It's a marathon opening at the museum

Rocky Mountain News Staff

Published October 9, 2006 at midnight

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The Denver Art Museum is throwing a 35-hour event for art this weekend to open its new wing, so we decided to attend the party -- all of it. Here's the hour-by-hour report by Mary Voelz Chandler, John Lehndorff, Betsy Lehndorff, Marc Shulgold, Dave Flomberg, Jeff Smith, John Ensslin, Erika Gonzalez, Chris Walsh, Stuart Steers.

SATURDAY, 9:15 A.M. The big party may have been last night, but this is one, too. Annette Striggles of Denver walks away from one of the ticket windows on the ground floor of the Museum Residences, ticket in hand. She is heading to get in line for the opening, at 10 a.m., of the Denver Art Museum’s new Frederic C. Hamilton Building. And she isn’t alone. People started lining up around 5 a.m. Saturday to snare a ticket, timed in half-hour intervals, to get inside the new building designed by architect Daniel Libeskind during a 35-hour marathon opening. "I thought it would be a great opening," said Striggles. "I think we’re a world-class city now." The soft bonging sounds of the Kutandara Center Marimba Ensemble fill the air, their large instruments set up next to the Hamilton entryway.

SATURDAY, 9:17 A.M. At first it seems that most of the people on the Martin Plaza in front of the Hamilton Building are museum volunteers or staff, it is such a sea of green T-shirts. But that’s because the line for tickets, farther east, creeps all the way down the plaza, east on West 12th Avenue, and then up Broadway. That line snakes around the corner all morning.

SATURDAY, 9:18 A.M. CBS 4 critic-at-large Greg Moody, the first of several broadcasters to take on emcee duties during the weekend, walks toward the marimba players. He greets the crowd, then says, "It’s only our start in the growth of the arts." And what does he think of the new building? "I love it. There’s not a right angle in the place. What I like best is what it will be in 10 years. There’s room for the collection to grow." As for the art, he mentions "that guy made of pins (a sculpture by Antony Gormley on the fourth floor). That’s my personality."

SATURDAY, 9:19 A.M. One of the first people to stand in line to get a ticket, David Cavanagh, is in the front row of those set aside in a roped off area reserved for those who had tickets in hand to enter. "I thought it would be a long line," he says. "I’ve watched this building go up for the past three years, and I’ve been so awestruck. I’m intensely curious about how it comes together inside."

SATURDAY, 9:30 A.M. Cindy Anderson has been a volunteer at the museum for about 3 years, working in the area of information and membership. But she’s been a member since moving to Denver in the early 1970s, early enough to attend the opening of the original building designed by Gio Ponti and James Sudler. "You can imagine. It was like, ‘He’s putting WHAT on the outside of the building?’," referring to the thousands of gray glass tiles that cover the structure. And if it seems as if the plaza is a vast field of green, that’s because about 370 volunteers are on duty this morning, not counting docents and those working the gift shops. Security people number about 20, a mix of museum personnel and off-duty police.

SATURDAY, 9:40 A.M. The line for tickets moves slowly, but there are ways to keep occupied. One comes courtesy of museum volunteer Jeannette Nelson, who is standing near the line holding two small titanium panels. She offers to let people hold them (they are light), and also learn how titanium is made. "It starts out as a sand from Australia," she said, holding up a tiny test tube with dark dust in it. There are 9,000 titanium panels on the Hamilton Building, measuring 2 feet by 7 feet.

SATURDAY, 9:51 A.M. Volunteers begin to clear a path around where the marimba music is still holding sway, and staff is telling the press to stay back because drummers will be heading into the plaza from both north and south.

SATURDAY, 10 A.M. The drumming begins, from the north, coming in from the plaza that separates the original museum and the Denver Central Library. It is the Denver Broncos Stampede, which keeps performing and then?..

SATURDAY, 10:02 A.M. Museum director Lewis Sharp and architect Libeskind walk through the Hamilton building front door onto the plaze. The group Kissidougou enters from the south, with drumming of another sort, another cadence, all mixing as people sway and clap until?.

SATURDAY, 10:10 A.M. Everything gets quiet. "Welcome to the Denver Art Museum," says Sharp. "We’re thrilled to have you here today. The Frederic C. Hamilton Building is open."

SATURDAY, 10:11 A.M. And so it is. And the usually loquacious Daniel Libeskind doesn’t say a word. Just beams. The museum said this would be an "opening moment." And moment it is. Children clamber up onto a platform where Sharp and Libeskind are standing. People clap, and the stanchions holding back those with tickets are moved back. Those who have tickets begin to file into the building. The Hamilton Building is open for business, almost seven years after Denver voters approved a bond issue that set the project in motion.

SATURDAY, 10:17 A.M. Director Sharp is standing inside the atrium, surrounded by family. That includes his 95-year-old mother, Katherine Sharp, who lives in Baltimore. "It’s breathtaking," she says. Plus, "I felt so privileged getting to meet Daniel Libeskind."

SATURDAY, 10:28 A.M. The architect is standing on the canyon walk staircase, watching the crowd flow in. "It’s the best," he says, beaming. "The museum is now open. Isn’t that the most unique thing in the world."

SATURDAY, 10:32 A.M. The galleries are filling with visitors. One of them is Anna Hansen, a freshman art student at the University of Utah, who is walking through the space devoted to "RADAR: Selections From the Collection of Vicki and Kent Logan." She’s home visiting her family in Lakewood. She’s standing in front of a chilling painting, Epiphany (Adoration of the Magi), that sets a young mother and baby against a scene of SS officers; the baby is the young Hitler. Hansen turns the corner. What does she think of the building? "I think the world definitely needs more art in it.

SATURDAY, 10:34 A.M. Overheard, as a young woman with her baby, and a friend, walk by the same painting. "He doesn’t have any diaper on, does he?"

SATURDAY, 10:40 A.M. Australian artist Kim Polomka has made the trip to see the Hamilton Building. I’ve always loved the (Michael) Graves (library) building. There is a great juxtaposition. They marry so well. This is so brilliant. It gives Denver an edge."

SATURDAY, 10:46 A.M. West 13th Avenue has been closed to traffic so a stage and chairs can be set up for the entertainment today and Sunday. But one of the best ways to watch is from the Reiman Bridge that links the old and new buildings. Too bad someone with a gun decided to have some fun a couple of months ago and shot at one of the glass panels. One pane of glass has been removed, the other is taped in place.

SATURDAY, 11:10 A.M. Members of the Plein Air Artists of Colorado are on both plazas painting, invited by the museum to set up their easels and create images of the building. Ed Sirokman of Englewood is one of the first shift of 10 to be painting impressions of the Hamilton Building. "It’s nice. It’s a great environment. I’m going to finish off here, and then get some more intimate settings."

SATURDAY, 11:20 A.M. Nearly 2,000 people have entered the building by this point, says a museum spokeswoman. That includes the minimum of 400 people per half hour being allowed in with tickets, plus press and others.

SATURDAY, 11:30 A.M. Back out on the line, Nicole Hiken and Mike Luxenberg are waiting in line. "It’s been about 10 minutes," he says. "Not bad. It’s moving fast." "I’ve been waiting for it to open for a long time," she says. "I’m from New York. I miss museums."

SATURDAY, 11:35 A.M. Up on the fourth floor, people crowd around the shiny blue concave disc by artist Anish Kapoor; its shape distorts sound and a person’s sense of hearing. "Your ears feel weird," one man says to the person next to him. A passerby says, "Oh, it does look like a contact, doesn’t it?"

