Must-See Art & Museum Exhibitions

Discover why The Mile High City is the place to be when it comes to incredible arts and culture. You'll see blockbuster museum exhibitions on a rotating basis at world-class cultural institutions. For people with disabilities and their caregivers, see the accessibility information.

Museum Updates | Blockbuster Exhibitions | This Month | IMAX & Planetarium |
Long-Term Exhibitions | Coming Soon

Museum Updates

Denver's arts scene is shining brighter than ever with some key openings and reopenings. Denver Art Museum recently celebrated the reopening of the Martin Building (formerly known as the North Building). First opened in 1971, the building was designed by Italian architect Gio Ponti and Denver-based James Sudler Associates. The building has been fully renovated with expanded gallery space, plus stunning views of the city skyline and Rocky Mountains. The building showcases Asian art, Indigenous arts of North America, Northwest Coast and Alaska Native, European and American art before 1900, Latin American and art of the ancient Americas, photography, textile art and fashion, and Western American art collections.

And for a truly unforgettable experience for all ages, check out Meow Wolf Denver's Convergence Station, the Santa Fe, New Mexico-based arts and entertainment company’s new permanent installation. Discover immersive, mind-bending art across the four alien worlds of C Street, Eemia, Ossuary and Numina. Uncover the secrets within. Inside the bustling multiverse transit station known as Convergence Station lies HELLOFOOD, an oasis of combined culinary cultures serving QDOT for 2,500 years and counting! Here, visitors can recharge from their cosmic exploration, and find sustenance in tasty treats and bold brews from local vendors.

Blockbuster Exhibitions

Spotlight: Inside Collections Care and Conservation

WHEN: Thru April 28, 2024
WHERE: Clyfford Still Museum
This unique exhibition highlights how the Clyfford Still Museum stewards and preserves its collections for future generations through careful display; scientific and historical research; and art conservation. The show is organized chronologically, providing visitors with a thorough overview of Clyfford Still’s 60-year career and includes never-before-seen works.

Revolt 1680/2180: Runners + Gliders

WHEN: Thru July 14, 2024
WHERE: History Colorado Center
Transport yourself to the year 2180 at History Colorado Center's new multi-sensory exhibition. Created in partnership with world-renowned artist Virgil Ortiz, a visionary hailing from Cochiti Pueblo, this unprecedented experience brings Indigenous Futurism to The Mile High City through a combination of history, science fiction, art, fashion and fantasy.

Process Makes Perfect: Printmakers Explore the Natural World

WHEN: Thru July 28, 2024
WHERE: Denver Botanic Gardens
Learn about contemporary lithographic printmaking through artworks exploring the beauty of nature. Featuring color lithographs and process works from the University of Colorado Art Museum’s Sharkive, Process Makes Perfect presents works by Don Ed Hardy, Hung Liu, Emmi Whitehorse and Red Grooms. Through drawings, preparatory materials and test proofs displayed alongside the completed artworks, experience prints inspired by the natural world, and the unique artistic practices that went into creating them.

Fazal Sheikh: Thirst | Exposure | In Place

WHEN: Thru Oct. 20, 2024
WHERE: Denver Art Museum
This exhibition was created from three projects photographer Fazal Sheikh made on the Colorado Plateau from 2017 to early 2023. Sheikh’s portraits and landscapes of displaced communities and marginalized people shed light on the far-reaching consequences of extractive industry and climate change. Through this beautiful and sometimes frightening new work, Sheikh encourages viewers to witness the consequences of the past and imagine the shape of the future.

Orcas: Our Shared Future

WHEN: Thru Nov. 15, 2024
WHERE: Denver Museum of Nature & Science
Trace the evolution of our beliefs about orcas, from fear to admiration and awe, as we discover their stunning intelligence and complex social structures. Meet a life-sized replica of an orca family as you listen to their soothing harmonies in an immersive underwater environment. Deepen your appreciation for the art of the Indigenous peoples of North America’s Northwest Coast. Discover stories that reveal a profound respect for orcas, highlighting the deep connection between humans and these powerful beings. Examine the global movement to protect our ocean ecosystems, reflect on the consequences of captivity and celebrate the future we share with the fascinating and awe-inspiring orca.

This Month

Masks of Africa: Classic and Contemporary

WHEN: Thru April 28, 2024
WHERE: McNichols Civic Center Building, Denver Arts & Venues
Featuring a selection of African masks from Bruce Heitler's vast collection, this exhibition showcases 30 masks from several indigenous African groups. Some of the masks on display are more than a century old. The pieces highlight the varied artistic styles culturally specific to each group of African indigenous peoples.

Space Explorers: THE INFINITE

WHEN: Thru May 5, 2024
WHERE: Stanley Marketplace, Aurora
After having fascinated 300,000 visitors around the world, Space Explorers: THE INFINITE lands in Denver featuring new content captured in space, promising an otherworldly adventure!  Prepare yourself for an immersive experience inspired by NASA missions aboard the International Space Station. On this unique journey, you'll have access to never-before-seen 360-degree videos captured in space using advanced technology. Witness breathtaking views of Earth and the first-ever spacewalk to be captured in cinematic virtual reality, explore an entirely walkable 3D model of the International Space Station, and gain a unique perspective into the daily life of astronauts through exclusive encounters with the international crew. 

Picturing the West

WHEN: Thru May 5, 2024
WHERE: Longmont Museum, Longmont
Explore the richness and diversity of 19th-century American Western landscapes in Picturing the West: Masterworks of American Landscape Photography. This collection features exceptional mammoth-plate photographs by iconic figures like Carleton Watkins, William Henry Jackson and Eadweard Muybridge, alongside rarely-seen works by female photographers and photographers of color from the same era. Together, these diverse voices present a more complete and nuanced vision of the American West, capturing its untamed beauty and complexity.

