Latest news with #DenverArtMuseum
CBS News
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- CBS News
A historic merger in Denver's art scene: The Kirkland joins the Denver Art Museum
On Sunday, July 27, the Denver Art Museum (DAM) and the Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art commemorated their official merger with a vibrant Block Party celebration marking a new era of creativity, accessibility, and community engagement. The free, family-friendly event welcomed visitors with hands-on artmaking, music, food trucks, shopping, and open access to both museums. But beyond the festivities, the day symbolized something much bigger: the full integration of the Kirkland Museum into the DAM campus and programming. "This has been a really good exchange between the two groups," said Merle Chambers, Co-Founder of The Kirkland. "As a smaller museum, we didn't have everything we needed to make it better. Now we do." The merger brings with it more than 35,000 objects from the Kirkland's extensive collection, boosting DAM's permanent holdings by roughly 30%. Visitors who purchase a ticket to the Denver Art Museum can now access The Kirkland as well, breaking down cost and accessibility barriers for art lovers of all ages. That shift is already making an impact. Lauren Potter, who visited from Texas with her young son, said discovering the Kirkland during their summer trip to Denver was an unexpected highlight. "Where we are in Texas, not only are the arts kind of under attack, but they're almost nonexistent," she said. "It's a really neat thing to bring kids to the museum and have it be a friendly, accessible experience." The Kirkland now features greater accessibility for families, including improvements to accommodate small children, something it previously lacked. Potter said she appreciated how the newly integrated space invites kids into the creative world in a hands-on, welcoming way. "We pretended like we were shopping for our house," she laughed. "It's been so kid-friendly, especially for a kid who loves the arts."
Axios
05-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Axios
6 fun festivals happening around Denver this weekend
Watch more than 200 artists transform city streets into vibrant masterpieces at this year's Denver Chalk Art Festival. Zoom in: The annual event, held around the Golden Triangle Creative District, will feature five artists who have been crafting their chalk art mastery for decades. They include pastel portrait specialist Dawn Wagner, award-winning artist Julie Kirk Purcell and Denver-based Chris Carlson, whose 3D creations double as optical illusions. Zoom out: Food vendors and beverage booths will be sprinkled throughout the festival site on Bannock between 11th and 13th avenues. If you go: The family-friendly event is free and runs this Saturday and Sunday. Nearby landmarks include the Denver Art Museum, Kirkland Museum, Clyfford Still Museum, Evans School and Leven Deli. Preferred parking is on the 2nd and 3rd levels of the Dryden Garage at 1140 Bannock St. Use the discount code "CHALK" to save $3. More fun festivals this weekend 🇬🇷 The Denver Greek Festival will be held at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral Friday through Sunday. Enjoy authentic Greek food and wine, music and art, as well as live dancing and performances. Tickets are $5. 🥬 VegFest Colorado takes over the Auraria Campus on Sunday, featuring more than a dozen vendors serving plant-based meals. Vendors include Southern Fried Vegan, the Savage Beet and Boujee Biscuit. Tickets start at $10. 🎭 Denver Fringe Festival, which supports independent performing artists, will highlight over 70 avant-garde performances including queer burlesque, solo clown acts and interactive theater. The fest is held across numerous venues in RiNo and Five Points. Tickets start at $20.
Axios
22-05-2025
- Business
- Axios
DIA tickets are cheaper than other cities' museums
The $20 ticket price for the Detroit Institute of Arts is on the affordable side when compared to museums in other big cities. The big picture: The Denver Art Museum quietly raised prices by more than 20%, our colleagues at Axios Denver noticed this month. Denver's price hike puts it in line with other big-city museums charging more than $20 for admission. Zoom in: Detroiters and other residents of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties get free admission to the DIA by showing their ID. The access comes in exchange for a property tax millage that's been in place since 2012 to fund the museum. General admission for adults outside the tri-county area is $20. Discounts are available for college students, older adults and those between 6–17. Children 5 and under get in free. Context: The DIA's most recent price increase was last July, when general admission prices went from $18 to $20, Adam Pattison, the museum's director of visitor experience, tells Axios.
Axios
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Axios
The Denver Art Museum (quietly) raised its prices
It's not just the artwork turning heads at the Denver Art Museum — it's the tickets, too. Why it matters: General admission, particularly on weekends, now rivals prices at some of the country's most prestigious institutions, despite Denver's museum being smaller in scale and collection. Driving the news: The DAM raised its prices last fall, spokesperson Andy Sinclair tells us, three years after completing a $175 million renovation. The move largely flew under the radar, but now some visitors are raising an eyebrow. What they're saying: "I've been to the DAM a bunch growing up. ... I don't remember it ever being something that made me think twice about cost," one user recently posted on the Denver Reddit channel, sparking a conversation about pricing. By the numbers: In-state weekday admission for adults has jumped from $18 to $22 — a 22% increase. On Fridays through Sundays, it's $25. Out-of-state visitors now pay $27 on weekdays instead of $22, and $30 on Fridays through Sundays. Between the lines: That puts DAM's peak out-of-state admission on par with The Met in New York City — the most visited and arguably most iconic art institution in the country. Context: The DAM says the increase reflects rising costs and the value of its programming. DAM compared admission costs across museums and entertainment venues to select pricing that's in line with peer institutions nationally and locally, Sinclair says.