SATURDAY, 11:40 A.M. A woman backs up, in the African gallery, to take a photo, and as she steps back, she encounters one of the gaps in some places where the wooden floor meets the angled wall. She rights herself, and continues on. I just did the same thing, misreading where the floor ended and the wall began.

SATURDAY, 12:04 P.M. Overheard walking down the staircase, between the second and first floors. "This is the neatest building I’ve ever been," he sas. "It’s amazing."

SATURDAY, 12:10 P.M. On Acoma Plaza, artist Phil Bender is walking toward the Hamilton Building. Bender has two works on the fourth floor, giant grids of hubcaps. He is, in short, elated. "I’m still upset with them that they didn’t use all the walls. But it’s gorgeous in and out."

SATURDAY, 12:23 P.M. There are several places where visitors can buy memberships. By this point, one desk has sold about 20, another between 30 and 40.

SATURDAY, 12:30 P.M. In the original museum building, now called the North Building, the action varies floor by floor. No. 6, though, with its early decorative arts and American and European paintings has several visitors. Two prepare to leave, a mother and daughter from Aurora. Are they in this building waiting for their timed entry into the Hamilton? No. "We saw the other one, and we like this one," said Tammie Aberkalns. But "It made me dizzy." Adds her mother, Donna Aberkalns, "Anyone with any bit of vertigo problem is going to feel it." "But the layout is beautiful," says Tammie. Says Donna, "There are a lot of pieces of art. We’re going to come back when we can spend some time with them." People still flow in, at about 500 per half hour.

SATURDAY, 2:10 P.M. Most tables are full at Palettes in the North building on the first day the restaurant is open to the public again. A full line of white-clad cooks and chefs fill the window of the open kitchen. Outside in the plaza, a crowd fills the folding seats as the Denver Municipal Band performs on the temporary stage.

SATURDAY, 2:18 P.M. rene Foss of Highlands Ranch finishes her lunch at Palettes with her daughter, Rachel Foss, 10. "I don't come to the art museum very often and I thought we'd both enjoy it, and it's all free." Rachel's favorite exhibit: "It's the wild stuff, the Mona Lisa," she says. She is referring to the Radar Gallery.

SATURDAY, 2:38 P.M. "It looks better than it tastes," CU professor Paul Antal says after sampling an $8 butterscotch pudding at Palettes. "Do you want to know what I do like?" He points to a wide window between the restaurant and the kitchen. The cooks can be seen working furiously as they prepare each plate. "It reminds me of something a renown Syrian architect said, "People who do repetitive tasks should have a view."

SATURDAY, 2:55 P.M. Palettes waiter Brian Dobbs delivers one of pastry chef Jason LeBeau’s architecturally resonant dessert creations to a white cloth-covered table. Thin angular slices of blissfully creamy white and dark chocolate mousse rest on one another among zig-zagging lines of chocolate and caramel sauces interrupted by sugared pistachios and poached cherries. It tastes like the Hamilton building looks.

SATURDAY, 3:07 P.M. "I wanted to bring the children down to experience this new building," says Sabrina Pierre-Louis of Lakewood as she stands with her family on the bridge between the Gio Ponti building and the new addition. She has two 9 year olds and a 7-year-old and is try to introduce them to art at an early age. "I want my children to be well-rounded, I want them to have all kinds of experiences, and the world of art is one."

SATURDAY, 3:15 P.M. Palettes executive chef and owner is in the new kitchen boning fish for the expected full house in the restaurant tonight including private parties hosted by Louis Sharp and Daniel Liebeskind.

SATURDAY, 3:17 P.M. Technical architect Sid Conn worked on the Hamilton Building for seven months, creating drawings for its construction and contract documents. "It's absolutely outstanding. First of all,

because it is; second of all because I am biased. I'm part of the team."

SATURDAY, 3:39 P.M. "It's all angles, light and dark. In the wheelchair it's good," says Sasha Galikeeva, 16, of Denver, accompanied by her family.

SATURDAY, 3:40 P.M. "Our son, who is 10, is a little dizzy because of all of the wall angles and perspectives," says Sasha's dad, Tagir Galikeeva, 39. "You lose your orientation in space. But it's very nice, very unusual."

SATURDAY, 3:44 P.M. Truck driver Mike Murphy, 41, of Greeley, is visiting an art museum for the first time in his life, as part of a birthday celebration for family.

"I can tell that I'm not very cultured because I don't know what half the stuff is. It's all right. Every person has an individual destiny and mine is truck driving. But I've gotten a kick out of the building. It looks like it had just collapsed inward."

SATURDAY, 3:54 P.M. Sitting in the North building visitor Lance Endsley of Greeley says: "My wife is really into art. I like some of it. She’s trying to culture me up."

SATURDAY, 3:59 P.M. Andrew Mazur, 23, of Boulder stands in front of a huge, 1965 canvas covered with vertical stripes in bold colors, called Phantom Tattoo. " I like art that interacts with your retinas."

SATURDAY, 4:10 P.M. "How could you NOT like Gustav Klimt?" asks Patricia Schroeder of Houston, looking at cards in the new DAM gift shop in the Hamilton building. "I’m here for this opening, and for The Race for the Cure. What I love about (the Hamilton building) is that you can get through the galleries easily. It’s logical and you don’t miss anything. It’s unexpectedly user-friendly," she says.

SATURDAY, 4:17 P.M. A series of 15 aluminum squares, called Aluminum by Carl Andre, is laid in rows on the floor near one of the slanting white walls. Like most, Marvin Stober, a 60-year-old professor from New York City, is mystified until a reporter points out that part of the art work is the reflection the squares cast on the ceiling high above.

"If you don't know what to look at, then you’re looking at the wrong thing. I don't think anybody is looking up." He watches others for a while. "Maybe one way to look at art is to look at the way other people look at the art."

SATURDAY, 4:25 P.M. Danielle Kaufman, 24, and her two friends are strolling through the museum, dressed in T-shirts, their lips pierced with rings. "Hey, it's Styrofoam Man," she says, referring to a tiny figure artist Tom Friedman made in 1996 out of Styrofoam beads and covered with a huge Plexiglas box. "I saw that at a special exhibit at in the Gio Ponti building four years ago and we came four times."

"We're really into modern art. Art is just moving to me."

SATURDAY, 4:34 P.M. Denver artist Phil Bender has some of his work hanging in the Hamilton Building, composed old hubcaps. He says he tucks his name badge in his shirt pocket to disguise the fact that he is the artist, stands next to the work and tells others in disbelief, 'Hey, I've got these in my garage."

SATURDAY, 4:37 P.M. "Do you know how to get down from here?" says Laura Bloom, 48 of Boulder. I can't find my way down 'cause they hid the stairs."

SATURDAY, 4:45 P.M. Kenita Gibbins has been a docent at the museum for three years. "Finally getting into the space has been exciting. We finally have room for the art. I’m pretty turned on by the African gallery," she says as she sits on the first floor of the Hamilton building. "After moving through the building for awhile now, I don’t get that vertigo feeling any more like I did at first."

SATURDAY, 5:00 P.M. "Oh I get it. It's an ash tray with tons of ashes," one young man says, looking into a giant 1995 piece by Damien Hirst, called "Party Time." The artist built a giant ashtray and filled it with leftover cigarette butts and crushed packs that are normal sized.

