Denver offers culture, education
Athletic activities, arts and education come together in a mixture that gives Denver its luster
Denver offers a wealth of activities to lure visitors: professional sports, water parks, amusement centers and outdoor activities galore in the nearby mountains.
Denver also boasts plenty of educational and cultural opportunities.
For instance, the Clyfford Still Museum (clyffordstillmuseum.org) presents an homage to the American artist who was an originator of the Abstract Expressionism movement.
The museum houses more than 3,000 pieces of Still’s art, which represents about 95 percent of the artist’s work, museum spokesman John Eding said.
“It’s the world’s most intact collection of an American artist,” he said.
After early commercial success at two New York City galleries in the 1940s, Still decried the commercial aspect of the business and instead focused on art for art’s sake.
“He didn’t appreciate the implications of the art world,” Eding said. “Still really believed that every artist’s voice should ring free and true. And he encouraged other artists that not only was art worthy to pursue as a career, but worth it. He had a voice in American culture that others could not carry.”
Upon his death, Still’s will decreed that all of his work would go to a city that agreed to dedicate a space to house and display only his art. Denver stepped up to do just that.
The museum, established in 2011, displays up to about 100 pieces of his work at one time, changing the display of the vast collection three times a year, Eding said.
The Denver Art Museum’s Frederic C. Hamilton Building (denverartuseum.org), is itself an architectural work of art that was designed by Daniel Libeskind.
The museum houses world-famous
Native American art, renowned traveling exhibits and hands-on children’s exhibits.
It was here that the traveling King Tut collection drew lines of admirers, spokeswoman Elle Welch said.
The current special exhibit was a labor of love bringing the works of relatively unknown female artists to “Women of Abstract Expressionism,” Welch said.
“It’s a pretty big deal,” she said. “It focuses on the way women would paint, gesture and process art, which is at the core of the abstract art movement.”
The exhibit, which will be open all summer, features 50 major pieces from such artists Mary Abbott, Jay DeFeo, Perle Fine, Helen Frankenthaler, Sonia Gecht-off, Judith Godwin, Grace Hartigan, Elaine de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell, Deborah Remington, and Ethel Schwabacher.
And next month, #dancelab opens to as an “immersive, participatory movement experience focuses on celebrating American dance,” Welch said.
Dancing is not exactly discouraged at the Denver Botanic Gardens (botanicgardens.org), either, spokeswoman Erin Bird said.
It offers yoga classes in a pastoral setting that are cheaper than normal entry fees.
The gardens are “one of the largest in the country,” Bird said. “And we are quite unique.”
It also features native Colorado plants as well as plants from around the world specifically adapted to Denver’s climate and elevation, she said.
That means plenty of hardy, droughtresistant plants.
“We’re working on conserving water,” she said. “That’s one of our major mission points.”
This year, the gardens also feature an outdoor sculpture exhibit on loan from a Minnesota museum. And several times a month in the summer, the sounds of music fill the air in an outdoor, graded, sloped amphitheater. The eclectic assortment includes jazz, reggae, adult contemporary, rock and folk.
Children may enjoy the interactive gardens, designed for high-energy, inquisitive minds, Bird said.
There are also plenty of hands-on displays for the curious at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (dmns.org).
“We love science and the natural world, and our passion here can spark curiosity in visitors of all ages,” said Jill Katzenberger, project coordinator. “We don’t just teach guests about science; we create experiences in science where everyone can leave with a personal story to share with their friends and families; such as ‘I met an astronaut today,’ or ‘I moved a ball with my mind,’ or ‘I held a real cockroach,’ ” project coordinator Jill Katzenberger said.
A temporary exhibit explores advances in robotics.
“Robots, created by human ingenuity, will ultimately be our companions and colleagues, changing how we play, live and work together,” she said. “Guests get to challenge a robot to tic-tac-toe, try a surgical training simulation to see what it is like to perform robotic surgery, and see a drone show performed live by our museum performers.”