Modern Matters

For Clyfford Still Museum director Dean Sobel, curating Modern Masters: 20th Century Icons From the Albright-Knox Art Gallery for the Denver Art Museum was a bit like raiding the candy store: Since the DAM doesn’t have much in its collection from the classic modern period on which the exhibit focuses,...

By Susan Froyd

June 5, 2014

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For Clyfford Still Museum director Dean Sobel, curating Modern Masters: 20th Century Icons From the Albright-Knox Art Gallery for the Denver Art Museum was a bit like raiding the candy store: Since the DAM doesn’t have much in its collection from the classic modern period on which the exhibit focuses, Sobel wanted to give museum-goers a chance to see that kind of work. “People here have not had direct contact with works by the greats of the period — Miró, Picasso, Warhol,” he explains. “This exhibition, in my view, is as good as it gets. It tells the story of modern art as well as any museum in the nation.” So you can hold off on that visit to the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan you were dreaming about.

Modern Masters opens today at the DAM, 100 West 14th Avenue Parkway, but Sobel also double-dipped on curating duties by producing the companion exhibit 1959: The Albright-Knox Art Gallery Exhibition Re-created, which will run concurrently next door at the Still Museum, 1250 Bannock Street. For 1959, he took up the difficult task of understanding how Still structured the original exhibit, which unfolded non-chronologically, while also fitting it into a different space. Both shows run until mid-June, and a timed-and-dated ticket to Modern Masters, ranging in price from $5 to $20 (children ages five and under admitted free), is good for admission at both museums — not necessarily on the same day. For reservations and information, visit denverartmuseum.org or clyffordstillmuseum.org.
Tuesdays-Sundays. Starts: March 2. Continues through June 8, 2014

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Susan Froyd started writing for Westword as the "Thrills" editor in 1992 and never quite left the fold. These days she still freelances for the paper in addition to walking her dogs, enjoying cheap ethnic food and reading voraciously. Sometimes she writes poetry.

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