Aspen Art Museum

Aspen Art Museum The Aspen Art Museum is a non-collecting institution presenting contemporary art. Free Entry Tue-Sun

The Aspen Art Museum is a non-collecting institution presenting the newest, most important evolutions in international contemporary art. Our innovative and timely exhibitions, education and public programs, immersive activities, and community happenings actively engage audiences in thought-provoking experiences of art, culture, and society.

“You think this is ugly? I think this is pretty. I’m going to show you that this has other ideas.” —Arch ConnellyBorn on...
05/12/2026

“You think this is ugly? I think this is pretty. I’m going to show you that this has other ideas.” —Arch Connelly

Born on this day in 1950 in Chicago, Arch Connelly moved to San Francisco after art school, where he designed sets for the Cockettes and Angels of Light before relocating to New York in 1980. There, he became a beloved fixture of the East Village, known for bridging the streetwise attitudes of downtown New York and San Francisco’s psychedelic utopianism.

Connelly’s practice across collage, sculpture, and painting draws upon historical traditions of Mannerism and the Baroque, challenging traditional distinctions between fine art and ornament. His representations of American landscapes recur as motifs imbued with mystique and glamour, expressed through transcendent form and heightened color.

Opening June 12, Aspen Art Museum presents Arch Connelly: Straighten Your Wig and Pray, the first museum survey dedicated to his work—including pieces unseen publicly for more than thirty-five years.

Announcing the participants for AIR 2026: Figures in a Landscape.Set in motion by Adrián Villar Rojas’s exhibition First...
04/28/2026

Announcing the participants for AIR 2026: Figures in a Landscape.

Set in motion by Adrián Villar Rojas’s exhibition First Gods, Lost Animals at Aspen Art Museum, AIR 2026 extends from museum to mountaintop, chapel to ranch, and theater to meadow. Figures in a Landscape is inspired by a title that recurs across literature, cinema, music, and painting, reflecting the interdisciplinary spirit of the program while naming an unstable relationship between subject and setting. The program examines the constructs of Aspen’s own landscape, a tapestry of raw wilderness and mediated environments, to question how acts of staging and human intervention shape understandings of place and power.

Additional details and registration to be released in the coming weeks. Learn more at airaspen.org

NOW ON VIEW: Keith Mayerson, The Silver Queen of Aspen Over Buttermilk, 1893/2026, 2026. Oil on linen. In 1892, Aspen ci...
04/17/2026

NOW ON VIEW: Keith Mayerson, The Silver Queen of Aspen Over Buttermilk, 1893/2026, 2026. Oil on linen.

In 1892, Aspen citizens pooled funds to construct an 18-foot sculpture of a woman in a chariot, flanked by Plutus, the Greek god of wealth, as cherub twins representing silver and gold. Built to champion the silver standard at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, the sculpture was mysteriously dismantled upon its return to Colorado and eventually lost when the building housing it closed in 1939.

Mayerson’s painting riffs on the fantastical appearance — and disappearance — of the infamous statue, depicting the sculpture mid-flight above Highland peak, a psychedelic image of prosperity. Channeling the Silver Surfer and the Maschinenmensch from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927), the Silver Queen returns as something between a UFO and an angel that looks out over a world of success that Aspen’s founders could never have imagined.

📍 Keith Mayerson: My American Dream (Rocky Mountain High) is on view through May 31, 2026.

In a new conversation for Art & Ideas, Keith Mayerson reflects on My American Dream (Rocky Mountain High)—a deeply perso...
04/06/2026

In a new conversation for Art & Ideas, Keith Mayerson reflects on My American Dream (Rocky Mountain High)—a deeply personal chapter in his decades-long project exploring American culture through image, remembrance, and myth.

Describing his exhibitions as unfolding like a nonlinear graphic novel, Mayerson turns here to Colorado and Aspen as cultural symbols and sites for memory-making. Drawing on sources ranging from family photographs to Snoopy and the Grateful Dead, his paintings treat images as a starting point—opening onto what he calls a “map for the unconscious.”

Tap the link in our bio to read the artist’s full conversation with Curator Simone Krug.

Keith Mayerson: My American Dream (Rocky Mountain High) is on view through May 31, 2026.