The Skeletal World of José Guadalupe Posada

WHEN: Thru May 12, 2024
WHERE: Denver Art Museum
This exhibition presents the work of the iconic 19th-century Mexican artist and lithographer whose illustrations of skeletal figures known as calaveras and catrinas have become an essential part of Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebrations. Featuring a select set of Posada’s prints, including many of his most famous calaveras, Skeletal World also includes art that showcases his enduring legacy.

Islands Beyond Blue

WHEN: Thru May 14, 2024
WHERE: Denver Art Museum
This presentation showcases the work of Niki Hastings-McFall, a celebrated contemporary artist of Sāmoan and Pākehā descent who has been credited with shepherding contemporary Pacific art onto an international stage. Known for her large-scale and immersive "lei bombing" installations, she used hundreds of synthetic lei to create the installation. Her work is presented in dialogue with approximately 25 treasures from the DAM's collection that illustrate regional historic arts alongside new innovations. This inaugural exhibition aims to dispel romantic notions of the Pacific Islands as a tourist’s paradise through a nuanced exploration of the area’s vibrant cultural landscape. 

Meandered

WHEN: Thru May 26, 2024
WHERE: MCA DENVER — Museum of Contemporary Art Denver
Meandered features recent painting, drawing, sculpture and video works by Denver-based artist Steven J. Yazzie, whose work often reflects on his shifting perception of and relationship with the landscape. He draws inspiration from revisiting sites in the northern region of Arizona and New Mexico’s Navajo reservation (where Yazzie grew up) and locations in Colorado. Yazzie likens his recent practice to meandering fieldwork, where he begins his artistic research in the natural environment, allowing days-long trips into rural areas to intuitively inform how his multimedia works will unfold and take shape. Meandered is both a metaphor for Yazzie’s artistic process and a framework for exploring organic patterns or phenomena in nature.

The Lost Paradise

WHEN: Thru May 26, 2024
WHERE: MCA DENVER — Museum of Contemporary Art Denver
Marking the South Korean artist’s first museum solo exhibition, Ken Gun Min’s The Lost Paradise examines a major throughline in his work: landscapes and the natural world. Comprising recent, expansive paintings, the exhibition foregrounds Min’s use of real and imagined landscapes as the primary subject or idyllic setting through which to explore issues around race, gender, sexuality and the immigrant experience. These lushly rendered scenes, often embellished with embroidery and beading, depict the natural world as an enigmatic place ripe with beauty and the sublime, but also with turmoil, melancholy, and contradiction.

Good Vibrations

WHEN: Thru June 14, 2024
WHERE: Museum of Outdoor Arts, Greenwood Village
Nine emerging artist interns came together over the summer through MOA's annual Design and Build Summer Internship Program to collaboratively create several unique, site-specific installations for Marjorie Park.

Clarence Shivers: Experimenting with Form

WHEN: Thru July 6, 2024
WHERE: Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College, Colorado Springs
Over the course of his career, Clarence Shivers demonstrated a commitment to artistic experimentation, working across different media—both two- and three-dimensional—and cultivating a range of stylistic approaches. A Tuskegee Airman—and career military person—one of Shivers’ most celebrated works is his statue dedicated to these pilots and their legacies, located at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Shivers often returned to forms of portraiture, whether images of friends, families, musicians, civil rights leaders or others, and he represented his subjects with poignant and expressive insight. Shivers also created abstract works that demonstrate his ongoing exploration into geometric form, color and movement. This exhibition presents more than 30 works, paintings, prints and sculptures that offer an expansive view of the artist’s prolific career.

Espiritu Hermosx/Beautiful Spirit

WHEN: Thru July 14, 2024
WHERE: Museo de las Americas
Museo de las Americas is honored to present this innovative exploration into contemporary LGBTQ+ Latinx artists' diverse experiences. Through novel and traditional practices, 10 artists highlight the breadth and possibility of identity stemming from their experiences of double marginalization as Latinx and queer individuals. 

Gio Ponti: Designer of a Thousand Talents

WHEN: Thru July 19, 2024
WHERE: Denver Art Museum
Gio Ponti was one of the most inventive Italian architects and designers of his time. For more than 60 years, Ponti’s exuberant approach found expression in public and private commissions from buildings, interiors and furniture to glass, ceramics and flatware, influencing international design for more than 50 years. 

Sandra Vásquez de la Horra: The Awake Volcanoes

WHEN: Thru July 21, 2024
WHERE: Denver Art Museum
Vásquez de la Horra was born in 1967 in Viña Del Mar, Chile, growing up during Augusto Pinochet’s 17-year military regime and leaving her home nation to study in Germany in the 1990s. Her drawings often include symbols from different cultures, and her female figures perform contrasting roles in narratives that deal with freedom, spirituality and nature. Her works frequently show female bodies melding with surrealistic landscapes, and her practice is known for its poetic and artistic experimentation that weaves the absurd with the affirmation of affection and pleasure. The Awake Volcanoes highlights paintings, drawings and prints by Vásquez de la Horra, exploring notions of fantasy, desire, fear and pleasure to explore the relationship between the human body and the world around it.

Mile High Magic

WHEN: Thru Aug. 15, 2024
WHERE: History Colorado Center
Focusing on the history of the Denver Broncos, this exhibition uses game-worn memorabilia from more than 60 years of Broncos history to explore fairytale seasons, epic comebacks, legendary players, and the heated rivalries of Colorado’s only National Football League franchise.

Hand in Nature

WHEN: Thru Sept. 1, 2024
WHERE: MCA DENVER — Museum of Contemporary Art Denver
Gala Porras-Kim is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work questions how knowledge is acquired and tests the potential for artworks and objects to function as meaning-makers outside of traditional museum contexts. For this exhibition, Porras-Kim extends lines of questioning into conservation, preservation and care within institutional contexts to the broader natural world and lived environment. The artworks on view distill natural processes into sculptures, paintings and drawings that will grow, evolve or degrade throughout the span of the exhibition. From sculptures rendered with salt-saturated concrete or copal resin wetted with local rainwater to paintings created from slow drips of water drawing from the museum’s humidity and projections from light refractions off of brass panels, Porras-Kim’s work imagines what might be possible if natural forces and phenomenon had the agency to self-determine. 

