehberger, among others.
 

Working with Christoph Heinrich, DAM’s deputy director and Mark and Polly Addison Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, each artist has chosen a particular space in which to realize and exhibit an individual work. With projects ranging from Katharina Grosse’s four-story spray painting in the Museum’s atrium to a multimedia presentation by Charles Sandison, the exhibition introduces an extraordinary dialogue between the art and the building’s architectural elements. Embrace! is organized by the Denver Art Museum and will be on view throughout the Hamilton Building November 14, 2009 to April 4, 2010.


“To realize 17 new works from such a talented list of artists is quite spectacular,” Heinrich said. “The artists are excited by the opportunity to work in an engaging and sculptural environment, and each has presented a very individual way to embrace the unique spaces inside the museum and communicate with the architecture. We look forward to seeing how their work will transform the museum and connect visitors with living, breathing artists.”

 

DAM has commissioned works from an international list of artists, ranging in age from early-30s to mid-70s, with projects encompassing painting, sculpture, drawing, new media and interactive works. The full list of Embrace! artists includes: El Anatsui (Nigeria/Ghana), Kristin Baker (U.S.), Matthew Brannon (U.S.), Rick Dula (U.S., Denver), Katharina Grosse (Germany), Christian Hahn (Germany), Nicola López (U.S.), John McEnroe (U.S., Denver), Rupprecht Matthies (Germany), Tobias Rehberger (Germany), Charles Sandison (Finland/U.K.), Dasha Shishkin (U.S./Russia), Shinique Smith (U.S.), Jessica Stockholder (U.S.), Timothy Weaver + eMAD (U.S., Denver), Lawrence Weiner (U.S.) and Zhong Biao (China).

 

“As we continue to explore the role of the artist in the museum setting, we have organized what promises to be an engaging and unexpected exhibition,” said DAM Director Lewis Sharp. “We are thrilled to be able to invest in new works and bring such a diverse and important group of contemporary artists to our community.”

 

Projects include a hyper-realistic, true-to-scale painting, created by Denver artist Rick Dula, which appears to penetrate the building and peel back the interior to expose the steel girders and underpinnings of the Hamilton Building. Renowned conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner’s sculptural wall installation will be mounted on a dramatic wall atop the 120-foot atrium. Perhaps the most visible and expansive installation, by Katharina Grosse, will feature airbrush painting that spans the four-story atrium and is visible from every floor.

 

The Denver Art Museum will present programming throughout Embrace! designed to break down traditional barriers between the artist and visitor. The museum has engaged the artists to develop and install their work throughout the Hamilton Building beginning this August, allowing visitors the unique opportunity to participate in the art-making process and witness the creation of influential contemporary works through a set of “installation insider moments.” Watch for alerts on these moments on our email newsletter, Art Mail, or follow the Denver Art Museum and Untitled on Twitter and Facebook for details on upcoming events.  


Embrace! Publication

The exhibition will be accompanied by a two-volume catalogue, the first of which will include two essays on the history of installation art and the curatorial premise of Embrace!, as well as an introduction to each of the 17 participating artists. The second volume will document the commissions as they are realized in the museum, from concept through installation, and the artists’ perspectives on the final works. The first volume of 120 pages will be available Nov. 14; the second volume of 140 pages will be developed and produced as the works are finalized this fall.


Embrace! is organized by the Denver Art Museum.
A special thank you to Kent and Vicki Logan and to the individual patrons of Embrace! who have sponsored the work of these artists. Support is provided by Accenture, the Denver Art Museum’s Technology Partner. Additional funding is provided by Avanade Inc., the citizens who support the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District, the generous donors to the Annual Fund Leadership Campaign, the LEF Foundation and the John G. Duncan Charitable Trust. Promotional support is provided by The Denver Post, CBS4 and 5280 Magazine.

 

Denver Art Museum

The Denver Art Museum is located on 13th Avenue between Broadway and Bannock streets in downtown Denver. Open Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Friday 10 a.m.-10 p.m., Sunday noon-5 p.m.; closed Mondays, the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day. Admission for Colorado residents: $10 adults, $8 seniors and students. Admission for non-Colorado residents: $13 for adults, $10 for seniors and students, $5 for visitors aged six to 18, free for children under six. The Cultural Complex Garage is open; enter from 12th Avenue between Broadway and Bannock or check the DAM website for up-to-date parking information. For information in Spanish, call 720-913-0169. For more information, visit www.denverartmuseum.org or call 720-865-5000.

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