DAM, I Love You

I've got this week off work (yay!) and so I decided to take myself out for the morning yesterday to visit the Denver Art Museum, and specifically to see the Hamilton Building extention.

The Denver Art Museum became a lightning rod in our city when the North Building was constructed in 1971. The architect, Gio Ponti, creative a massive grey structure with 57 sides. As a kid, I thought it was one of the coolest things ever, but not all agreed. Today, it's not so controversial anymore, and just a few weeks ago, the expansion wing, the Hamilton Building, opened to the public.

The Hamilton Building, designed by architect Daniel Libeskind, is an amazing counter-point to the North Building. I wish I had photos that did both buildings justice, but you'll just have to come to Denver to see for yourself. I spent hours looking at walls (sans art...), angles, architectural features, and out of windows.

Funny, but most people go to an art museum for what's inside. I went for the building. Denver has a nice collection, sure enough, but we're no Art Institute or Metropolitan Museum of Art. I guess I've gotten spoiled in all of my traveling. We do have an amazing collection of Native American art, as well as an impressive collection of Pre-Columbian and Spanish Colonial art, both of which I went to visit. They own some amazing Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) pieces, but sadly, only one was on display yesterday.


My favorite area in any museum is the modern art. Mark Rothko makes me weak in the knees, as do so many other modern artists. DAM is no Tate Modern or MOMA, but there are some impressive pieces--housed in the Hamilton Building--nonetheless. I love texture and light and I love the way the moderns capture both. The Impressionist and Post-Impressionist areas at DAM are very small, but I have to remind myself that Native American (and Western) art is what our museum is known for.

I hadn't visited the Native American floor in years, and I'm glad I took the time yesterday. There are so many new, contemporary artists being highlighted that it was a treat to find a surprise where I didn't expect one.

Here are a few shots from my day. Normally, I love shooting on a grey day, but these buildings really need Denver's stunning blue sky behind them to do them justice. None of these shots are great, but you get the idea, I suppose.



And this last shot was taken out of one of the thousands of glass bricks in the North Building. It's a shot looking north to our State Capitol and the Denver Public Library.