Tag Archives: Denver Art Museum

The DAM Bursts with Surprises

Picture 9You don’t even have to step inside to see the art of the Denver Art Museum (a.k.a. the DAM): its ultramodern, extra-angular two-building exterior is a masterwork in itself, designed by world-famous architects Gio Ponti and Daniel Libeskind, respectively.

But once you do, you’ll discover a collection that’s remarkable for a mid-sized metropolis. While it runs the standard gamut from European painting to pre-Columbian artifacts, it’s especially strong in some unexpected areas, namely American Indian art and American graphic design.

But the biggest artistic surprise awaits in the bathroom: when you wash your hands, you’ll be treated to a round of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” courtesy of Jim Green’s notorious automatic singing sinks.

You Gotta Hear It to Believe It: Jim Green

In a city known for its idiosyncratic tastes in art—including not just one but two giant blue animal sculptures—local visionary Jim Green fits right in, notPicture 9 least for the fact that you can’t actually see his work. What you can do is hear it: take a ride (or two) on his Laughing Escalator at the Colorado Convention Center; wash your hands in his Singing Sinks at the Denver Art Museum; pace the intersection of 15th and Curtis until you hear the whistles and hoofbeats of his Soundwalk rising up from the pavement grates.

Green’s recorded installations defamiliarize the mundane environment through which we usually move so thoughtlessly, startling us into laughter—and his exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, continuing through January 3, 2010, is no different, centering as it does on whoopee cushions.