SATURDAY, 5:01 P.M. Ross Swirling, 23, of Westminster, looks into the giant ashtray and tries to inhale its scent. "What's interesting is that it doesn't smell," he says. "That's weird."

SATURDAY, 5:06 p.m. The line to get free tickets still snakes along the sun-drenched plaza but it’s moving fast. The earliest tickets available now are for 10:30 p.m. and for Sunday.

SATURDAY, 5:14 P.M. Shelly Baxter, 41, studies sculptures of giant mushrooms and painted eyes in the Radar Gallery. She works for a local architectural firm and recently took an art appreciation class. "You're supposed to first ask yourself what you see and I see a bunch of mushrooms. And then your supposed to ask yourself what you think the artist was trying to say, and then how would it be different if they did something else.

"I took the class at the Lab at Belmar so if I went to places like this I could appreciate it."

SATURDAY, 5:18 P.M. Michelle Boeckholt and her friend look at Memorial Day Weekend, a 1989 sculpture in the Radar Gallery by Felix Gonzales-Torres. The work consists of a white platform that holds a thick ream of paper. On each of the large sheets, the words "Memorial Day Weekend" are printed. Each woman takes a sheet, rolls it up and tucks it under her arm.

"I am familiar with his work and knew that I could be part of this work of art," says the 39-year-old, who works at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Mo. "You're supposed to take one of the pieces home with you and enjoy it in whatever fashion you like. You can walk around with it and roll it or fold it or throw it a way.

"I like the participatory aspect of it, because there are so many things in an art museum you are not allowed to touch.

SATURDAY, 5.20 P.M. "Hey look a spider. I’m going to go see the spider," says a little girl before she sprints toward the sculpture outside one entrance to the Hamilton building. All afternoon long it has magnetically drawn children who - gingerly at first and then enthusiastically - touch the long legs and giggle.

SATURDAY, 5:25 P.M. "I don't know what to think of it," says Wendi Ekblade, 42, as she looks at a bull's head preserved in a tank of formaldehyde solution by Damien Hirst. "And we don't like the Teletubbies. You can say that."

SATURDAY, 5.36 P.M. "I’ve been surprised how smoothly everything has gone today," says security guard Ed Cronin as he stands inside and entrance to the North building. He estimates that 4,000 visitors have come through these doors between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. today.

SATURDAY, 5.50 P.M. Asked what time her day started, Nancy Blomberg, curator of Native Arts at the museum says: "About six months ago." She’s answering questions from visitors as they enter the North building. "We’ve had over 800 people and hour coming in. It’s a great day to celebrate," she says.

SATURDAY, 5:59 P.M. Artist Don Barnes has been working on a landscape of the plaza for the last four hours, using a palette knife and oil paints. Although he is aware of the masterpieces inside the Hamilton Building, he hasn't visited yet.

"I don't have to compete with an artist from a previous time. I just paint where I am today."

SATURDAY, 6 P.M. Some of those in line for tickets are told that all time slots through 2 a.m. are sold out. Laughter and groans greet the news. The wait for tickets ranges from 15 to 25 minutes.

SATURDAY, 6:14 P.M. "Coooooool," exclaims a young boy, as he walks into the interactive room in the Montfort Gallery.

SATURDAY, 6:15 P.M. The boy discovers that touching the little box on the TV monitors opens up a new video display. He remains for another 5 minutes.

SATURDAY, 6:26 P.M. Two volunteers, Gillian and Heather, are seated on the floor under the stairs in the Northwest Coast room, assembling small Bentwood boxes for a group of children. Patterns are selected and traced onto the sides of the cardboard boxes. Gillian said they’d been there since 2 in the afternoon. "It’s been really popular with kids and grown-ups," she noted. "At one point I had about 15 kids at once."

SATURDAY, 6:30 P.M. As the two women continue to work, a man sporting a baseball hat and a cane walks by, loudly singing along to the song on his iPod: "Mmmm, Sweet Jane!," he croons. Admiring the Native American art, he announces to the volunteers, "I’m part-Cherokee. There’s a little Cherokee in all of us, ya know."

SATURDAY, 6:35 P.M. It is the evening of the First Day, and groups of visitors gather on the bridge connecting the new building and the old. Silently, they admire a great work of art: A magnificent sunset over the Front Range.

SATURDAY, 6:40 P.M. No one is visiting a display of 19 imaginatively designed chairs, or the nearby display cases of eye-popping glassware and silver.

SATURDAY, 6:52 P.M. A young girl gazes longingly at the whimsical mushroom sculptures by Takashi Murakami in the room housing the Logan Collection. "Mommy? Daddy?," she pleads, pointing to the objects. "Can I play?" Mom points to the "Do Not Touch" sign, and the subject is closed.

SATURDAY, 6:55 P.M. A little boy is unceremoniously yanked back by his mother, after attempting to play among the mushrooms. A nearby guard sighs and reports that such occurrences have been going on all day.

SATURDAY, 7:02 P.M. Outside on the Plaza, two volunteers, Amy and Justina are taking snapshots of passers-by. "We have 94 photographers on this," Amy explains. "We’ll be taking around 6,000 photos for a mosaic by Jerry de la Cruz. She glances at her camera and reports that she has already snapped about 250 pictures.

SATURDAY, 7:04 P.M. I become Photo No. 251 in the mosaic, which will be displayed at the Hamilton in January.

SATURDAY, 7:12 P.M. Two guys stand in front of Phil Bender’s pair of wall-mounted hubcap sculptures. "Reminds me of Hubcap Annie’s – you know that place on Colfax?," one of them quips.

SATURDAY, 7:10 P.M. A group of college-age visitors pause in front of Martin Eder’s "The Morning Prayer," depicting a sad tramp clown seated next to a large yellow bird. "I like art that’s peaceful," one of them comments. "But that’s creepy."

SATURDAY, 7:35 P.M. "Moan-dree-annn. Moan-dree-own," mutters a young man with woolen cap, strolling into the Chambers Grant Gallery, enjoying the sound of the name of a featured artist, Mondrian.

SATURDAY, 7:56 P.M. A woman walking across the bridge stops dead in her tracks and calls out to her friends up ahead: "Omigod, look! A full moon! Come see."

SATURDAY, 8:05 P.M. While a few visitors seem unimpressed with the crazy-angled walls in some of the galleries, one young fellow makes good use of a sloping wall, leaning his back against it, and closing his overworked eyes for a spell.

SATURDAY, 8:10 P.M. "I just saw my first Monet!" exclaims visitor Steve Burkland.

SATURDAY, 8:30 P.M. The ticket line in the Plaza continues to stretch all the way to 12th St. Word gets out that the earliest available time that night is 3 a.m. One on-line group weighs their options. "Maybe we could get into the 7 a.m. slot, or another time that would be pretty quiet," one suggests.

SATURDAY, 8:40 P.M. Volunteer Carole Lee reports that Sunday slots were filling up rapidly: 10-11:30 a.m. were almost sold out, as were the 1-3 p.m. slots. "People haven’t been griping," she said. "Some of them tell me that they just came down for the excitement. Earlier, I told someone that the earliest I could give them was 1 a.m. And they said, ‘Great! That’s what we wanted.’ "

SATURDAY, 8:52 P.M. After waiting in line for 40 minutes, a woman named Rebecca finds that she can only obtain a single ticket for 11 a.m. She gets two noontime tickets for friends. Anxious to see the place, she joins the museum and walks in with a pass.