Have a Seat: Mexican Chair Design Today

WHEN: Thru Nov. 3, 2024
WHERE: Denver Art Museum
Have a Seat: Mexican Chair Design Today is an interactive exhibition featuring three historical artworks, 17 contemporary seats designed by 22 Mexican artists, and a site-specific art installation. Through their pioneering designs, the artists embark on a journey through history and traditions, exploring the enduring legacy of the cross-cultural world that emerged in Mexico following the Spanish conquest, which incorporated elements of Indigenous, Asian, African and European cultures and continues to inspire new types of objects and furniture for the 21st century. Have a Seat showcases furniture by contemporary Mexican designers represented in the museum’s permanent collection, including Andrés Lhima, Cecilia León de la Barra, Daniel Valero, Bárbara Sánchez-Kane, Jorge Diego Etienne and many more.

Winter Warriors: The 10th Mountain Division in World War II

WHEN: Thru Nov. 12, 2024
WHERE: History Colorado Center
Using photos, video and first-hand personal accounts from the troops themselves, Winter Warriors: The 10th Mountain Division in World War II explores the history of the U.S. Army's first winter warfare division from its training at Camp Hale in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains through their crucial breakthrough against the Nazi German Army in the mountains of Italy. This exhibition introduces a new generation of Coloradans to this incredible story of ingenuity, perseverance, heroism and sacrifice in a deeply personal way through hundreds of photos, accounts, videos and objects from the soldiers themselves.

Get Involved: Civic Engagement in Lakewood

WHEN: Thru Dec. 1, 2024
WHERE: Heritage Lakewood Belmar Park, Lakewood
How do you interact with your community? Historic Lakewood residents got involved with their local schools, agricultural organizations, outdoor youth movements and many other special interest groups. Discover how making a difference in the quality of life in our city has evolved over the past century.

Lumonics Immersed

WHEN: Thru Dec. 28, 2024
WHERE: Lumonics Light & Sound Gallery
“Entering a performance at Lumonics Light & Sound Gallery is like stepping through a looking glass and into a sci-fi wonderland. The gallery’s Lumonics Immersed installation was originally created by the late Dorothy and Mel Tanner, pioneering light artists whose singular style fuses elements of light, music and sculptures to produce captivating experiences for the audience.” – Denver Westword

Weaving a Foundation: Cornerstones of the Textile Arts Collection

WHEN: Thru Dec. 31, 2024
WHERE: Denver Art Museum
This new exhibition features 60 objects from the museum’s permanent collection, two-thirds of which have never been shown. Throughout the museum’s history, textile arts have played a fundamental role in the development of its collecting philosophies and exhibition programs. The first textile entered the museum almost 100 years ago, and since that time, textile arts have been regular additions to the collection. Among the handful of early patrons, the Douglas Family of Evergreen, Colorado, emerged as the most steadfast donors of textiles. This exhibition highlights a selection of the family’s donations that demonstrates their celebration of traditional and living cultures and the value of exhibiting them together. 

Museum of Illusions

WHEN: Thru Dec. 31, 2024
WHERE: Museum of Illusions
Discover a brilliant collection of perspective-changing rooms, enthralling installations, and spellbinding images. The mesmerizing exhibits will teach you that nothing is ever quite as it seems, especially in the Museum of Illusions Denver.

Danielle SeeWalker: But We Have Something to Say

WHEN: Thru Dec. 31, 2024
WHERE: History Colorado Center
Danielle SeeWalker is a Húŋkpapȟa Lakȟóta citizen from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. She is an artist, writer, activist and boy mom of two, based in Denver. This exhibition uses storytelling to explore a variety of issues important to Indigenous peoples and communities. Striking nineteenth-century hair ornaments, beaded spoons and moccasins are paired with SeeWalker’s art in ways that illuminate censored and erased histories. 

By Design: Stories and Ideas Behind Objects

WHEN: Thru Jan. 1, 2025
WHERE: Denver Art Museum
Design is all around us. Whether it takes the form of objects and spaces, images and interactions, or systems and processes, design shapes our lives in fundamental ways. But what shapes design? A series of thematic installations drawn primarily from the architecture and design collection, By Design: Stories and Ideas Behind Objects illustrates the abundance and versatility of approaches to design. 

Flow: On the River with John Fielder

WHEN: Thru Jan. 27, 2025
WHERE: History Colorado Center
This exhibition focuses on the many uses and importance of the Colorado River, taking visitors inside majestic canyons and atop the most awe-inspiring vistas along the Yampa, Gunnison and Dolores Rivers as they flow toward their confluence with the Colorado. Flow: On the River with John Fielder features a number of iconic large-format Fielder prints, as well as quotes from the renowned landscape photographer gathered carefully from his publications and interviews over the years.

Rumors of Bloomers

WHEN: Thru March 30, 2025
WHERE: Center for Colorado Women's History
Rumors of Bloomers explores women’s experiences as expressed through undergarments. Using rarely displayed objects – such as corsets, bloomers, swimming costumes, petticoats and Mother Hubbard gowns – the exhibition highlights the ways “unmentionables” have given form and shape to bodies, while also expressing identity, autonomy, agency, and protest.

Film & Planetarium

'Cosmic Journey'

WHEN: Thru May 18, 2024
WHERE: Denver Museum of Nature & Science
Volcanoes tower 80,000 feet above a barren surface. Monstrous hurricanes rage for 400 years. And multicolored rings sit suspended in air. In "Cosmic Journey: A Solar System Adventure," you'll travel through our solar system faster than the speed of light, taking in the wonders of the planets and their moons.

