Established | 1996 |
---|---|
Location | 1485 Delgany Street Denver, Colorado |
Coordinates | 39°45′09″N105°00′14″W / 39.7525°N 105.004°W Coordinates: 39°45′09″N105°00′14″W / 39.7525°N 105.004°W |
Type | Contemporary art museum |
Website | mcadenver.org |
The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA Denver), in Denver, Colorado, was founded in 1996 as the first dedicated home for contemporary art in the city of Denver. For seven years, MCA Denver occupied a renovated fish market in Sakura Square in lower downtown Denver. [1]
MCA Denver was founded in 1996, when philanthropist Sue Cannon and a group of volunteers (such as Marina Graves, Mark Sink, Dale Chisman and Lawrence Argent) created the first dedicated home for contemporary art in the city of Denver. For seven years, MCA Denver occupied a renovated fish market in Sakura Square in lower downtown Denver.
In 2003, developer Mark Falcone and designer Ellen Bruss, members of MCA Denver's Board of Trustees, donated land in Denver's Platte Valley – which was later appraised at $1.5 million – to facilitate the building of a permanent building. [2] The Board subsequently started an $18.6 million capital campaign in June 2005 and assembled a committee that gathered interest from 47 architects, selecting 6 finalists. [3] In a public process, each architect was required to give a lecture to the community. [3]
In October 2007, under the directorship of Cydney Payton, MCA Denver opened its new, 27,000-square foot, environmentally sustainable facility in lower downtown Denver designed by architect David Adjaye of Adjaye Associates (UK). [1] The building, Adjaye's first museum commission, was designed to minimize boundaries between the exterior spaces of the city and the interior galleries of the museum. Hidden skylights fill the interior spaces with natural light, and large windows look out on the city streets. The building has five galleries as well as dedicated education spaces, a shop, library and rooftop cafe.
In March 2009, Adam Lerner was appointed as the director of MCA Denver. Lerner had previously been working at The Lab in Belmar, an institution that offered modern art as well as lectures and interactive activities. [4] Upon Lerner's move to MCA Denver, the Boards of Trustees agreed to merge the two institutions.
In August 2019, Nora Burnett Abrams was appointed as the new Mark G. Falcone Director of MCA Denver.
There is no permanent collection at MCA Denver. [5] Exhibitions are on view for a period of 2–4 months, and are rotated about 3-4 times a year.
Some of the artists who have exhibited at MCA Denver include: Tatiana Blass, Brian Bress, Damien Hirst, Jonas Burgert, David Altmejd, Chris Ofili, Wangetchi Mutu, Lorraine O'Grady, Jane Hammond, Dana Schutz, Paul Sietsema, Mark Mothersbaugh, Tara Donovan, and others. [6]
The brainchild of Elissa Auther and Gillian Silverman — Feminism & CO at The Lab at Belmar — was incorporated into MCA Denver programming when the two organizations officially merged. As a program unique to MCA Denver, there are no other dedicated programs in any museum in the United States that specifically references the intersection of feminism and contemporary art. [7]
MCA Denver is also managed by a Board of Trustees, which is currently chaired by Michael Fries.
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art. The museum's current collection includes over 33,000 works of painting, sculpture, photography, architecture, design, and media arts, and moving into the 21st century. The collection is displayed in 170,000 square feet (16,000 m2) of exhibition space, making the museum one of the largest in the United States overall, and one of the largest in the world for modern and contemporary art.
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) is a contemporary art museum with two locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near the Walt Disney Concert Hall. MOCA's original space, initially intended as a "temporary" exhibit space while the main facility was built, is now known as the Geffen Contemporary, in the Little Tokyo district of downtown Los Angeles. Between 2000 and 2019, it operated a satellite facility at the Pacific Design Center facility in West Hollywood.
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., the United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was designed by architect Gordon Bunshaft and is part of the Smithsonian Institution. It was conceived as the United States' museum of contemporary and modern art and currently focuses its collection-building and exhibition-planning mainly on the post–World War II period, with particular emphasis on art made during the last 50 years.
The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago is a contemporary art museum near Water Tower Place in downtown Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The museum, which was established in 1967, is one of the world's largest contemporary art venues. The museum's collection is composed of thousands of objects of Post-World War II visual art. The museum is run gallery-style, with individually curated exhibitions throughout the year. Each exhibition may be composed of temporary loans, pieces from their permanent collection, or a combination of the two.
The Denver Art Museum (DAM) is an art museum located in the Civic Center of Denver, Colorado. With encyclopedic collections of more than 70,000 diverse works from across the centuries and world, the DAM is one of the largest art museums between the West Coast and Chicago. It is known for its collection of American Indian art, as well as The Petrie Institute of Western American Art, which oversees the Museum’s Western art collection. and its other collections of more than 70,000 diverse works from across the centuries and world. The Museum’s iconic Martin Building was designed by famed Italian architect Gio Ponti in 1971.
The Studio Museum in Harlem is an American art museum devoted to the work of artists of African descent. The Museum’s galleries are currently closed in preparation for a building project that will replace the current building, located at 144 West 125th Street between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and Lenox Avenue in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, with a new one on the same site. Founded in 1968, the museum collects, preserves and interprets art created by African Americans, members of the African diaspora, and artists from the African continent. Its scope includes exhibitions, artists-in-residence programs, educational and public programming, and a permanent collection.
MoMA PS1 is one of the largest art institutions in the United States dedicated solely to contemporary art. It is located in Court Square in the Long Island City neighborhood in the borough of Queens, New York City. In addition to its exhibitions, the institution organizes the Sunday Sessions performance series, the Warm Up summer music series, and the Young Architects Program with the Museum of Modern Art. MoMA PS1 has been affiliated with the Museum of Modern Art since January 2000 and, as of 2013, attracts about 200,000 visitors a year.
