Current Exhibitions
Current 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.