SATURDAY, 9:03 P.M. Anyone for chess? A group of 11 members of the Regis High School Chess Club had set up several tables an hour earlier, in front of a photograph of cutting-edge artist (and serious chess player) Marcel Duchamp. With chessboards and timers at the ready, they’ll take on all comers. I sit down with a young man in white shirt and red tie (dressed like his colleagues) to chat.

SATURDAY, 9:04 P.M. At his insistence, the match begins: me vs. Stetson (that’s his real name). He explains that he has only an 800 rating, that a grand-master would be around 3,000. He tells me that some of his challengers thus far have been "pretty good."

SATURDAY, 9:08 P.M. "Checkmate," he calls. That didn't take too long. He reaches across to shake my hand, fully appreciating the fact that I hadn’t played in 30 years. Stetson then takes a break, replaced by Anthony, also with an 800 rating. He resets the pieces and invites me to play. I decline.

SATURDAY, 9:15 P.M. Three of the Regis group share their excitement about chess. "It’s your brain versus someone else’s brain," notes Ryan, a senior at Regis. "You have to use every form of thinking." He and his companions, Matt and Chris, praise their coach, Regis physics teacher Billy Wilson, who is busy taking pictures of his young charges.

SATURDAY, 9:25 P.M. A young girl happily dances with her shadow in front of the Jennifer Steinkamp video projection, "Rock Formation." She poses as each image of a falling cloth displays her silhouette.

SATURDAY, 9:32 P.M. Walking into the darkened room and observing the Steinkamp on the sharply angled wall, a visitor declares, "Oh, this is so relaxing! I was starting to get dizzy."

SATURDAY, 9:45 P.M. A volunteer runs into a group of friends and announces proudly, "I’m still here!" One asks her, "What pills are you taking?" She replies, "Oh, I’m feeding off the energy of the people."

SATURDAY, 10:04 P.M. The line for tickets stretches to 12th again. "Dude, this is like, roller coaster long," says a mop-haired, 30-someting man wearing a rugby jersey. "I hope it's as exciting as that new one at Elitch's." Tickets are now only available starting at 3 A.M.

SATURDAY, 10:09 P.M. Despite the long lines for tickets, there's a steady stream into the new Hamilton building. "Meet us by the giant spider," one woman says into her cell phone, gesturing at the sculpture directly next to the entrance. The first floor is bustling with activity, but not overly crowded.

SATURDAY, 10:12 P.M. "Where's all the arty art?" says a teen-ager with oversized piercings in his ear as he walks toward the Japanese art exhibit.

SATURDAY, 10:28 P.M. "Andy Warhol," says a young blonde girl in boots and a tennis skirt, regarding two Warhols in the Japanese art wing. "Isn't he that Campbell's soup guy?" The crown at 10:30 P.M. is decidedly younger; lots of urban hipsters, artists and musicians.

SATURDAY, 10:35 P.M. Standing in the atrium on the fourth floor and looking down creates an uneasy sense of vertigo. The sharp angles and lack of contrast from white wall to white wall wreaks havoc on depth perception. Taking a step away from the precipice almost becomes an emergent need.

SATURDAY, 10:42 P.M. There is a small sculpture in the African exhibit that is a bit unsettling; a human form pierced with what look to be hundreds of nails. Around the corner, several video screens play documentaries on the art in the exhibit, and the artists? creative process creating it.

SATURDAY, 10:58 P.M. The first piece inside the entrance to the Modern and Contemporary Art exhibit is a massive installment of black oil painting on aluminum. The effect looks like a magnified side-view of an enormous stack of records that are slowly melting. "You take away the destructive part and you?ve turned graffiti into decoration," says an older woman as she exits the exhibit.

SATURDAY, 11:05 P.M. There is a large piece that looks like a Tractor axle with a giant skull on it. "That looks like a prototype for Mr. Plow," jokes Chris Baur from Denver, referencing an episode of the Simpsons where Homer took a side job plowing snow.

SATURDAY, 11:09 P.M. Sean Landers has a giant piece on the wall up here; it's oil paint on linen; thousands of small passages, thoughts and phrases laid out in such a manner that they create their own movement by the shape of their paragraphs. "I miss the early 90s," says one of the paragraphs. "For a brief time, I was an art world god. Not bad for Pat Landers' son of Plummer, M.A. When I was looking at a map of the world, frankly Massachusetts looked worthy of my genius." Several people stand along the landing opposite the piece, staring into it and reading each thought.

SATURDAY, 11:14 P.M. Another piece a few feet away is a painting by Martin Eder of a sad clown with a strange bird sitting on a branch next to him; the little yellow bird sports an oversized female human bust line. "Sexiest chick I ever saw," jokes a tall man, regarding the piece casually as he ambles past.

SATURDAY, 11:15 P.M. A lithe brunette sprawls across a nearby bench, striking a model-pose while her boyfriend snaps pictures of her. "I don't think she realizes that's not actually art," the same tall man says to his friend as he passes by, nodding his head at the bench.

SATURDAY, 11:22 P.M. Thomas Lee Threats from Denver pauses by a large Warhol portrait of American Indian Movement leader Russell Means. "I really like this piece," he says. I'm not too sure why. Maybe it's because so many of his other works pop with color, where this one's monochromatic. Or maybe it's just the expression on his face. Whatever, I like this one a lot."

SATURDAY, 11:31 P.M. The classic elegance of the Monet works take on new life against the backdrop of some of the more unusual contemporary works in other places throughout the Hamilton building, not to mention the strange and askew angles jutting out all over the places. Somehow, it make the Monet seem all the more impressive.

SATURDAY, 11:47 P.M. A Dali-esque piece titled, "A Little Later" stops a young man in his tracks. ?That's kind of what I feel like after wandering around this building for the last hour," he says.

SUNDAY, 12:07 A.M. The boys from Regis High School are still taking on all comers for chess. Sadly, none of the would-be challengers are high school girls.

SUNDAY, 12:07 A.M. I just love it," says Gretchen Timber from Denver, who was just a little disoriented coming down the stairs. "There's no 90-degree angles. I'm so excited to see everybody out here. And you know what I love? That Denver people are all 'ooh' and 'ahh' and talking about how it looks instead being smug like they might be in Washington D.C. or New York." Her friend, a man who identifies himself only as Bruce, chimes in. "The first time I came out here, I went hiking with a bunch of buddies, and there were points where I had a hard time with angles and steep slopes and lines. And (Libeskind) really captured that sense of the mountains in the architecture here; with the strange juxtapositions and the sense of walking in unfamiliar territory."

SUNDAY, 12:24 A.M. There is a video by Bruce Nauman called 'Setting a Good Corner," playing on a small screen. A man is drilling a large hole into the ground with what looks to be a small oil drill. "You know those flash email movies you get where you stare at something mundane for several seconds and then a zombie face pops up out of nowhere and scares the bejeezus out of you?" says a young man watching the screen. "It would be awesome if this was one of those."

SUNDAY, 12:37 A.M. Standing out on the observation deck of the old North Building, the sense of whimsical discordance between the giant jutting bow of the art museum and the almost cartoonish look of the Denver Public Library is inspiring.

SUNDAY, 12:48 A.M. "People sitting in chairs, looking at chairs," says a man walking through an exhibit of mod furniture in the North Building.

SUNDAY, 1:07 A.M. The photography of Larry Clark in the North Building is very hard to look at. Black and White photos that seem to capture people at their worst; the baby in a coffin, the woman with a black eye a junkie writhing on a bed. It's the same man responsible for the film Kids, and his work elicits tears from a middle-aged woman standing near by.

