Museum visits open doors to the past, present and future

By Kyle Kirves

Museums are perhaps the most egalitarian of our institutions. They welcome us in to share in adventures, discoveries, explorations, and creations of the mind’s eye brought to paper, canvas, or sculpture -- often for less than the price of a rent-at-home movie. Museums treat us to things we would otherwise not be able to see or find, yet are on vivid display often only inches away. Museums fuel imagination about the remote past and possible future.

According to some observers, museums are amusement parks for the mind.

Fortunately for all of us, Denver has no shortage of marvel-filled museums full of national treasures as well as those that cater to specialty interests. Maybe you are a local history buff and want to learn about Colorado railroads. Maybe your kids’ favorite Colorado Rockies player is, well, Dinger, and they want to see, first-hand, just how big a triceratops really was. Or you have a need for speed – cars, yes, but also the kind of velocity that propels us into outer space. No matter what your particular want-to-know-more-about subject, the Denver area has wonderfully engaging museums that will make for memorable visual and tangible explorations for you and the entire family. Read on to learn about a few of our favorites.

Shelby American Collection

Gearheads rejoice! If you loved the movie Ford v Ferrari and want to see a few cars from the era, the Shelby American Collection museum in Boulder is well worth the drive. (Please, though, stick to the speed limit!) Showcasing some of the rarest and most important cars in American racing history, the museum is dedicated to preserving the legacy of revolutionary car designer Carroll Shelby and racer Ken Miles (Matt Damon and Christian Bale’s characters, respectively, in the aforementioned movie) and their racing team. Yes, the cars are there in all their glory, but the museum is home to memorabilia and media from America’s golden age of racing and much more.
Shelby American Collection
5020 Chaparral Court, Boulder shelbyamericancollection.com

Museum of Contemporary Art Denver

Engaging. Challenging. Innovative. And always, always changing – that’s Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA).
Founded in 1996, and in its permanent home on Delgany Street since 2007, MCA Denver is home to a series of rotating exhibits of global, national and regional artists. MCA also hosts events and speakers on a wide variety of current topics – from things you’ve read in headlines, to a world you may have only guessed at. Music, too, has a home at MCA, including virtual concerts during the pandemic.
Be sure to check in (or out) with MCA’s Octopus Initiative – you could be selected to host a piece of modern art in your home, created by a local Denver-based artist, for 10 months!
Leave your preconceptions of what art is at the door and be prepared for art and ideas and stories that reset expectations of what art can and should be -- a dialogue -- as art that doesn’t just speak to you, it talks with you.
Museum of Contemporary Art
1485 Delany, Denver
mcadenver.org.

Denver Museum of Nature and Science

A little bit Indiana Jones, a little bit Jacques Cousteau, and a little bit Sally Ride, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science has something to fire the imagination of the whole family. With various permanent collections, dioramas, and rotating exhibitions, the museum is a kind of experiential encyclopedia for everything from “Ancient Egypt” to “Space Odysseys” to “Zoology.” Kids will thrill to the dinosaur collections (including complete skeletal reconstructions of Denver dinos that show how big the lizards in our backyard really were), as well as the current exhibit “The Art of the Brick,” artist Nathan Sawaya’s expressive use of LEGOs. The museum is home, also, to the Phipps IMAX theater and its continuing rotation of natural, historical, and feature films presented on the grandest of scales.
Denver Museum of Nature and Science
2001 Colorado Blvd, Denver
dmns.org.

Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum

Are you ready for lift off? Dedicated to “educating and inspiring people of all ages about aviation and space endeavors of the past, present and future,” the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum showcases some of the most recognizable and formidable aircraft in history. The museum is located in an aircraft hangar (what else?) on the former Lowry Air Force Base in east Denver. The aircraft themselves are the stars of the show – a B-52 Stratofortress, an F-4 Phantom, an HL20 Dream Chaser spacecraft, even a replica X-Wing from Star Wars – but there is much more to the story. Educational programs and featured events bring the people, history, and world of aviation and space exploration alive. Be sure to check out the flight simulators to see how you’d do in the cockpit!
Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum
7711 East Academy Boulevard, Denver
wingsmuseum.org

Don Stinson, High Beams and Starlight Beyond Absence–Double Negative, July 2003 PM, 2004.jpg — Don Stinson, High Beams and Starlight Beyond Absence–Double Negative, July 2003 PM, 2004