__

1. Photo by
3. Earth Snoopy, 2026. Acrylic on wood and steel. Photo: Paul Salveson
5. Copper Mountain Ski Passes, 1981-83 (from when the artist
was ages 15–16), 2026
7. Highlands Vista, 2026. Oil on linen. Courtesy the artist and Karma

Last chance: Jacqueline Humphries closes this Sunday, April 5.In dense, layered compositions that often conceal the proc...
04/02/2026

Last chance: Jacqueline Humphries closes this Sunday, April 5.

In dense, layered compositions that often conceal the process of their making, symbols, logos, emojis, and code mingle with brush marks, paint splatters, and drips, forging links between traditions of abstract painting and life cycles of technology. In her largest presentation of new and unseen work to date, Humphries aligns paintings with machines and emphasizes their unyielding capacity to reflect the drives and doubts of humans.

Plan your visit at the link in bio.

__

Installation view: Jacqueline Humphries, 2025. Photo by Dan Bradica.

03/05/2026

Now streaming: Werner Herzog at the Bluhm-Kaul Keynote, presented last summer at AIR.

Reflecting on over six decades of filmmaking, Herzog considers his idea of “ecstatic truth”—a poetic insight that transcends fact—and how it endures in a world shaped by artificial intelligence, deepfakes, and digital illusion. Drawing from the philosophical foundations of his forthcoming book The Future of Truth, he speaks to film as a vessel for awe, endurance, metaphysical inquiry, and empathy amid uncertainty.

Introduced by Hans Ulrich Obrist.

Watch the full keynote via the link in bio.

Titled Figures in a Landscape, AIR returns to Aspen this summer for its second edition. Join us in the mountains for a w...
02/26/2026

Titled Figures in a Landscape, AIR returns to Aspen this summer for its second edition. Join us in the mountains for a week of major new commissions and wide-ranging conversation. AIR 2026 program, featured artists, and more to follow soon.

AIR 2026: Figures in a Landscape
July 27–31

airaspen.org

An unforgettable winter evening 🕯️💘 🪩 Slopeside Soirée brought the Aspen community together for a celebratory winter nig...
02/17/2026

An unforgettable winter evening 🕯️💘 🪩

Slopeside Soirée brought the Aspen community together for a celebratory winter night of art, music, and raised glasses — all benefiting our year-round programming.

Presented with support by CADAR Fine Jewelry (), the soirée unfolded in true Aspen fashion, with flowing, caviar by , and DJ set by carrying us late into the night.

Thank you to our extraordinary Co-Chairs — Lauren Allday, Elizabeth Chung, Kelcee Corwin, Alexander Hankin, Makenzie Moon Phelan, and Ernie Poma — and to our dedicated Host Committee for making the celebration a success.

Special thanks to V***e Clicquot, Kemo Sabe (), Velour Medical (), Meredith Marks Caviar, and Lalo Spirits (); desserts by Rayo Events; wine generously donated by Marianne and Bill Powers; and entertainment underwritten by Deborah and Daniel Glass.

Your generosity makes moments like this, and the work we do throughout the year, possible.


📸 Nina Fernandez/BFA.com

02/13/2026

Now streaming: Aria Dean and Courtney J. Martin on Off-Modernism, presented at AIR 2025.

Thinking across art history, performance, and critical theory, they reflect on how modernism’s legacies continue to shape contemporary practice, questioning linear narratives of progress and exploring how artists can intervene in inherited aesthetic and ideological structures.

Watch the full dialogue via the link in bio.

02/12/2026

Now streaming: “The Layered Histories of Buildings” — a conversation with José Esparza Chong Cuy and Frida Escobedo, presented at AIR 2025.

Curator José Esparza Chong Cuy and architect Frida Escobedo explore how the built environment is formed through social use, considering buildings not as fixed entities, but as structures constantly reinterpreted through memory, inhabitation, and shifting political contexts. From archaeological landscapes to modernist housing and ephemeral pavilions, they discuss how architecture is ultimately shaped by the layered histories it holds, both personal and collective.

Watch the full conversation via the link in bio.

Address

637 E Hyman Avenue
Aspen, CO
81611

Opening Hours

Tuesday 10am - 6pm
Wednesday 10am - 6pm
Thursday 10am - 6pm
Friday 10am - 6pm
Saturday 10am - 6pm
Sunday 10am - 6pm

Telephone

+19709258054

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Aspen Art Museum posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Museum

Send a message to Aspen Art Museum:

Share

Category