SUNDAY, 1:10 A.M. Children read their own poetry near the top of the stairs coming from he first floor in the North Building. The crowd is kind and receptive. Molly Boker takes the stage a moment later to sing and play the acoustic guitar. She stumbles a bit on the first tune, and the crowd applauds to encourage her.

SUNDAY, 1:22 A.M. There is a large tent with a full stage set up outside of the North Building. On stage, a couple of graffiti artists work on drawing on easels while the absurdly outlandish performance art troupe/rap group called The Yummies performs; each member of the band is wearing a costume; Ninja Nate is the turntablist, and MCs Mascot Mannie (sporting a bear costume) and Sheep Head (wearing a sheep costume) dance around the stage and limited audience yelling at people, while a strange, elderly hippie-type with long hair kind of dances around in circles. The cacophony becomes unbearable rather quickly. "This is basically what my hell would be," says a man as he quickly makes his way out of the tent.

SUNDAY, 1:32 A.M. The lights in the men's bathroom are off, and it makes for an even more disorienting experience than meandering through the Hamilton building; made even worse by the sudden playing of the song "Row Your Boat" unexpectedly when washing your hands.

SUNDAY, 1:48 A.M. The crowd remains young and seems to actually be busier than it was at 10 P.M. the guesstimations about attendance to this point are around 14,000 people; tickets are being released in bunches of 400 per half hour. "We are now booked solid until 4:30 am," says a woman behind the ticket window. "Then, we have some tickets available from 4:30 A.M. until 8:30 A.M. After that, we're basically sold out until 6:30 P.M."

SUNDAY, 2 A.M.More than a dozen local artists have been showing their work in a 24-foot rental truck parked along 14th Avenue near the museum. Denver artist Lauri Lynnxe Murphy, an organizer of BOOM: An Art Show in a Truck," excitedly reports she had seen museum architect Daniel Libeskind about a half hour earlier as he was walking back to his downtown hotel. While he didn’t go inside the truck to see the local exhibition, he did ask if it would be there later. "He was so warm and friendly," Murphy gushed. "I told him, ‘Thank you for designing this beautiful museum.’"

SUNDAY, 2:05 A.M.Young people have been spilling out of downtown bars, and the scene in front of the museum is raucous. One young woman can be overheard saying some of her friends were too "wasted" to make it to the museum.

SUNDAY, 2:10 A.M.Art Institute of Colorado students are taking pictures for a digital mosaic planned by Denver artist Jerry De La Cruz. The photographers are rotating shifts, and taking thousands of pictures of people outside and inside the museum.

SUNDAY, 2:20 A.M. A Denver police officer just inside the lobby says there’s been no major incidents, although a few people have thrown paper cups off the balconies, and some have tried to climb the sculptures outside. "Really people have been pretty good," she says.

SUNDAY, 2:25 A.M. "We’re here," exclaims Sophie Melich, 26, of Denver, as she arrives into the museum lobby with a group of friends wearing pink. Melich is wearing a brightly-colored kimono with Japanese animation characters. One of the guys is wearing tight pink-patterned boxers, no pants, while others are wearing pink coats or furry hats or knee-high boots. Melich says the group has come from a "pink-themed party." She offers to take my photo on her Polaroid camera.

SUNDAY, 2:30 A.M. People are milling around on the inside balconies, overlooking the lobby. A young blonde man is sprawled asleep on a bench. A guy in a green sweatshirt is overheard saying the museum "is very modern."

SUNDAY, 2:40 A.M. Carol Reiss, who is in her sixties, is climbing the staircase to the second floor with her husband. Reiss says they were in Denver for a party and dropped over at about 10:30 p.m. to see the museum. "I thought I would find it pretty empty, but there was this long line, and these were the first available tickets." They decided to wait it out, "since we were already here."

SUNDAY, 2:45 A.M. A DJ is playing a Damian Marley reggae soundtrack in the lobby, while a young woman wearing a black dress and furry knee-high boots sways to the music.

SUNDAY, 2:55 A.M. The Gomez family of Denver including Royal, 6, and Emilio, 10, come out of the museum. The grandmother assures the reporter they had taken a long nap before arriving. Emilio says he enjoyed sketching tattoos, while Royal exclaims the museum was "awesome, I like everything." Everything except the turns, grandmother chimes in. "He got dizzy," she says.

SUNDAY, 3 A.M. Philip Dixon of Mile High Pedicabs is waiting near the front of the museum entrance to take people on rides. He usually works the 16th Street Mall or LoDo. Good business tonight? "To be honest, it hasn’t been really huge, but there have been some rides."

SUNDAY, 3:05 A.M. A group of five teen-agers from Longmont are biding their time on blocked off 13th Avenue, making sculptures out of plastic pipes left out from an earlier activity. "We have another two hours (before getting into the museum)," says Daniel Stewart, 18. "But it’s cool." Other people are drawing chalk on the street, while another group waiting to get into the museum is huddled under the pillars of the Denver Public Library.

SUNDAY, 3:10 A.M. A ticket office employee says the free timed tickets are sold out until 4:30 a.m., and the only tickets still available are for between 4:30 and 8:30 a.m., and 7 and 10 p.m. Sunday.

SUNDAY, 3:15 A.M. Larry Anderson, a 43-year-old interactive voice response system designer for EchoStar, says he’s been waiting to get in since 1:30 a.m. He’s been soaking in the street scene, reporting that one of the most popular activities has been to get pictures of friends climbing on the "Big Sweep" broom and dustpan sculpture.

SUNDAY, 3:40 A.M. Katie Viztic, 23, and Kristin Shaw, 23, are taking a breather near a whimsical exhibit of orange urethane foam headless Buddhas. They agree that one of their favorite art pieces is "Quantum Cloud XXXIII," a floating stainless steel figure made of interconnecting rods. "I think it’s very powerful," Shaw says.

SUNDAY, 3:45 A.M. Jason Randall, 25, and Amy Marschak, 42, are animatedly critiquing pieces in the contemporary RADAR collection. They say they had just met minutes before. Randall is a free-lance artist, while Marschak is a writer and actress.

SUNDAY, 4 A.M. Security guard Richard Dibbern says he normally works the graveyard shift, "so I’m used to being the only one in the museum." So tonight is a bit different, he says. Before the art was hung, he heard some complaints about people getting dizzy from the angular building. "To be honest, it took me a little while to get used to the design. But I like it now."

SUNDAY, 4:15 A.M. Colleen Chisholm, membership sales associate, says she is passing the time by e-mailing. "No one seems to be buying memberships at this hour." She reports she has sold about 10 memberships since her shift started at 11 p.m.

SUNDAY, 4:20 A.M. Catherine Cloutier is serving coffee at the Novo Coffee kiosk on the bridge. She says she did a brisk business earlier in the night when a poetry slam was held in the area. "There was a lot of hooting, hollering and cheering."

SUNDAY, 4:30 A.M. Security guard Bill Wolf clicks the 908th person to cross over to the old North building since 11 p.m. "It’s been steady, slow traffic into the older building. I’m surprised it isn’t busier since people can come for free."

SUNDAY, 4:45 A.M. Nadine Saffer is one of only four people looking at the European and American art collection on Level 6 of the old building. That’s despite a "don’t miss" mention of the floor’s "Discovery Library" in the museum brochure. Saffer says she just "wandered over."