Denver Art Museum

Located in central Denver right off Cheesman Park, the Denver Art Museum is the grande DAM (ahem) of art venues in Denver. Permanent collections of Asian, African and Western art in all media share space with rotating touring national artwork. The permanent Petrie collection of art of the Western United States is one of the best and most comprehensive of its type anywhere. Featured exhibitions include a travelling catalog of the work of Frieda Kahlo (running through January 2021). Ticket prices vary by exhibition, but general admission is always free for kids, with youth ticket pricing starting at $5 for special exhibits.
Denver Art Museum
100 W 14th Ave Pkwy, Denver
denverartmusuem.org

Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art

If Boulder Creek is the main artery of Boulder, then the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (BMoCA) is its heart. Located in a historic warehouse that gives BMoCA its urban face, the museum hosts global and national, and local art and artists, events, and educational outreach in a warm and welcoming venue to over 100,000 visitors annually. The calendar is changing all the time and should make BMoCA a stop every time you’re in town – or go before or after a visit to Dushanbe Tea House and make a day of it. Check the website for their event calendar. With admission only $2, it may be the best art deal in town!
Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art
1750 13th Street, Boulder
bmoca.org

Colorado History Center

At the intersection of the storied past and the evolving future, the Colorado History Center in Denver’s Golden Triangle creative district tells the story of the Centennial State through exhibits, stories, artifacts, and more. The four story, fifteen exhibit center is dedicated to “capturing the pioneering individualistic spirit of Colorado.” The Center’s mission and vision give voice to the unique stories of all Coloradans – native inhabitants, immigrants, pioneers, and women all blend into the medley that is Colorado’s history. And it’s a great place to start your deeper dive into the state as one of the flagship museums of the Colorado History initiative.
Colorado History Center
1200 N Broadway, Denver
historycolorado.org

Clyfford Still Museum

When the dynamics of American painting shifted after World War II from the representational or realistic to the abstract, expressionistic, and symbolic, Clyfford Still was in the vanguard. A truly visionary figure in the art world, Still’s career spanned from the late 1930s through the 1970s. His legacy is a catalog of paintings in all sizes that use colors, surfaces, textures, and scale in pioneering ways, eschewing realism in favor of contrasts and moodiness – and the Clyfford Still Museum in downtown Denver is the permanent home to nearly all his work.
“When Clifford Still died, he stipulated in his will that all of his work be showcased in a single gallery in a single American city,” says Sanya Andersen-Vie, director of marketing and communications at the Clifford Still Museum. “In 2004, then-Mayor John Hickenlooper petitioned Still’s widow to get the collection. She was impressed, and Denver won.”
By Denver, she means all of us – the landmark museum in downtown Denver is not just a gallery and exhibition space, but a marvel of architectural achievement as well. Designed by architect Brad Cloepfil, the museum space is spacious yet intimate, and the concrete walls provide a great contrast to Still’s work. The lighting changes the mood and complexion of each piece at different times of day. And with 95 percent of Still’s work in one space, it is possible to really get a read on the artist’s catalog in its virtual entirety – even if showing all his pieces is a logistical impossibility given the sheer size and volume of Still’s output.
“We change out the exhibits two or three times a year,” Andersen-Vie says, “but our free virtual tours and online catalog contain almost all of Still’s art.” Nearly 2,500 pieces are available for viewing online through the museum.
The museum is home to Still’s work, and only Still’s work, but that doesn’t mean the art community as a whole and the public itself don’t have a presence there. “Denver artists aid with the curation and presentation of the art,” Andersen-Vie continues. “We are also currently working with our youngest audience – some children as young as 6 months old – to aid with selection for a curated exhibit in September 2021.”
Children, Andersen-Vie says, respond very well to the family-friendly venue. “This is the kind of art that children themselves are creating when they first start out drawing or coloring,” she says. “And we had one 10-year-old boy who was so moved by the museum and the art that he did a classroom project on Still, and eventually hosted an evening at the museum where he was the guide. He’s our superfan!”
The museum also hosts a collection of Still’s journals, notebooks, and sketches that provide insight into the artist’s life, technique and inspirations. Beyond showcasing Still and his enormous contribution to American art, the museum also hosts concerts, courses and classes, and meditation in the museum.
As the museum nears its 10th year, there may be no better time to visit and open your mind to what art is … and what it can be.
Clyfford Still Museum
1250 Bannock St, Denver
clyffordstillmuseum.org

Kyle Kirves drinks beer, plays guitar, runs trails, and manages projects – all with varying degrees of success. While not a craftsman himself, he is quite content writing about the Colorado artisans who create such wonderful things and memorable experiences.