'Destination Solar System'

WHEN: Thru May 18, 2024
WHERE: Denver Museum of Nature & Science
This out-of-this-world tour, departing from Gates Planetarium, takes place on board the Space Express. Travel hundreds of millions of miles in just seconds with Jesse, an enthusiastic, knowledgeable—but inexperienced—tour guide, and Max, a highly advanced, fully integrated onboard computer. Tours of the hottest hot spots and the coldest, stormiest, and most spectacular sights in the solar system await curious space explorers of all ages.

'Dynamic Earth'

WHEN: Thru May 18, 2024
WHERE: Denver Museum of Nature & Science
Narrated by Liam Neeson, "Dynamic Earth" explores the inner workings of Earth's climate system. With visualizations based on satellite monitoring data and advanced supercomputer simulations, this cutting-edge production follows a trail of energy that flows from the sun into the interlocking systems that shape our climate: the atmosphere, oceans, and biosphere. Audiences will ride along on swirling ocean and wind currents, dive into the heart of a monster hurricane, come face-to-face with sharks and gigantic whales, and fly into roiling volcanoes.

'One World, One Sky: Big Bird’s Adventure'

WHEN: Thru May 18, 2024
WHERE: Denver Museum of Nature & Science
This brilliant spectacle of light and color follows Sesame Street's Big Bird and Elmo as they explore the night sky with Hu Hu Zhu, a new friend from China. Together, they take an imaginary trip from Sesame Street to the moon, where they discover how different it is from Earth. This cross-cultural adventure opens children's eyes to the sky, helping them see how people all over the world are connected.

'Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon”'

WHEN: Thru May 18, 2024
WHERE: Denver Museum of Nature & Science
Celebrate the 50th anniversary of Pink Floyd's legendary album, "The Dark Side Of The Moon," in a mind-bending planetarium experience like no other. Step into a mesmerizing world of music and visuals as you journey through the solar system and beyond. With state-of-the-art technology, NSC Creative and Pink Floyd's collaborator Aubrey Powell have crafted a visually stunning production that brings each song to life, blending futuristic aesthetics with nods to the band's iconic imagery. 

'Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity'

WHEN: Thru May 18, 2024
WHERE: Denver Museum of Nature & Science
There's a place from which nothing escapes, not even light, where time and space literally come to end. It's at this point, inside this fantastic riddle, that black holes exert their sway over the cosmos ... and our imaginations. In this Museum-produced show, zip through other-worldly wormholes, experience the creation of the Milky Way Galaxy and witness the violent death of a star and birth of a black hole. Mathematical equations, cutting-edge science, and Einstein's theories fill in holes along the way, providing the most complete picture yet of this mysterious phenomenon. Can you feel the pull?

'Blue Whales: Return of the Giants 3D'

WHEN: Thru March 3, 2025
WHERE: Infinity Theater
Take part in a breathtaking journey with “Blue Whales: Return of the Giants 3D.” In this giant screen film narrated by English actor Andy Serkis, you will explore the world of the magnificent blue whale, a species rebounding from the brink of extinction. Following two scientific expeditions — one to find a missing population of blue whales off the exotic Seychelles Islands, the other to chronicle whale families in Mexico’s stunning Gulf of California — this inspirational story transforms our understanding of the largest animal ever to have lived.

'Cities of the Future'

WHEN: Thru March 3, 2025
WHERE: Infinity Theater
“Cities of the Future” invites you to step into an exciting new world of innovation and exploration to address the challenges of a rapidly changing planet. Discover the thrilling technological breakthroughs — electric autonomous vehicles and aerial highways, solar energy beamed down from space to power entire cities and smart buildings and greener infrastructure to keep us cool — that engineers are working on right now and meet a team of middle school students competing in the Future City Competition. Narrated by actor John Krasinski, this film will energize kids and adults of all ages to think about engineering as a meaningful way to help others and leave a positive mark on the world.

Long-Term & Permanent Exhibitions

The Sand Creek Massacre: The Betrayal that Changed Cheyenne and Arapaho People Forever

WHERE: History Colorado Center
The Sand Creek Massacre was the deadliest day in Colorado’s history, and it changed the Cheyenne and Arapaho people forever. At sunrise on November 29, 1864, the U.S. Army attacked a camp of mostly women, children and elders on Big Sandy Creek in southeastern Colorado. The soldiers murdered more than 230 peaceful people. This exhibition tells the history of that betrayal from the perspectives of Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribal representatives, drawn from oral histories passed down for generations. Cheyenne and Arapaho people continue living with the unresolved trauma the massacre left behind. For many Cheyenne and Arapaho people, the Sand Creek Massacre isn’t just history, it’s family history.

Mud Futures with Ronald Rael

WHERE: History Colorado Center
In Mud Futures, award-winning artist and professor of Architecture at UC Berkeley, Ronald Rael uses modern-day innovation to reimagine the 7,000-year-old adobe technology. Rael 3-D printed objects out of more than 10,000 lbs. of clay, straw and sand on the front porch of the History Colorado Center in downtown Denver. This adobe printing demonstration taps into Rael’s roots in Colorado’s Conejos County and challenges the viewer to think differently about materials, space and borders, while also showing how ancient technologies might be adapted to solve current building challenges and provide answers for our future.

Colorado Stories

WHERE: History Colorado Center
From the mountains to the plains to the plateaus, Colorado’s people are as diverse as the places they call home. Colorado Stories is a community-based suite of exhibits with media- and artifact-rich galleries exploring the many ways Coloradans have created community. 

Denver A to Z

WHERE: History Colorado Center
Denverites know that the Mile High City is like no other on Earth. But what really makes Denver Denver? Denver A to Z taps into the essence of Denver letter by letter—“A” for adrenaline, “Z” for zombies, and everything in between. Discover the heart, the art, the whimsy, and the energy of Denver’s people, places, and moments in this lighthearted and immersive exhibit.

