Aspen Art Museum launches initiative to foster collaboration between forward-thinking artists and leaders
Benjamin Rasmussen/Courtesy photo
Aspen Art Museum (AAM) just launched AIR, a 10-year initiative that invests in artists and leaders through research, new artist commissions, performances, and interdisciplinary gatherings, including closed-door, artist-led retreats and public festivals every summer, beginning this year.
AIR brings artists into dialogue with leaders from science, policy, and industry to drive forward-thinking solutions to modern-day issues. It builds upon the Aspen International Design Conference, which attracted major thinkers, artists, and industry leaders to Aspen from 1951 to 2004. The former conference, established by the Aspen Institute, created an opportunity for leaders from a variety of backgrounds to exchange ideas and push the boundaries of creative thought.
“It was an incubator for new ways of thinking, bringing figures like John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, and Susan Sontag into dialogue with leaders from across disciplines,” said Nicola Lees, Nancy and Bob Magoon director of AAM. “AIR builds upon that legacy by reimagining Aspen as a site for exchange with an eye toward the future. We are centering artists not just as participants in a conversation but as consequential leaders (and) actively shaping how ideas evolve and influence the world. By commissioning new research, performances, and artworks, AIR moves beyond discussion into action, encouraging new models of collaboration.”
AIR is, in part, a response to what The New Yorker Editor David Remnick recently called a “hinge point” in history, where accelerating technological, social, and environmental changes require innovative ways of thinking.
In keeping with AAM’s mission to support artists in developing bold ideas, AIR draws upon Aspen’s history of hosting gatherings to expand creative ideas.
“I believe in the power of convening, and there is no place better for that than our mountain town, which has been treasured by artists of all kinds for decades,” she said. “This is about investing in relationships. For artists, AIR provides a sustained platform for experimentation, long-term support, and access to a global network of collaborators. The combination of public programming and the private retreat ensures that AIR is both expansive — engaging the public in vital conversations — and focused, giving artists the space to develop unprecedented ideas with peers from other fields.”
AIR invites people to interact with groundbreaking ideas and art firsthand, to widen “the lens through which we can experience the world,” she said. “More broadly, AIR is about civic engagement. As it unfolds in the years ahead, it has the potential to influence policy, technology, and education by creating a space where artists, thinkers, scientists, industry leaders, and our community can collaborate to imagine new and liberatory ways forward. This, ultimately, is the ambition of the program.”
AIR supports artists’ voices by hosting critical conversations and commissioning one-of-a-kind performances and installations to bring novel ideas to life in unexpected ways. As Lees points out: Art can “reshape how we perceive and relate to one another and the world.”
With artificial intelligence developing so rapidly, it offers opportunities to engage with questions of consciousness, as well as AI’s role in the world. For example, this summer, Paul Chan will unveil a new project and lecture on his AI self-portrait in a program open to the public.
To complement his work, this summer’s first AIR retreat builds on Zoë Hitzig’s research about how AI impacts our understanding of reality.
“Produced in collaboration with the Aspen Institute, this first retreat invites artists, thinkers, scientists, and technologists to come together to imagine new tools to help us navigate a rapidly changing world and envision what a future might look like where artists are supported as visionary leaders,” Lees said.
This summer’s AIR lineup includes artists Glenn Ligon, Paul Chan, and Aria Dean; New York Times’ Best 10 Books of 2024 author Álvaro Enrigue; Harvard Junior Fellow and OpenAI research scientist Zoë Hitzig; and architects Maya Lin and Francis Kéré. Matthew Barney, Andre 3000, and Mati Diop are currently in the final stages of contracting but not yet officially confirmed. Lin, an alumnus of the 1983 Aspen International Design Conference, will be one of AIR’s keynote speakers. AAM will announce the full program in spring.
Just as it chooses which artists to showcase in the museum, AAM is curating AIR artists based on those who are at crucial moments in their career. AIR artists will also be selected for their ability to advance new ways of thinking, as well as for their commitment to interdisciplinary exploration.
“Paul Chan, Aria Dean, Francis Kéré, and Glenn Ligon, among others, are not only leaders in their respective fields, but also deeply engaged with timely cultural, environmental, and technological questions. The lineup reflects a spectrum of practices, from AI and the subconscious to architecture and ecological systems, ensuring that AIR fosters a dynamic cross-pollination of ideas,” Lees said. “Their work serves as an example for emerging artists, demonstrating how creative practice can extend beyond traditional boundaries to effect real-world change. This emphasis on exchange exists not only in the artists we are bringing together, but also within the collaborative spirit (among) our partnerships with other nonprofits in the valley, from the Aspen Institute and the Aspen Music Festival and School to international partners like the Serpentine.”
Major donors, including MoMA Board President and AAM Trustee Sarah Arison and founding corporate partner Lugano, are supporting AIR. So far, AAM has secured $20 million to back the program.
