Denver Art Museum (Photo courtesy Denver Art Museum)
Toni Ortivez
The Paw Print
Last Wednesday members of the Adams State Art Department ventured off to Denver to peruse through the Museum of Modern Art and the Denver Art Museum. Students paid $5 for the trip and left with professors early Wednesday morning for the one-day event.
The first stop of the trip was the Museum of Contemporary Art. The museum housed a number of artists that dabble in different media and aim for different reactions from the viewers; two artists were Hermann Nitsch and Allison Smith.
Nitsch’s exhibition “Bloodlines” was a study of spill paintings in which the artist spills or drips pigment onto a canvas. Nitsch spilled blood and pigment onto his canvases as an expression of religion and abstract expressionism.
Smith had two large pieces in the museum that called for the audience to participate. One was a large concave mirror structure that also reacted to sounds that the viewer created. The other piece was a large rug that the viewer could help weave.
The next stop, the Denver Art Museum, had two sections: the new section which houses special and short-term exhibits and the older section that holds the permanent exhibits that show art from around the world. The students were allowed to enter the museum and experience each exhibit at their own pace.
The two special exhibits that were the epitome of the visit were “Blink” and “Cities of Splendor: A Journey Through Renaissance Italy.” The “Blink” exhibit consisted of a number of artists that worked with digital media. Pieces in this exhibit consisted of neon lights and televisions screens, as well as interactive pieces that would only work properly if the audience participated.
The “Cities of Splendor: A Journey Through Renaissance Italy” had many classical pieces from artists such as Albrecht Dürer and Titian. These pieces were hundreds of years old, but still possessed the high quality of pieces painted during the past decade.
Among other exhibits in the newer part of the museum there were pieces by Richard Serra and Stacy Steers. Serra’s piece “Basic Maintenance” consisted of two large steel sheets that stood on their own with only one corner of each sheet touching the floor or the wall. These sheets were not fastened to each other or any other supporting structures.
Steers, a Colorado artist based out of Boulder, created a film, which consisted of scenes from silent films, hand-drawn images, and other auditory segments. The film entitled “Night Hunter” had little color in it and was a surreal and dream-like film that was placed in a large private section of the museum with chairs and bean bags to help the audience settle in and watch the film to its fullest extent.
Overall, the trip was a long journey to view artwork that has potential to inspire and influence many of the art students at Adams State College. These two museums were not only great for art students but would be a great investment to anyone who appreciates art and wants to see what the world has to offer outside of our own galleries.
What’s Been Said…