Art museum looks toward Oct. opening

Debut exhibit will feature work from array of top artists

Erika Gonzalez, Rocky Mountain News

Published May 16, 2007 at midnight

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The latest addition to Denver's cultural landscape arrives Oct. 28 when the doors swing open at the Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver.

The $15.9 million, 27,000- square-foot building at 15th and Delgany streets in the Central Platte Valley will debut with an exhibit featuring pieces commissioned for the museum from an array of international artists.

The list includes Chris Ofili, who drew the ire of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani for incorporating elephant dung into a collage of the Virgin Mary.

Giuliani, who called the piece "anti-Catholic," engaged in a public legal battle over the work with the Brooklyn Museum of Art, which displayed Ofili's piece during a 1999 exhibition.

MCA/Denver Executive Director Cydney Payton doesn't expect Ofili's art to ignite any controversy here.

"I've never found Chris' work to be controversial," said Payton. "It's more about beauty than being a provocateur. He has my complete trust."

"Star Power: Museum as Body Electric" will also include such big names as Mexican artist Carlos Amorales, whose video art has been displayed in Times Square, and Kenyan artist Wangechi Mutu, who blends ink and images clipped from magazines to create haunting female figures.

"Star Power," an homage to Walt Whitman's poem, "I Sing the Body Electric," will run for six months, with each featured artist's work exhibited in an individual gallery.

"This building gives us a chance to bring in artists from across the globe, but it doesn't negate the other reality, which is that we'll also provide the kind of space the local community deserves," said Payton.

To that end, Payton has commissioned local artist Kim Dickey and landscape architect Karla Dakin to design the Gates Rooftop Garden. Denverite Clark Richert will create a permanent piece to cover the surface of a fire lane on the museum's property.

Payton projected that the museum, which has an annual average attendance of about 25,000, could welcome that number during its opening week and more than 50,000 visitors in its first year.

"We are a fairly prudent organization and so we want to err on the side of conservative projections, but we also want to plan for a possible outcome that would be larger than that," Payton said.

When the Denver Art Museum's Frederic C. Hamilton Building opened last fall, officials projected attendance of 1 million for the first year. That has since been scaled back to 750,000.

Although Payton hasn't decided whether to hold the same kind of marathon-style celebration the art museum did to mark the opening of its addition, MCA/Denver will offer free admission on Oct. 28.

The public opening will follow a week of special activities, including a gala dinner and lectures with the building's architect, David Adjaye.

Payton and her staff have raised just under $11.3 million of the $18.9 million needed to fund the building and a $3 million endowment. Payton said the museum, which has a staff of 12, is expected to employ 23 to 25 people when the new facility opens.

First viewing

• What: Opening day at Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver

• Date: Oct. 28

• Information: 303-298-7554 or www.mcadenver.org

gonzaleze@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5350

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