Destination Colorado

WHERE: History Colorado Center
Welcome to Keota, Colorado: the Arcadia of the Plains. It’s 1918 and the American Dream awaits. This High Plains community’s residents greet you at the depot on life-sized media screens and show you their town, sharing triumphs and challenges. Meet the people who homesteaded and settled this watering stop along the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy rail line—the “Prairie Dog Express.” Residents farmed, built a school, and cheered their sports teams with passion, but prairie life was never easy. Enroll in Keota’s high school. Shop from a Montgomery Ward catalog and buy goods from a general store. Take a virtual joy ride down a bumpy country road in a Model T and get cultured on outhouse culture! Milk a model cow, collect eggs in the barn, and climb into the hayloft and slide back down again.

Living West

WHERE: History Colorado Center
Colorado’s environment has shaped human history. At the same time, people’s choices have shaped the land. Journey into the deep relationships between Colorado's people and its land through three stories: life at Mesa Verde 800 years ago, the 1930s Dust Bowl on the southeastern plains, and today’s Rocky Mountains.

Forty Years on the ’Fax

WHERE: History Colorado Center
Take a nostalgic ride down Colfax, with stops at the quirky and memorable places that gave the street its worldwide reputation. From its birth as US Highway 40 in 1926 until I-70 diverted traffic away from it in the ’60s, “America’s Main Street” boomed with tourist attractions. See relics from the glory days of “America’s longest, wickedest street,” like neon signs from Across the Street Cafe and Sid King’s Crazy Horse Bar, matchbooks from hundreds of famous businesses, and menus, glasses, and dishware from restaurants Denverites dined in for decades. Guest curated by Jonny “the Velvet Elvis” Barber, Forty Years on the ’Fax features objects from the Colfax Museum collection. 

What's Your Story?

WHERE: History Colorado Center
Each of us is on a journey toward making a difference. Come explore your superpower and those of Coloradans past, present, and future. Find out how they made an impact on our state, whether by fighting school segregation or being a world-class athlete. See how your experience compares to the challenges and opportunities faced by generations of Coloradans before you. Through one-of-a-kind multimedia experiences, you and your friends can tell the world what’s important to you, and share it on the big screen for all to see. 

Written on the Land

WHERE: History Colorado Center
Hear the story of Colorado’s longest continuous residents, told in their own voices. Take a journey to iconic Colorado places the Ute people call home. You’ll see traditional arts, gorgeous photography, and contemporary video showing how Ute people have adapted and persevered through the centuries. Witness the tragic loss of Ute homelands and see efforts to keep Ute culture and language alive today.

Zoom In

WHERE: History Colorado Center
Zoom in on 100 powerful artifacts to see how Colorado became Colorado. Culled from the vast collections of History Colorado, every object on view had a role in shaping our state—from the age of the Paleoindians to Jack Swigert’s Apollo 13 flight suit and beyond.

The Civil War Monument "On Guard"

WHERE: History Colorado Center
Lonnie Bunch, the first African American and first historian to serve as Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, said, “what you really want to do is use the statues as teachable moments. Some of these need to go. But others need to be taken into a park, into a museum, into a warehouse, and interpreted for people, because they’re part of our history."

Space Command

WHERE: Denver Art Museum
Created by Colorado artist Chris Bagley, Space Command is an immersive installation with a whimsical approach to the atomic age. Visitors are invited to probe the boundless mysteries of space by wandering and immersing their senses through sight, sound and touch as they take in the wonders of “cosmic” debris—both familiar and foreign. The installation repurposes vintage scientific equipment, Mylar and other space-age materials to create an interactive environment with emanating light, pulsing sound, and rotating objects. Visitors are encouraged to investigate its many layers and experience the optical illusions. In this altered reality, challenge your perceptions of the real and the unknown, spark your imagination and consider limitless possibilities yet to be explored.

The 19th Century in European and American Art

WHERE: Denver Art Museum
This exhibition features mostly French paintings and, in particular, landscapes. This is not accidental, as Paris became the art center of Europe during the 1800s, and landscape, once considered among the least prestigious genres in painting for its lack of moral content, flourished as one of the most expressive and collected subjects.

The Russells in Denver, 1921

WHERE: Denver Art Museum
The Russells in Denver, 1921 presents 18 works by Charles M. Russell, highlighting paintings and sculptures displayed at his solo art show at The Brown Palace Hotel in 1921, organized by his wife Nancy Russell. By the 1920s, Charles had painstakingly devoted almost three decades of his life to painting "the West that has passed," chronicling the vast landscapes, mountain ranges and people he observed as a young man working in Montana in the 1880s.

Arts of Africa Gallery

WHERE: Denver Art Museum
The Arts of Africa gallery showcases highlights from the museum’s collection, which encompasses about 800 objects, largely from the 19th and 20th centuries, across media—including painting, printmaking, sculpture, textiles and jewelry, as well as recent acquisitions of contemporary art. The updated presentation, spanning 2,300 square feet on level 4 of the Hamilton Building, centers a collection that illustrates the diversity, relevance, and dynamism of creativity and culture across Africa. The gallery presents an expansive and inclusive view of the arts from the African continent with works from the sub-Sahara, Egypt and North Africa organized around three anchoring themes: the self, power and transformation, and manifestation.

Arts of Asia Galleries

WHERE: Denver Art Museum
The Asian art collection encompasses rare and important artworks from East Asia (China, Korea and Japan), South and Southeast Asia, and Central and West Asia. Its holdings of some 7,000 objects span nearly six millennia, from prehistoric to contemporary art. The collection boasts strengths in Chinese textiles from the Qing dynasty, South and Southeast Asian sculpture, ceramics from across the region, East Asian bamboo art, Japanese Edo period painting and twentieth-century prints. The reimagined galleries showcase a breathtaking display of over 800 artworks collectively tracing visible and invisible links across time and space in the arts of Asia.