SUNDAY, 4:55 A.M. Retired graphics artist Robert Habenicht of Lafayette thought he’d come in the middle of the night to beat the crowds, but found he had to wait to get in. "There’s a lot of angles," he says of the new building, but adds "it’s quite exciting. As late as it is and as tired as I am, it’s overwhelming." In a good way, he says.

SUNDAY, 5 A.M. Heather Kent, 25 of Denver, is one of several people who are making Western-motif post cards at a stamping activity in the Adolph Coors Foundation Western Gallery. The science teacher is making a rodeo design. She says she feels pretty clear-headed, considering. "After the bars, we went home and made breakfast and coffee, and then we came down here."

SUNDAY, 5:05 A.M. The Longmont group of teen-agers has made it in the museum, and is watching a video of Colorado artist Daniel Sprick in the Monfort Gallery. Daniel Stewart says it was worth the wait, but friend Josh Stevens, 18, disagrees. "I’m too damn tired," he says.

SUNDAY, 5:10 A.M. People seem intrigued with a Daniel Sprick piece that appears to show a plate and flowers levitating. "Of course, at 4 a.m. I could be seeing anything," says one viewer. Another corrects him: "It’s 5 a.m." "That’s even worse," says the first man.

SUNDAY, 5:15 A.M. A tall man in his 20s with dark hair is chided by one of his friends for not respecting the "biggest moment in Denver history." The man responds: "Another long line of art critics. Arms folded, eyes squinted, whatever." He wouldn’t give his name, saying he already had gotten into trouble with security for "being too loud, and too close" to the art.

SUNDAY, 5:25 A.M. The staff at the museum shop have passed the last couple of hours by making lime-colored paper hats and wings. "We’re getting crazy. We’re the green Ninjas of the night," says Lindon Wilcox, who already has clocked a 13-hour shift.

SUNDAY, 6:30 a.m. A.M.

The museum attendance count reaches 20,400 visitors.

SUNDAY, 6:36 A.M.

A car pulls up on a truck parked on 14th Avenue Parkway just outside the Denver Art Museum.

"What's happening here?" the driver asks.

"This is just art in a truck," replies Josh Bemelen, a.k.a. "Sweaty Bear".

Bemelen is dressed in a brown bear outfit. It's his affectionate parody of Denver's Big Blue Bear sculpture. He is one of a group of artists who stayed up all night to take advantage of the opening of the Hamilton wing by parking their own show, titled "BOOM: Art Show in a Box".

They staged a marathon of their own, leaving their gallery in a truck on exhibit for 35 hours.

Bemelen said the idea of staging art in a truck was the brainchild of Laurie Murphy of the Capsule Gallery. At the moment though, she's asleep in the truck.

"We've had a fairly consistent crowd," Bemelen said. "It's a little slow now, but as soon as the sun went down and the lights went on people started coming."

As he spoke, fellow artist Dave Seiler points to a patch of pale blue sky over the Denver Public Library. "Look, it's morning!" he said.

Sunrise is still about a half hour away.

SUNDAY, 6:41 A.M.

Steve and Lynn Eschbach arrive to take in a dawn tour of the museum wing and to join a group of about 17 museum patrons taking part in a Tai Chi demonstration in the lobby.

"I'm here because I'm being exposed to culture," Steve Eschbach said. He adds that he'd rather be going to an elk hunting seminar later in the day, but agreed to accompany his wife to the art museum.

"He's a good husband," Lynn Eschbach adds, giving him a hug.

SUNDAY, 6:51 A.M.

Few people inside the museum are as busy at this hour as barista Johnny Robinson, who is working the Novo Coffee stand inside the museum lobby.

The cart offers "Monet" coffee beans. Not all the art here is on the walls.

"Let me give you a practice latte," Robinson tells one customer. "I'm not practicing the latte, I'm practicing my latte art."

Moments later, he hands the woman a latte with the design of a tree in the crème that floats on the top of her drink.

Robinson said he had been busy since they opened the coffee stand on Saturday morning.

"There were people asking for coffee as soon as we were pulling the machines off of the truck."

SUNDAY, 7:20 A.M.

Joseph Brady bangs a cymbal as Jacqui Shumway of the Tai Chi Project leads a group through their exercises. Whenever the front door opens, a gust of cold air washes over the group.

"It's pretty cool," Shumway said of practicing her art inside the new museum wing. "It's such an honor to be here."

SUNDAY, 7:30 a.m.

Three people — a man and two women — have fallen sound asleep on one of the slightly tilted black leather couches in the Director's Lounge of the Hamilton Wing.

SUNDAY, 7:47 a.m.

Steven Trujillo and a friend wrap up their early morning tour of the wing.

"It's absolutely wonderful," Trujillo said, adding that he is traveling to Spain next week to see architect Frank Gehry's titanium-clad Guggenheim museum in Bilbao.

"It's about time that Denver got something architecturally interesting," Trujillo said.

SUNDAY, 8:03 A.M.

At the top of the stairwell in the Boettcher Canyon Walk, Tim Gauer holds his cell phone aloft, snapping a bit of video.

"I wanted something I can show my wife," Gauer said as he and his son Robert toured the building. His son liked sculptures and "the colored lines".

SUNDAY, 8:15 A.M.

Issac Sims stand before a screen showing a video by artist Bruce Nauman entitled, "Setting a Good a Corner".

Sims had hoped to come to the museum after he finished work Saturday night, but it was too crowded. So he went home, slept and came right back.

"This is fantastic," he said. "I don't think you can see it all unless you plan on spending all day."

His attention returned to Nauman's work. In the video, the artist dressed in cowboy garb is digging holes, setting posts and stringing wire between three poles.

"I'm still trying to figure this out," Sims said. "It's called 'Setting a Good Corner," but what is the corner for? I guess that's what art is all about."

SUNDAY, 8:29 A.M.

In the William and Dorothy Harmsen Western art gallery, Benjamin Rader sits on a couch, plugged into an iPod that the museum has provided. Gallery-goers can listen to various western tunes, such as a Leo Kottke version of "Tumbling Tumbleweeds".

Rader has tuned into one of his favorite artists, Alison Krauss singing, "Simple Gifts".

"I love it," Rader said of the experience of listening to music while looking at art. "It makes me feel like I'm in the art."

SUNDAY, 8:38 A.M.

Paula Hutman, a local fashion designer, crouches with her camera on the stairwell above the Robert and Judi Newman Overlook, trying to get the right angle through a small window.

In the grey morning light and through the window, she can see the Colorado History Museum as well as the spires of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.

"It's just the juxtaposition of the view," she said, explaining her interest in that particular window.

Hutman's ties with the museum are varied and long-standing.

She designed the costumes worn by some of the dancers who performed in the plaza outside the Hamilton Wing on Saturday.

She remembers visiting the original Denver Art Museum when she was a five-year-old girl.

She also recalls raising money with a tea service in school to help raise money for the Ponti Tower.

And here she is, taking pictures inside the Hamilton Wing.

"It's just such a full circle," she said.

SUNDAY, 8:57 A.M.

On the sculpture deck, workmen have just finished hosing down the titanium surface, so it glistens in the morning light.

Sophie Holm decided to celebrate her daughter Anna's birthday by making an early visit to the Hamilton wing.

Holm was especially happy to see works that have not been on display in several years.

"It's like going to a family reunion," she said.

Just then, a woman with a camera suggests to her fellow art lovers that they pose for a picture.

"Let's be sculptures," she instructs. "I need you all to shout at each other, just like the buildings."

