Summer in Aspen: an art lover’s essential guide

There’s something in the mountain air of Aspen — a creative spirit that pervades the city whose enchanting cultural offerings are set amidst an awe-inspiring landscape. ‘Some of the most talented and influential thinkers pass through this small but mighty community,’ Sarah Arison, president of Arison Arts Foundation and co-chair of Aspen ArtCrush 2024, tells Christie’s. ‘Some stay for days, others much longer, but the exchanges that happen as a result of this cultural mingling are transformative.’

Since 2005, ArtCrush, Aspen Art Museum’s annual summer gala and auction — this year supported by Christie’s — has made late July the prime time for creative minds to congregate in the Colorado city. With 2024 marking the museum’s 45th anniversary, plus the exciting debut of Aspen Art Fair, Aspen ArtWeek promises to be bigger and better than ever. From 30 July through 3 August, artist conversations, performances and more events will take the town, which has become a thriving year-round cultural destination. This year’s highlights range from a mountaintop concert to a hike led by the German artist Lena Henke, who currently has a solo show on the Aspen Art Museum’s roof.

Below, discover Aspen’s cultural hot spots and what each has in store for the upcoming ArtWeek.

ArtCrush

On 2 August, Aspen ArtWeek will culminate in ArtCrush, which this year for the first time will bestow its Aspen Award for Art on three creative visionaries: artist Jacqueline Humphries, composer and artist Jason Moran and architect Shigeru Ban, who designed the museum’s current building 10 years ago. In addition to dinner and dancing, the highly anticipated gala will include two auctions. Adrien Meyer, Christie’s Global Head of Private Sales and Co-Chairman of Impressionist & Modern Art, will lead a live auction during ArtCrush, while a second auction will run from 25 July to 3 August on Christie’s online.

‘The auction really has the power to transform Aspen Art Museum — each lot is a force. We’re bringing together some of the brightest lights in contemporary art to ensure the vitality of the museum,’ says Jen Rubio, co-founder of Away. Along with her husband Stewart Butterfield, as well as fellow art patrons Sarah Arison and Thomas Wilhelm, Charlie Pohlad and Jack Carter, and Eleanore and Domenico De Sole, she will co-chair ArtCrush this year. Available works, including paintings by Humphries, Allison Katz and Naudline Pierre, amongst other art and experiences, will be on view through 3 August.

Aspen Art Museum

Describing Aspen’s unique art scene, Charlie Pohlad, Principal at Pohlad Investment Management, tells Christie’s: ‘Because we exist outside of a major art centre, artists are free to experiment in ways they might not if they were in New York or London or Hong Kong. The presence of nature and the vastness of the landscape influences this spirit of freedom and inventiveness.’

Testifying to this is Aspen Art Museum, which currently has three shows on view. Juxtaposing the building’s gridded architecture, Berlin-based artist Nairy Baghramian’s bulbous sculptures in Sitzengebliebene (Stay Downers) fill the museum’s public commons. (Baghramian was the 2023 recipient of the Aspen Award for Art.) On the museum’s rooftop, Lena Henke: You and your vim presents four of the New York-based artist’s works in oil on laser-etched leather, as well as a monumental bronze outlining a female figure through which the city’s alpine backdrop can be seen.

For the museum’s anniversary exhibition, the London-based Canadian artist Allison Katz has curated In the House of the Trembling Eye. In collaboration with the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, the expansive exhibition incorporates works borrowed from private art collections in and around Aspen. Illustrating unexpected affinities between objects made centuries apart, contents range from ancient fresco fragments to contemporary painting and sculpture.

Anderson Ranch Arts Center

Since 1966, Anderson Ranch Arts Center has served as the artistic and cultural hub of the town of Snowmass Village. Just 15 minutes from Aspen, visitors can explore the five-acre campus that includes rotating contemporary art shows at its Patton-Malott Gallery, an ongoing outdoor sculpture exhibition and a beloved café.

The highlight is the Center’s studios, which offer 55,000 square feet of space to its year-round artists-in-residence as well as for guest workshops and events. Everyone from children and teens to experienced practitioners are welcome to partake in the Center’s myriad disciplines, whether photography, woodworking or digital fabrication.

Aspen Art Fair

Aspen ArtWeek 2024 will kick off on 29 July with the debut of Aspen Art Fair, featuring 30 international exhibitors and curatorial projects from more than 12 countries. Through 2 August, the fair will showcase local galleries, including Casterline Goodman, Galerie Maximillian and Hexton Gallery, alongside international powerhouses like Perrotin.

It will take place at the Hotel Jerome, an Aspen icon that opened in 1889 at the height of the town’s silver boom. Despite the hotel’s luxe interiors and historic pedigree, guests are welcome to come as they are, whether fresh from a morning hike or in the winter, straight off the slopes. The hotel’s serene garden is also not to be missed.

Aspen Institute

A force in the thought leadership space, the Aspen Institute aims to address the world’s most complex issues, from healthcare and the environment to education and culture, in its namesake town and around the globe. The Aspen Meadows campus has hosted countless diverse creatives, scholars and public figures for stimulating talks and events.

Over the last year Christie’s has partnered with the Aspen Institute on a series of Art as Advocacy symposia, first in Houston, followed by Palm Beach. The third and final event, consisting of panels on Art and Diplomacy and Art as Advocacy, will take place in Aspen on 22 July. Amongst the participating speakers are Ambassador Patrick Gaspard, president and CEO of the Center for American Progress, as well as the artist Eric Gottesman, who cofounded the art and civic initiative For Freedoms.

Resnick Center for Herbert Bayer Studies

Operated by the Aspen Institute, the Resnick Center for Herbert Bayer Studies preserves the legacy of Herbert Bayer (1900–1985), an influential modern artist and designer who studied and taught at the Bauhaus before emigrating from Germany to the United States in 1938. After relocating to Colorado in 1946, Bayer became a major player in Aspen’s post-war revitalisation, contributing to the Aspen Institute’s early vision and designing its Aspen Meadows campus between 1953 and 1973.

Today visitors to the exhibition space and study centre are greeted by the artist’s Chromatic Gates, whose primary colour palette is quintessentially Bauhaus. For more graphic inspiration from the movement, the centre is currently presenting Bauhaus Typography at 100, which features work by Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky and more.

Galleries Galore

There’s no shortage of galleries to visit in Aspen, and although many will have booths at the fairs (both Aspen Art Fair and Intersect Aspen Art and Design Fair) during Aspen ArtWeek, their brick-and-mortar locations are well worth stopping by. Some will present special exhibitions during the week. For example, from 26 July to 2 September, Baldwin Gallery will stage shows dedicated to New York-based artists Mickalene Thomas and E.V. Day. For design new and old, New York’s contemporary collectible design gallery R & Company and New Orleans’ prestigious antiques gallery M.S. Rau are both hosting pop-ups in town.

Interested in discovering local talent? Author and filmmaker Daniel Joseph ‘D.J.’ Watkins opened Aspen Collective this spring in the historic Wheeler Opera House. He’s also the curator of Fat City Gallery, which displays political posters and contemporary art. For guided gallery hopping, follow Aspen Art Walk to stay up to date on its curated tours.