Arts of the Ancient Americas Galleries

WHERE: Denver Art Museum
The breadth of these collections, among the most comprehensive in the United States, encompass more than 1,000 rare works that present the expansive history of artistic creation in Latin America over 3,500 years of art and culture, revealing trends, relationships and discontinuities between art created in the region. This reinstallation focuses on three major geographic zones: Mesoamerica, Central America and the Andes. While the collection primarily focuses on objects produced prior to the arrival of Europeans, the gallery incorporates several contemporary works that engage with ancient practices and materials, highlighting connections between past and present.

European Art before 1800 Galleries

WHERE: Denver Art Museum
The Davis W. Moore Galleries dedicate nearly 7,000 square feet to European Art before 1800, featuring approximately 65 works drawn from the museum’s collection of European art to present a chronological history through major themes. The installation traces the development of stylistic themes as they evolved over time, from the golden surfaces of Christian altarpieces of the 1300s and 1400s, to the grand and dramatic portraits of the 1600s, and the ideal landscapes of the late 1700s. The new gallery presentation is enhanced by the inclusion of select works from the Berger Collection, a group of notable British artworks gifted to the museum in 2018 by the Berger Collection Educational Trust.

Modern and Contemporary Art Galleries

WHERE: Denver Art Museum
Encompassing 16,000 square feet across two floors, the newly installed Modern and Contemporary Art galleries feature selections from the museum’s collection of approximately 8,000 artworks made between 1900 and today, as well as from collecting areas in African arts, Indigenous arts of North America, Latin American art, photography and textile art and fashion. Showcasing artists from around the globe, the reinstall looks anew at the work of historically recognized figures, established contemporary artists and important emerging voices. Organized by theme rather than chronology, the reinstallation acknowledges and transcends art historical movements, showcasing visual connections and common interests.

Northwest Coast and Alaska Native Art Galleries

WHERE: Denver Art Museum
The Northwest Coast and Alaska Native arts collection is on view in a reimagined, immersive gallery space that showcases works by Indigenous artists from the western coastal region of North America, stretching from Puget Sound to southeastern Alaska. Featuring more than 80 objects, the gallery presents a range of artists and creative histories from the region, emphasizing individual artists as creators while also tracing the ongoing continuum and dynamic innovation of Indigenous artists into the present day. Expanding upon this approach, visitors have the opportunity to explore several spaces that highlight the communities and places that ground artists and their practices.

Indigenous Arts of North America Galleries

WHERE: Denver Art Museum
The Denver Art Museum dedicates more than 20,000 square feet of gallery space to its unparalleled Indigenous Arts of North America collection. Featuring more than 18,000 objects ranging from ancient Puebloan and Mississippian ceramics to 19th-century beaded garments and carved masks to cutting-edge contemporary paintings, sculpture, photography and variable media art, the DAM holds one of the most comprehensive collections from this region in existence—with particular strengths in art from the Plains and the Southwest, as well as works from the Great Lakes, Northeast and Subarctic regions.

Latin American Art Galleries

WHERE: Denver Art Museum
The Latin American Art gallery offers insights into more than five centuries of the shared stories of conquered and conquerors, and the arts that originated from a colonial situation of great complexity, featuring more than 3,000 works from Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and the Southwestern United States. Meanwhile, the John and Sandy Fox Modern and Contemporary Latin American Art gallery is dedicated to the museum’s acquisitions of modern and contemporary Latin American art, bridging the cultural narratives of the present and future and portraying a region in constant evolution.

Western American Art Galleries

WHERE: Denver Art Museum
The Western American Art galleries are a culmination of the Petrie Institute of Western American Art’s ambitious program and strategy. The Petrie Institute’s collection of Western American art has particular strengths in the Taos Society of Artists, Early Modernism, and 19th-century bronze sculpture. Today, it stands as one of the finest collections of its kind and, because of its unique location in the Rocky Mountain West, allows the Denver Art Museum to tell the story of American art from a Western perspective

Perfectly Imperfect: Korean Buncheong Ceramics

WHERE: Denver Art Museum
Sophisticated, playful and engaging, buncheong ceramics became a uniquely Korean art form in the late 14th to 16th centuries. Elements of the buncheong style have remained relevant in modern and contemporary Korean art and have influenced other artistic expressions. Its refined and rustic aesthetic has been admired by generations of potters and artists in Korea and across the world. Co-organized with the National Museum of Korea (NMK), this exhibition features more than 70 exquisite works of Korean Buncheong ceramics from the 15th century to today, renowned for their white slip and adorned with diverse surface decorative techniques. It also includes four 20th- and 21st-century paintings as well as 16 drawings by five painters.

The Russells in Denver, 1921

WHERE: Denver Art Museum
The Russells in Denver, 1921, presents 18 works by Charles M. Russell, highlighting paintings and sculptures displayed at his solo art show at The Brown Palace Hotel in 1921, organized by his wife Nancy Russell. By the 1920s, Charles had painstakingly devoted almost three decades of his life to painting "The West that has passed," chronicling the vast landscapes, mountain ranges, and peoples he observed as a young man working in Montana in the 1880s. After he and Nancy married in 1896, she became his business and marketing manager, helping Charles grow into one of the greatest narrative artists of the American West. 

After the Asteroid: Earth's Comeback Story

WHERE: Denver Museum of Nature & Science (DMNS)
A trove of remarkably preserved fossils found at Corral Bluffs near Colorado Springs brings into sharp focus how Earth recovered after the devastating asteroid impact 66 million years ago that wiped out the dinosaurs. This discovery is a watershed scientific moment, and the Denver Museum of Nature & Science's bilingual exhibit brings it to life. 