The Denver Public Library is the public library system of the City and County of Denver, Colorado. The system includes the Denver Central Library, located in the Golden Triangle district of Downtown Denver, as well as 25 branch locations and two bookmobiles. The library's collection totals more than 2 million items, including books, reference materials, movies, music, and photographs. Of that total, more than 347,000 items are in specific collections including the Western History and Genealogy Department, Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library, and Reference Department holdings.
The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA), located on George Street in Sydney's The Rocks neighbourhood, is solely dedicated to exhibiting, interpreting, and collecting contemporary art, from across Australia and around the world. It is the only contemporary art museum in Australia with a permanent collection. The museum is housed in the Stripped Classical/Art Deco-styled former Maritime Services Board Building on the western side of Circular Quay. A modern wing was added in 2012.
Claire Zeisler was an American fiber artist who expanded the expressive qualities of knotted and braided threads, pioneering large-scale freestanding sculptures in this medium. Throughout her career Zeisler sought to create "large, strong, single images" with fiber. Zeisler's non-functional structures were constructed using traditional weaving and avant-garde off the loom techniques such as square knotting, wrapping, and stitching. Zeisler preferred to work with natural materials such as jute, sisal, raffia, hemp, wool, and leather. The textiles were often left un-dyed, evidence of Zeisler's preference for natural coloration that emphasized the fiber itself. When she used color, however, Zeisler gravitated towards red.
Hans Ulrich Obrist is a Swiss art curator, critic and historian of art. He is artistic director at the Serpentine Galleries, London. Obrist is the author of The Interview Project, an extensive ongoing project of interviews. He is also co-editor of the Cahiers d'Art review.
Sir David Frank Adjaye is a Ghanaian-British architect. He is known for having designed many notable buildings around the world, including the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. Adjaye was knighted in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to architecture. He is the recipient of the 2021 Royal Gold Medal, making him the first African recipient and one of the youngest recipients.
The Laboratory of Art and Ideas at Belmar was a contemporary art institution located in Lakewood, a suburb on the western boundary of Denver, Colorado. Founded by Executive Director Adam Lerner, The Lab at Belmar was a 104-acre (0.42 km2) mixed-use residential and commercial urban neighborhood located in Lakewood. Operating in a storefront in Belmar since May 2004, The Lab opened in a dedicated space at Belmar in fall 2006. In March 2009 The Lab merged with MCA Denver, and Adam Lerner became Director of MCA Denver. In May 2009 the Belmar location was closed and its programming was integrated into MCA Denver.
Adam Lerner is the JoAnn McGrath Executive Director/CEO of Palm Springs Art Museum, a position he assumed in July 2021. In this capacity, he oversees the museum's permanent collection of over 12,000 art objects including the Architecture and Design Center, Edwards Harris Pavilion, and Frey House II. Formerly, he was the Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver and Chief Animator in the Department of Fabrications. He was the founder and Executive Director of The Laboratory of Art and Ideas at Belmar until The Lab merged with the MCA Denver in March 2009.
The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum is located in Ridgefield, Connecticut. The Aldrich has no permanent collection and is the only museum in Connecticut that is dedicated solely to the exhibition of contemporary art. The museum presents the first solo museum exhibitions by emerging artists, significant exhibitions of established and mid-career artists whose work is under recognized, thematic group exhibitions exploring topics in contemporary art and society, and newly commissioned work.
Sara Fitzmaurice is Founder and President of FITZ & CO, the world's leading public relations firm specializing in the contemporary art world. FITZ & CO's unique area of expertise is international media relations, strategic positioning and planning, audience development, sponsorship development and special events.
Elizabeth A. T. Smith is an American art historian, museum curator, writer, and presently the executive director of the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation. She has formerly held positions as a curator at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), the chief curator and deputy director of programs at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and the executive director, curatorial affairs, at the Art Gallery of Ontario. She is the author of numerous books on art and architecture, including Blueprints for Modern Living: History and Legacy of the Case Study Houses; Lee Bontecou: A Retrospective, Helen Frankenthaler: Composing with Color, 1962–63, and many others.
Mary Madeline "May" Bonfils Stanton was an American heiress and philanthropist. She and her younger sister, Helen Bonfils, succeeded their father, Frederick Gilmer Bonfils, as principal owners of The Denver Post. However, May's elopement at age 21 with a non-Catholic salesman had forged a rift in her relationship with her parents and sister that worsened when Helen inherited the majority of their parents' estates. Following a three-year legal battle over the inheritance, the sisters cut off all communication with each other. May married twice but did not have children. Living a reclusive life, she invested her fortune into building and furnishing her 750-acre (300 ha) estate in Lakewood, Colorado – which included a mansion that was an exact replica of Marie Antoinette's Petit Trianon château in Versailles – and into many philanthropic endeavors in the state of Colorado. The Bonfils–Stanton Foundation, established by her second husband after her death in 1962, continues to support the arts in Colorado. She was posthumously inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 1985.
Mark Sink is an American photographer best known for romantic portraiture. Some of his most recognizable images include documentation of life and work of artists such as Andy Warhol, Jean Michel Basquiat, Rene Ricard and other artists from the New York art scene of the 1980s, before returning to Denver. Mark Sink has been exhibiting his work professionally since 1978 to the present day from street art, commercial galleries, museums and other institutions.
Mike Fries is Chief Executive Officer and Vice Chairman of Liberty Global, an international television and broadband company. He was a founding member of the management team that launched the Company’s international expansion.