They shout. She shoots.

SUNDAY, 9:15 A.M.

Outside the museum, Randy Nichols is taking a picture of Laura Locke who is taking a picture of Nichols and his wife Maddie.

Nichols — who leases space to some of the artists in the BOOM Art Truck, is on his way into the museum.

Locke, a photography student at the Colorado Institute of Art, is one of several dozen volunteers who are trying to take some 8,000 pictures of museum visitors. The photographs will be used in an art installation planned by another artist.

Locke explains to the Nichols that visiting the museum wing has an interesting effect on people that she notices just as they emerge.

"Their equilibrium is a little played with," she observed.

"That's alright," Nichols said, pointing to his wife, a nurse practitioner. "She's got some Dramamine in her purse."

SUNDAY, 9:30 A.M.

The official count of museum vistors reaches 23,100.

SUNDAY, 10:00 a.m. It's official: 24,000 people have walked through the new Frederic C. Hamilton building during its first 24 hours of operation — roughly the same number of undergraduate students at the University of Colorado.

SUNDAY, 10:10 a.m. Museum officials alerted radio stations and newspapers that all available tickets for the opening had been distributed by 6 a.m., so that explains that lack of a line or people in formerly crowded plaza. Less than 30 people sit and watch the Denver Brass perform on a stage set up near the new building's entrance.

SUNDAY, 10:11 a.m. Not everyone is eager to see Denver's newest attraction. Declares one young boy sporting a Lion King crown: "I want to go to the pumpkin patch.

SUNDAY, 10:20 a.m. Denver resident Carol Younghans and her friend, Ray Hockedy of Boulder made reservations for Palettes for lunch ten days ago, thinking they'd easily get tickets to tour the expansion before their meal. But when they showed up for tickets, they found they were all sold out. Younghans and Hockedy are disappointed, but not desperate. When volunteer Joanna Moldow informs them that tickets are still available for handicapped individuals, Hockedy jokes: "Well, I don't think it's worth shooting myself in the foot for."

SUNDAY, 10:35 a.m. Mother and daughter Bonnie and Molly are a bit luckier. The duo, who walked in the Race from the Cure earlier today, get what could be the last two tickets for the day, time-stamped for 8 p.m. tonight. Since the time won't work for their schedules, they manage to trade up for tickets for 10:30 a.m. They smile widely when they enter the new building, still a bit amazed by their luck.

SUNDAY, 10:50 a.m. A wall in the Adolph Coors Foundation Western Gallery is already covered with homemade postcards designed by visitors. Although most simply depict Western art, a few are a bit unconventional, including one featuring a boxer hitting two Native American vases and another that urges: Wake Up and Vote!

SUNDAY, 10:53 a.m. "It's not art," says one woman after looking at piece showcasing a video of man building fence posts in the museum's Western American Art collection.

SUNDAY, 11:00 a.m. "I think it's about the cultural experience," says volunteer Janet Colville, when told about the comments to the video piece. Colville says most people want to know how much of the material in the Western Art Collection is new versus what was in storage. "It's all new to me," says Colville, who's been back in Denver for less than a year after living in New Mexico for 11 years.

SUNDAY, 11:05 a.m. "You want to see real art?" asks a man with a shiny new digital camera. In his viewfinder he displays a photo of a large construction crane and the city's skyline in the background, shot moments before from the bridge connection the museum's North Building with the expansion. "I call it modern construction. I'm going to email it to all my friends."

SUNDAY, 11:10 a.m. Visitors watch rapt from the bridge as Mexican dancers clad in colorful dresses spin and twirl on a stage down below.

SUNDAY, 11:20 a.m. "He's (Libeskind) is following an art movement in architecture to me. Gehry started this, so it's not so unusual to me," says a woman visiting from Los Angeles after looking at a model of the new building.

SUNDAY, 11:30 a.m. Four customers mill about the gift shop in the museum's north building.

SUNDAY, 11:35 a.m. "It's like I'm all disoriented," says a woman looking over a ledge on the second floor of the Frederic C. Hamilton Building.

SUNDAY, 11:38 a.m. The gift shop in the Frederic C. Hamilton Building, in contrast, is filled with people.

SUNDAY, 11:41 a.m. Outside the exhibit, Radar, two little girls desperately want to play on top of sculpture of the word "Love" carved out of what looks like rocks, with plants growing in between the letters. "I don't think these are real," says one of the girls of the stones, which are made of fiberglass.

SUNDAY, 11:45 a.m. "Look Mama, a beautiful queen," says one little boy after examining Marlene Dumas' painting, Great Britain, which features a bold African woman next to a very proper Princess Diana.

SUNDAY, 11:48 a.m. "Boy, that really looks like the baby Hitler, doesn't it? Asks one man after viewing Gottfried Heinwein's Epiphany, which shows a small cadre of Nazi officers staring at a young mother, a baby boy perched on her lap.

SUNDAY, 11:52 a.m. Security officer Anita Sanchez is entering the third hour of a 14 hour shift. She works as executive secretary for the DEA during the day and serves on the museum's security staff at night. "Tomorrow's Columbus Day, so I'm definitely going to sleep in."

SUNDAY, 12:00 p.m. "When I first walked up the stairs, I was very moved by the architecture," says Teri Jozefkowicz, who with her husband Jacek, stumbled upon tickets after someone who had extras turned them into a volunteer. The couple arrived at the museum shortly before noon. "We never listen to that sold out business."

SUNDAY, 12:10 p.m. "They're not that old," says Jacek Jozefkowicz to his wife, looking at a collection of pots dating from 1976 to 1998 in the exhibit, Breaking the Mold.

SUNDAY, 12:20 p.m. A little boy tries to count the buildings in the painting City Sunrise.

SUNDAY, 12:25 p.m. "Women are sure made funny," says one guy to his wife, after looking at a painting of a bulbous, misshapen woman. "No, says his wife. "Just that one."

SUNDAY, 12:40 p.m. "I would like to see something the artists' intentions are. I know the artist would like you to know what they meant," says Teri Jozefkowicz of the work in Radar.

SUNDAY, 1:02 p.m. "Look at how big the eyes are," says a man to his wife, viewing a painting of an unconventional looking woman in the exhibit, Japanese Art From the Colorado Collection of Kimiko and John Powers Works.

SUNDAY, 1:10 p.m. "Where's the zoo?" asks one little boy passing through the lobby of the Frederic C. Hamilton building.

SUNDAY, 1:20 p.m. At least ten people are clustered in the fourth floor's Modern and Contemporary Art gallery trying to read the daily confessions of the artist Sean Landers who's painted his thoughts on to a linen canvas.

SUNDAY, 1:30 p.m. "It's comfortable for a concrete chair," says Sean Harkin, resting in a chair carved in the shape of a human body on the museum's outdoor sculpture garden. "My feet are killing me." He wasn't planning on it, but Harkin walked in the Race for the Cure after a friend called at the last minute. "Seeing a bunch of people wearing pink and white snake around Denver — that's a art in itself."

SUNDAY, 1:40 p.m. "It's a lot more chill today than it was yesterday," says museum box office cashier Julie Hunt. Hunt says that although the line were never-ending on Saturday, once word spread that tickets were sold out, demand died out. "We're sending home staff right now because there's nothing for us to do."