Wildlife Halls

WHERE: Denver Museum of Nature & Science (DMNS)
From Alaska to Argentina, Africa to Australia, more than 90 wildlife and habitat scenes illustrate our planet's amazing diversity as animals big and small come to life in exquisitely detailed dioramas that transport you around the world. Like three-dimensional "postcards" from places near and far, they capture moments in time, showcasing the world's wondrous animals and the delicate ecosystems in which they live.

Egyptian Mummies

WHERE: Denver Museum of Nature & Science (DMNS)
Explore the lives and deaths of two female mummies on display in the Egyptian Mummies gallery. An interactive touch table digitally unwraps the mummies and allows you to focus on key features. You will also see an exhibit about animal mummies, including a baby crocodile mummy once presumed to be empty. Tomb artifacts, a model of an Egyptian temple, and a facial reconstruction of one of the women’s skulls round out the exhibition.

Expedition Health ®

WHERE: Denver Museum of Nature & Science (DMNS)
Expedition Health ® is about YOUR human body and how it is constantly changing and adapting in ways you can see, measure and optimize through the choices you make. In the exhibition gallery, you will experience highly personalized activities, become immersed in a theater experience that engages all of your senses, look at microscopic cells from your own body in a laboratory, participate in live demonstrations and programs, and meet "buddies" who will help you learn about your health.

Gems and Minerals

WHERE: Denver Museum of Nature & Science (DMNS)
Follow a mine shaft into a Mexican silver mine, where a cavern glistens with milky white gypsum crystals and stalactites. Then enter Colorado's own Sweet Home Mine to discover a six-foot wall of beautiful red rhodochrosite crystals. Colorado was founded on mining, so you'll see more local finds, like Tom's Baby, an eight-pound nugget of crystallized gold unearthed in Breckenridge in 1887. You'll also be dazzled by the largest known pocket of aquamarine ever discovered, from Colorado's own Mount Antero, and a giant Brazilian topaz once owned by artist Salvador Dali. The hall is packed with hundreds of specimens from around the world. Hands-on activities and videos help young explorers learn about mineral characteristics and how minerals form.

Prehistoric Journey

WHERE: Denver Museum of Nature & Science (DMNS)
Travel through time-starting 3.5 billion years ago. Your journey begins beneath ancient seas. Life diversifies as you move through the millennia, surrounded by fearsome fish and waving sea lilies. Soon you're out of the water and the air is filled with huge dragonflies. Foot-long centipedes crawl around you. Then the dinosaurs appear!

Space Odyssey

WHERE: Denver Museum of Nature & Science (DMNS)
Future astronauts and inquisitive humans will have a place to discover answers to out of this world questions like, “How do we know how many stars are in our galaxy when we can’t see them all?” “How do you put the brakes on in space?” And, “How do we know what the far side of the Moon looks like if it never faces Earth?”   

Discovery Zone

WHERE: Denver Museum of Nature & Science (DMNS)
The Discovery Zone is bursting with activities that help build a strong foundation of science skills in young children as they look, ask, discover, make and share.

Abstract Expressions: Terrace Installation

WHERE: Clyfford Still Museum
Abstract Expressions is a sound and garden installation envisioned by composer and artist Nathan Hall in collaboration with Kevin Philip Williams, assistant curator and horticulturist at Denver Botanic Gardens. This multi-year collaboration between CSM and its communities seeks to honor the prairies of Still’s life and provide a fundamental connection with Denver by creating an interdisciplinary sense of place. When visitors step out onto the terraces, their presence will cue Hall’s original sound compositions. The works’ ephemeral and immersive nature inspires visitor meditation and encourages a deeper connection to the artworks found within the galleries.

Vance Kirkland Paintings

WHERE: Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art
A retrospective of Colorado’s distinguished painter, Vance Kirkland (1904–1981), with examples of his five painting periods and over 30 series spanning from realism to surrealism to abstraction.

Colorado & Regional Art

WHERE: Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art
Colorado and surrounding states’ art history with fine and decorative art from about 1845 to the present.

International Decorative Art

WHERE: Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art
The Kirkland Museum boasts one of the most extensive public displays of international decorative art in North America, with examples of every major design period from about 1870 to the present, including Arts & Crafts, Aesthetic, Art Nouveau, Glasgow Style, Wiener Werkstätte, De Stijl, Bauhaus, Art Deco, Modern, Pop Art and Postmodern

Vision and Resolve

WHERE: Center for Colorado Women's History
This exhibition illuminates how women and their social movements have impacted Colorado’s History. Focusing on suffragist Ida Clark DePriest, gay rights activist Mary Lopez Dussart, disability rights activist Laura Hershey, civic activist Anne Evans and the women leaders of Casa Verde Mothers of Pueblo, this exhibition allows visitors to experience their stories along with artifacts from the History Colorado Collection. Highlights include Equal Rights Amendment protest wear from the late 1970s and “Western Women Wild with Joy,” a newly acquired contemporary sculpture celebrating suffrage.

One Fell Swoop by Patrick Dougherty

WHERE: Denver Botanic Gardens at Chatfield Farms
This site-specific sculpture was created over the course of three weeks with the help of staff and volunteers. Willow saplings and branches used in the installation were harvested from Colorado locations, including Chatfield Farms. Visitors may view and move through the work in a grassy clearing near the Earl J. Sinnamon Center and the Deer Creek Stables.

James Joseph Brown & the Peoples’ Quest for Gold

WHERE: Molly Brown House Museum
Learn more about the man of the house, James Joseph Brown. Explore the mining endeavors that made the Browns millionaires and changed the course of history in Leadville. Discover how the quest for mineral wealth impacted the people of Colorado and transformed Denver into a growing cultural metropolis as a gateway to the gold fields.

