Colorado Currents

The exhibition Colorado Currents brings together recent artworks by twenty-eight artists with ties to Colorado, in the spirit of exploring how Colorado is experienced today. This multigenerational group of artists draw from their personal experiences, research, concerns, and hopes for their hometowns, current homes, or homelands. Their work considers how historical legacies shape the present while imagining ideas that may influence Colorado’s future.

Their artworks address a wide range of topics including Colorado’s indigenous communities; histories of mining, labor, cowboys, and violence; the state’s mountain, desert, and prairie landscapes; close investigations of local flora and fauna; coping with drought and wildfires; pop culture references; shifting cities and neighborhoods; stories of inclusion, exclusion and protest; and responses to recent events.  While not comprehensive, together these perspectives offer a kaleidoscopic view of how we understand Colorado during its 150th anniversary of statehood.

MCA Denver thanks the Curatorial Advisors for Colorado Currents: Jane Burke, Chief Curator and Art Director at Redline Contemporary Art Center, Katja Rivera, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Fine Arts Center at Colorado College (FAC), and Ilan Gutin, Co-Director of Friend of a Friend and Gallery Manager at the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design, for their generous time and support in the development of this project.