Winnipeg Free Press
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Victorious milestone
Miss Chief Eagle Testickle likes to show up without invitation. In Kent Monkman's vision, the two-spirit trickster intrudes semi-nude on the Fathers of Confederation as they plot the British colonies' future. She replaces Washington, clad in drag, during the Delaware crossing. These are the sorts of provocations, captured in massive paintings with the exquisite technique of the Old Masters, that's made Monkman one of Canada's most celebrated (and infamous) artists. KENT MONKMAN Kent Monkman's Miss Chief's Wet Dream, 2018 KENT MONKMAN And as of a couple of weeks ago, Miss Chief has taken up space in another distinguished setting — this time, with a friendly invitation. History Is Painted by the Victors (to Aug. 17) at the Denver Art Museum marks the first major American exhibit for the artist from Fisher River Cree Nation who grew up in Winnipeg. The show is represented in a sumptuous hardcover book, an exhibition catalogue by the same name, that can be purchased online. 'The exhibit's quite a milestone in my career,' says Monkman. 'They're behind (in the U.S.) in terms of some conversations around Indigenous people, but they're moving forward and Indigenous contemporary art is really starting to get some traction.' Monkman now splits his time between Toronto and New York. At 59, he's still youthful, debonair even, and seems to be entering the golden era of an already illustrious career. RUTH BONNEVILLE / FREE PRESS FILES Acclaimed Fisher River Cree Nation artist Kent Monkman's work takes aim at the art world as much as the social world. RUTH BONNEVILLE / FREE PRESS FILES From 2019 to '21, two monumental works of his greeted visitors to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, thanks to a commission for their Great Hall — some of the most coveted real estate of any art gallery in the world. Since then, demand — and auction records — for Monkman's work have soared and glowing references have piled up in the New York Times, Guardian and international art press. But the artist, who's still exhibited regularly in Winnipeg (notable recent examples include the WAG-Qaumajuq's blockbuster Kent Monkman show, Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience, in 2019-20), has not left his hometown simply in his rearview window. The spectre of the Prairies looms large in his work. 'It's important to give locality to his work as Kent references Winnipeg and Manitoba a lot,' says Adrienne Huard, a Winnipeg-based Anishinaabe curator and scholar (who uses they/them pronouns). They contributed a chapter to the Denver exhibit catalogue about the Canadian Prairies' influence on Monkman. 'And I think there are quite a few important conversations that are happening here, including around MMIWG2S (missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit) and two-spiritedness, whereas other places aren't quite there yet.' KENT MONKMAN Le Petit déjeuner sur l'herbe, 2014. Monkman's art frequently references Winnipeg and Manitoba. KENT MONKMAN History Is Painted by the Victors is something of a retrospective of a career still in bloom. It covers 20 odd years of artmaking after Monkman turned away from abstraction in the early 2000s towards his signature history and landscape painting style. 'Normally I'm kind of involved as a curator, but this was a very different project,' says Monkman. '(Curator John Lukavic) assembled works in an order that he felt represented different themes in my work, with the idea of introducing my work, in many ways, to the American audience.' This includes, among other things, selections from his Urban Res series from roughly 10 years ago, depicting Winnipeg's North End. Tattooed Renaissance angels, buffalo, bears, police and escaped prisoners collide in scenes unfolding along Sutherland Avenue and Main Street while Miss Chief, Monkman's alter ego, bears witness. KENT MONKMAN The Deposition. KENT MONKMAN The Deposition. In one work, Le Petit déjeuner sur l'herbe, modernist, Picasso-like feminine figures lie scattered along the street in front of Winnipeg's New West Hotel. 'There's a brutality to Picasso's style (depicting women),' says Huard. 'And this scenery reflects the violence that Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit peoples face. They've been discarded, hypersexualized.' Monkman's work takes aim at the art world as much as the social world, and these critiques intersect where modernism is concerned. He's connected modernism — with its ideas of progress and innovation — in the visual arts with the colonial project of modernizing Turtle Island by violent force. This has helped inspire him to rediscover more traditional European styles, like history painting, pooh-poohed by Picasso and the modernists. 'It's such a sophisticated visual language that was essentially discarded by the modernists,' says Monkman. 'I want to use it to convey Indigenous experiences, both contemporary and historical. We have this whole universe and our cosmologies weren't conveyed or understood… I want to find a language enabling me to reach the widest audience possible.' KENT MONKMAN Seeing Red, 2014. KENT MONKMAN Seeing Red, 2014. The irony that history painting has its own Eurocentric trappings isn't lost on Monkman or his scholars. But as Huard reflects, this sort of tension speaks to the experience of Winnipeg Indigenous artists and communities in general. 'I think we're allowed to critique colonial structures,' Huard says, 'and also participate within those structures.' After its spring run at the Denver Art Museum, History is Painted by the Victors travels to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and will be open to the public from Sept. 27 to March 8, 2026. Conrad SweatmanReporter Conrad Sweatman is an arts reporter and feature writer. Before joining the Free Press full-time in 2024, he worked in the U.K. and Canadian cultural sectors, freelanced for outlets including The Walrus, VICE and Prairie Fire. Read more about Conrad. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