SUNDAY, 1:45 p.m. Ian Martin started working in the museum's visitor services department on Friday, but he's already encountered some unusual situations. He's stationed on the bridge connecting the two buildings, scanning tickets for visitors coming over from the North Building. He's heard many sob stories and tall tales from ticket-less visitors hoping to sneak over from the old building into the new. His favorite? "One guy said: I was told there were still free tickets for CU football players."

SUNDAY, 1:50 p.m. Traffic in the North Building has increased to the point where catching an elevator has become about as easy as winning the lottery. When a very packed elevator does finally arrive, a man quickly pushes his family inside. "It's too crowded," complains the wife. "Well, I don't wait another 20 minutes for another one, do you?" counters her husband.

SUNDAY, 1:58 p.m. Alicia Martin has been visiting the museum since 8 a.m. this morning with her 10-year-old daughter Bianca and Bianca's friend, Aidan. "We've been going from floor to floor doing all the kids activities. They're not tired yet, so I'm waiting."

SUNDAY, 2 p.m. Dozens of people pack Pints Pub as rain clouds build and the temperature drops. Scott, the restaurant's manager, says business has been pretty strong today. Many customers have stopped by for a drink or a bite to eat on their way to or from the museum. Although it's busy now, you should've seen it Saturday, Scott says, when Pints posted its busiest day in a dozen or so years. "And that's including St. Patrick's Day," says Scott, who declined to give his last name. "We've been going full-steam ahead this weekend."

SUNDAY, 2:22 p.m. Paul Noel Fiorino has been at the art museum since it opened at 10 a.m. Saturday. Fiorino, an unaffiliated candidate who is running for governor of Colorado, has already been inside the new museum wing several times and is just now coming in again after having watched some of the events outside. He intends to stay until the 9 p.m. close tonight. His secret to staying awake: "I just lay or stand or sit in one position, and I’m totally still. Some people think I’m some kind of still life, though."

SUNDAY, 2:50 p.m. Roughly 80 percent of the people who have wandered into the gift shop this weekend end up buying something, estimates Bill Okuley, manager of retail operations at the museum. The most expensive on display is a $5,000 Dale Chihuly glass-blown piece that resembles a large clam. The least costly include $2.50 greeting cards and $3 bead rings. The most popular: Buddha Boards, which you paint on using water. Your creation disappears as the water evaporates.

SUNDAY, 3:35 p.m. "Weird, weird, weird, weird," a man mumbles as he finally finds the bathroom after taking several wrong turns.

SUNDAY, 3:38 p.m. "What is that?" a woman ask her young daughter about an odd sculpture. "It’s a horsey dog!" replies the girl from her stroller.

SUNDAY, 3:45 p.m. Volunteer Jane Wingle has fielded numerous questions over the past hour, the most recent being how to get to the bathrooms. Surprisingly, she says, one of the most frequent is "why don’t we have any Jackson Pollock."

SUNDAY, 4:07 p.m. Nicholas Delmonico is more interested in the architecture than the art work. Delmonico, who is blind, is walking on the fourth floor of the museum, feeling the slanted walls, unusual angles and sharp corners of the building's structure, guided by friend Heather Harold. "I really wanted to feel what this museum is like because I've heard so much about it," Delmonico says. "It's definitely not traditional. I've never felt anything like it."

SUNDAY, 4:15 p.m. "Mona Lisa has man hands," a husband says to his wife, son and daughter after looking at a modern version of the famous painting, this one by Yasumasa Morimura.

SUNDAY, 4:35 p.m. "I hate some of this stuff," says Jacob Pegues, 13, referring to a large abstract painting on the wall of the art museum lobby. "I don’t think it’s talent. It’s just throwing paint on paper." His architect father, Lex, loves the building. "The building itself is art but it hasn’t taken away from what’s inside," he says.

SUNDAY, 5:40 p.m. Cap City Tavern, just down the street and around the corner from the museum, is bustling as the Dallas Cowboys vs. Philadelphia Eagles game blares from several TVs. General Manager Patrick Shibley has one word to describe business this weekend: "Huge." Shibley estimates business at the restaurant and watering hole was up 70 percent from Friday through Sunday afternoon. "We brought two more workers in to handle the crowds," Shibley says. "For a small place like this, that's a lot."

SUNDAY, 5:55 p.m. Debbie Golden has sold plenty of $1 cups of hot chocolate and coffee today just outside the Byers-Evans House Museum. "It’s a lot cooler out than it was yesterday," she says, adjusting her pink scarf as a brisk wind picked up. "I was just joking with someone that yesterday we should have sold lemonade and fruit punch because it was so hot out. Today we did much better with the hot drinks."

SUNDAY, 6:30 p.m.

Nemanja Nedeljkov, a 16-year-old exchange student from Serbia who is attending East High School, said he had never seen a building like it before. He was waiting at the front door to be admitted.

"It's a very unusual shape," he said. "It's amazing and breathtaking. I want to see the art in it."

SUNDAY, 6:45 p.m.

"I totally feel dizzy, but it's a good kind of dizzy," said Julie Hutchinson of Denver as she rested looking out over the atrium from the second floor. "Here the walls aren't at 90 degree angles and it plays tricks with your brain. It's very Star Trekky. It's like a bent corkscrew."

SUNDAY, 7:00 p.m.

Julie Hendricksen looks out over the city skyline from the 3rd floor sculpture deck.

"I love how the angles of the building frame the city," she said. "The angles are mind boggling. It throws you out of your comfort zone."

SUNDAY, 7:20 p.m.

"It's a unique space, it takes some getting used to," said Betsy Cornehlsen of Denver. "Even walking into the bathroom is different. It feels like we're jumping ahead 20 years."

SUNDAY, 7:30 p.m.

Several people said the odd angles of the new building made them feel disoriented, rather like entering an amusement park fun house.

"At every turn you almost feel lost, but lost in a good way," said Josh Martin of Aurora. "It's really creative and interesting. It's not run of the mill architecture."

SUNDAY, 7:45 p.m.

"It's really impressive," said Ry Parcell of Denver. "I've been to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao (Spain) and the outside of this building reminds me of it. The Bilbao is more wide open and the atrium is bigger."

SUNDAY, 7:50 p.m.

Andrew Romanoff, a Colorado legislator who serves as Speaker of the House, said he was overwhelmed by the new building.

"It's inspiring and unsettling and moving," he said. "I think it's spectacular. It's a fitting tribute to the spirit of the west and the price is right."

SUNDAY, 8 p.m.

Marti Saggus of Westminster was one of the last people admitted into the museum at 8 p.m. She showed up at midnight Saturday night to get tickets, and found the plaza mobbed with people.

"There were probably 5,000 people here at midnight," she said. "When I came to get tickets they told us we couldn't get in until 3 a.m. So we got tickets for 8 p.m."

Saggus said she was excited to finally see the interior, since she had eagerly followed the construction of the new building.

"I've been watching this building go up for two years. Everytime somebody comes to town I take them here."

SUNDAY, 8:30 p.m.

Ted Schultz, a Denver architect, said he was impressed with how unique the galleries were. He visited the famous Guggenheim Musuem in Bilbao, Spain, with its radical design by Frank Gehry, a few years ago.

"Once you get in the galleries (in Bilbao) you could be anywhere," said Schultz. "It was gutsy for Libeskind to do this, with the angled walls. The curators will have years of fun, it gives them a chance to do things they've never done."

Schultz was also struck by how large the Denver Art Museum is now, with the two buildings linked by a walkway over 13th Avenue.

"It's like the Louvre, where you need a week to see it," he said. "I'm amazed we have something like this in Denver."

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