La Misión

WHERE: Museo de las Americas
This semi-permanent exhibit explores the artwork produced as a result of the Spanish monarchy sending priests (Padres) to convert the indigenous Puebloan residents of the Rio Grande River Valley. Housed in the Tragen Folk Art Gallery, it features roughly 20 unique pieces of art that date from the 17th Century to the present and explores the narrative of the peoples living in the Rio Grande River Valley. Featuring artwork from Museo’s private collection, the exhibit examines the visual language unique to the colonial artwork of New Mexico. The gallery has been made reminiscent of a mission church interior, to provide an appropriate space and context for the many Santos, retablos and other artworks in the exhibit.

Mission Aerospace

WHERE: Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum
Mission Aerospace is a thrilling journey for all ages that combines the mysteries of space with the excitement of a maze adventure! Prepare to be captivated by the Mission Aerospace Minotaur Maze Exhibit, where science fiction meets reality and exploration knows no bounds. Explore the history of flight, space and eclipses in this hands-on exhibit and maze. Experiment with thrust, lift, control surfaces and gyroscopes. Build rockets and paper airplanes, then test them for distance and air-dexterity on a runway. Launch your rocket to Saturn, your plane to Sydney, and yourself into the world of aerospace!

Buffalo Soldiers: reVision

WHERE: Fort Garland Museum, Ft. Garland
This unique exhibit at the intersection of history, place and art examines the complex legacy of the Buffalo Soldiers in the American West, tracing their history from slavery to service and highlighting the relations between ethnic, gender and racial identities in the landscape of the southern Colorado borderlands. The exhibit features the work of eight artists from across the United States, including Chip Thomas (lead artist), Esther Belin, Mahogany L. Browne, Rosie Carter, Gaia, André Leon Gray, Theodore Harris and Tom Judd.

Coming Soon

Biophilia

WHEN: May 5–Aug. 11, 2024
WHERE: Denver Art Museum
Biophilia: Nature Reimagined brings together more than 70 imaginative works, including architectural models and photographs, objects, fashion, digital installations, and immersive art experiences that collectively highlight the transformative power of nature. "Biophilia" is a term popularized by American biologist and author Edward O. Wilson to describe his theory that, as humans have evolved as a species, they have been intricately intertwined with the natural world. Organized by Darrin Alfred, Curator of Architecture and Design, Biophilia provides a space for leading architects, artists, and designers to re-examine and reanimate our intrinsic bond with the natural world.

Dialogue and Defiance: Clyfford Still and the Abstract Expressionists

WHEN: May 10, 2024–Jan. 12, 2025
WHERE: Clyfford Still Museum
Clyfford Still withdrew his paintings from the Betty Parsons Gallery in 1951, refusing to participate in a market prioritizing the fame of an artist and the price of their artworks. The following year, he surprised many by agreeing to participate in a group show at the Museum of Modern Art. His rationale for doing so was because the curator, Dorothy Miller, agreed to show Still’s works together in their own gallery. As Still saw it, his work could be viewed on its own terms and not in direct comparison to other artists—but visitors could still see the scope of American painting in the mid-century. Even with his turn away from the art world, Still saw himself participating in something larger and remained in dialogue with his contemporaries. This exhibition considers the nuanced ways in which Clyfford Still was part of an artists’ community in the late 1940s and early 1950s, despite his protestations to the contrary, and how his paintings, through their scale and composition, promote ideas of community.

Coalescing Connections

WHEN: May 21–July 6, 2024
WHERE: Walker Fine Art
As a species, we are constantly evolving, but we never retract from our instinctive need for nature. These fascinations with nature stem from an innate biologically driven need to interact with other forms of life, such as animals and plants. This group exhibition features seven artists (Julie Anderson, Mark Penner Howell, Sara Sanderson, Brian Comber, Cara Enteles, Sharon Strasburg, and Norman Epp) who work with unique combinations of mediums to explore and project their deep connections to the natural world around us. Utilizing watercolor, ceramic, oil, wood, silkscreen and more, Coalescing Connections showcases collaborative efforts between artistic styles, mediums and, of course, nature.

Vanity & Vice: American Art Deco

WHEN: May 22, 2024–Jan. 12, 2025
WHERE: Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art
Vanity & Vice: American Art Deco explores the dynamic designs that emerged during the rebellious years of 1920–1933. American women were enjoying more independence inside and outside the home. Cutting hair into a chic bob, wearing rouge on lips and cheeks, hosting cocktail parties, and publicly consuming alcohol and tobacco all reinforced what it meant to be a modern woman. American designers and manufacturers responded to these societal changes with fashionable perfume atomizers and vanity sets and drinking and smoking accessories in the latest styles. This exhibition invites visitors into two distinct spaces occupied by a progressive Prohibition-era woman: her boudoir and a speakeasy. Explore the Art Deco objects that filled these rooms and how they reflect a time of freedom and change. 

The Life and Art of Tokio Ueyama

WHEN: July 28, 2024–June 1, 2025
WHERE: Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art
The Life and Art of Tokio Ueyama features more than 40 paintings loaned to the museum by the Japanese American National Museum and Ueyama’s family, whose combined efforts to preserve his work have allowed the story of this accomplished and cosmopolitan artist to be told at the DAM for the first time. Born in Japan, Tokio Ueyama moved to the United States in 1908 at age 18, where he made a home until his death in 1954. This exhibition tells the story of Ueyama’s life, including his early days as an art student in San Francisco, Southern California, and Philadelphia; his travels abroad in Europe and Mexico; his role as artist and community member in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles; and his unconstitutional incarceration during World War II at the Granada Relocation Center, now the Amache National Historic Site, in southeast Colorado.

Pop-up: Anthony Quinn

WHEN: Aug. 2–Sept. 22, 2024
WHERE: Museo de las Americas
Born in Mexico and raised in East Los Angeles, Anthony Quinn, a two-time Oscar winner, was a legendary actor. This pop-up exhibition offers a glimpse into his lesser-known passion for drawing, painting, and sculpting, highlighting his legacy as a prolific visual artist focused on themes of identity and vocation.