Creative-In-Residence: Warm Cookies of the Revolution
Evan Weissman and Chris Getzan brings, Warm Cookies of the Revolution (WCoR), into the DAM to examine voting and civic health from different perspectives.
Evan Weissman and Chris Getzan brings, Warm Cookies of the Revolution (WCoR), into the DAM to examine voting and civic health from different perspectives.
Artist Arthur Williams took inspiration from the museum collections to create site-specific installations and live performances.
You may have recently seen Scottish Angus Cow and Calf—the larger-than-life bronze sculptures by artist Dan Ostermiller—getting their annual summer bath. Above and beyond their cleaning with a specialized mild detergent, the Cow and Calf sculptures needed other treatments, including re-patination and waxing, due to the constant physical interaction they receive from the public.
This August, local floral artist Arthur Williams will be bringing Denver Art Museum spaces to life with his unique floral designs as creative-in-residence. Williams' work, which has been celebrated throughout Colorado, is especially notable for its transient, ephemeral quality. Inspired by Japanese wabi-sabi philosophy, Williams emphasizes the beauty of imperfection and impermanence in his creations.
Alternative hip hop group the Flobots focused their residency at the Denver Art Museum on visitors' emotional responses to the art.
"The curiosity package is only for the extra bold, with extra time, at no extra cost. The black cats don’t have answers, but they know where the questions are…." Curious? Good. That’s just the way the Flobots want it. The band is the latest Creative-in-Residence at the Denver Art Museum. Their residency, which runs May 2−May 29, will feature a “curiosity package” with installed elements and live programming to create a dialogue between visitors, artwork, and each other.
Power & Curiosity to the People
The highly realistic sculpture Linda by Colorado artist John DeAndrea has been a visitor favorite at the Denver Art Museum since it became a part of the collection in 1984. Linda is also an important work of contemporary art in which DeAndrea made innovative use of a material that was fairly new to art at the time: plastic. This is why Linda is of such interest to us in the museum’s conservation department. This is a material that has not yet stood the test of time, and we watch Linda carefully to understand how the plastic is aging.
Artist, composer, and musician Nathan Hall created music and sound pieces inspired by artworks in the DAM’s collection.
In preparation for Creative Crossroads: The Art of Tapestry (now closed), the museum’s staff have been working on a Spanish Colonial table cover in PreVIEW (a behind-the-scenes visible staging area in our textile art gallery).
Curators have examined it and explored its history, and textile art conservators have been testing and repairing the tapestry. Follow this series of blogs to track their progress.
Recently, the Denver Art Museum received a major grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to produce and document a series of six residencies. Over the next two years, the DAM will partner with creatives from a variety of disciplines to produce residencies that explore the many ways in which we connect with art.
Conservation treatment of King Caspar is almost finished. Having completed the structural portion of the treatment which included filling cracks, repairing broken elements, and stabilizing loose joints, I moved on to the aesthetic portion of the treatment. The goal of this part of the treatment was to unify the overall appearance by filling areas where the paint and/or gesso was lost to bring them to the same level as the surrounding surfaces.
My initial examination revealed that the sculpture of King Caspar was in poor condition. Many of the wooden joints were loose; some pieces were broken and missing. The paint and barniz chinesco surfaces were actively flaking and the sculpture was very grimy. In collaboration with curator Donna Pierce, I designed a treatment plan that will restore the structural stability of the sculpture so that it can be handled, studied, and displayed safely. We also decided to pursue aesthetic compensation so that it can be effectively understood as a devotional object.