From July 31 through August 5, the Aspen Art Museum hosted three days of performances, talks, and celebrations of art, culminating in the annual ArtCrush summer gala on Friday, August 4.
This year, artist Nairy Baghramian was honored with the 2023 Aspen Award for Art, coinciding with her major solo exhibition, Jupon de Corps at the museum.
The 18th edition of ArtWeek included a special immersive multi-sensory installation by artist Matt Copson deep in the belly of Aspen’s Smuggler Mine, drawing from the mine’s organic and built architectures to create a singular audiovisual world, with a soundscape by composer Oliver Leith; and an intimate live set performed on the Museum Rooftop by singer and songwriter Alice Smith, accompanied by pianist Dennis Hamm.
Following major performances at New York City’s MoMA PS1 and Melbourne’s Rising Festival, as well as Aspen Art Museum’s own 2023 Youth Art Expo, art collective Poncili Creación returned to Aspen with a newly commissioned nighttime puppetry performance, staged in the powerful mountainous landscape at Anderson Park Meadow at the Aspen Institute.
Talks included a conversation at Art Barn between Ian Cheng and Daniel Merritt, Aspen Art Museum Director of Curatorial Affairs; a panel discussion between ArtCrush honoree Nairy Baghramian, Hans Ulrich Obrist, curator and Artistic Director at the Serpentine Galleries, London, and Nicola Lees, Nancy and Bob Magoon Director of the Aspen Art Museum; a conversation between collector and philanthropist Komal Shah and Sarah Douglas, Editor-in-Chief of ARTnews and Art in America; and a panel discussion on the making of Aspen Art Museum’s program, A Lover’s Discourse, between participating artists Guglielmo Castelli, Chase Hall, Stanislava Kovalcikova, and Zeinab Saleh, led by the museum’s Curator-at-Large, Stella Bottai.
