Art Installations

FriendsWithYou installation at the Silver Queen Gondola, Aspen Mountain

Art has been woven into the fabric of Aspen Snowmass from the very beginning. Two decades in, what began as a venture between Aspen Snowmass (now Aspen One), the championing of its owner’s, Paula and the late Jim Crown, and the Aspen Art Museum, ArtUP has featured a rich roster of internationally acclaimed artists. The program has continued to prove that a multitude of environments—natural or human made—can serve as canvasses for artists with imaginative ideas as diverse as the mediums they employ.

Below, you can view current and former art installations at Aspen Snowmass, with information on the artist and collaborative partners who helped make them possible.

Paula Pivi

Suspended in the dining rooms of the Sundeck on Aspen Mountain and TK, Paula Pivi’s feather-adorned, life-like bear sculptures brought both color and contemplation to the slopes throughout the 2021-2022 winter season.

Paula Pivi bear exhibit in the Aspen Mountain lodge, artist looks up at her green feather polar bear

Image of Paula Pivi's orange feather polar bear printed on the Aspen Snowmass dining walll

Red Bull Illume

Installed inside the heated dining tent located outside of High Alpine Restaurant at Snowmass, this gallery of images is a showcase of Red Bull Illume — the world's greatest international imagery contest dedicated to adventure and action sports. Swing by and get inspired by the world’s greatest adventure and action sports imagery.

Commissioned Artists

In the 2021-2022 winter season, we commissioned four artists to create 8' x 16' paintings for the heated dining tents located outside the Sundeck on Aspen Mountain and Ullrhof on Snowmass. The featured artists included Detour, Denver-based artist who highlighted jazz music’s culture; Alexandrea Pangburn whose artwork depicted the Kelpie in the waters of Maroon Lake where he surfs the waves of the water during the summer and powder in the winter; and Anna Charney, who describes her work as “digital taffy” and planned for a piece with an icy cool color scheme to fit the winter feels on the mountain; and John Hastings whose piece showcased the colorful life that springs into action as the snowmelt travels to other parts of the country.

In the 2022-2023 winter season, the Melted Gondola was fabricated entirely in Aspen’s Roaring Fork Valley by an artist named Chris Erikson. The piece was inspired by James Dive and The Glue Society’s Hot with the Chance of a Late Storm, a potent message in sculptural form about our quickly warming world. The piece sat at the top of Aspen Mountain and offered visitors an opportunity to reflect on what life would look like if winter melted away due to climate change.

Learn More

In the spring of 2019, Aspen Skiing Company and Anderson Ranch Arts Center collaborated to install "We Are the Asteroid II” on the slopes of Aspen Snowmass. A solar-powered highway sign with climate messages by artist Justin Brice Guariglia, “WATA ” debuted at Anderson Ranch Arts Center before making its way to the ski hill as a satellite exhibit for the “Imagine Climate” exhibition, highlighting the urgency of the climate crisis. The signage acted as a metaphor for climate change. The titular, “We are the Asteroid,” was a not-so-subtle accusation of humanity’s ability to create its own planet-level destruction and lived on Fanny Hill on Snowmass in the Spring of 2019.

FriendsWithyou

FriendsWithYou: the Dance

FriendsWithYou, the collaborative artist duo of Samuel Borkson and Arturo Sandoval III, are well known for their unique experimental pop visions taking form in a variety of mediums, all for the betterment of culture, and based in compassion for humankind and our world. Most notably, they have created the successful animation show True and the Rainbow Kingdom on Netflix, participated in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 2018 featuring their iconic Little Cloud character, and have exhibited their artworks in museums and public venues worldwide. FriendsWithYou’s vision is to greatly impact our world with positivity and connectivity.

Follow along: @FriendsWithYou / www.FriendsWithYou.com

Orbs - Friendswithyou at Snowmass Base Village

Paula Crown: JOKESTER

In 2018, a 10-foot-tall sculpture of a red solo cup—a statement piece in Paula Crown’s SOLO TOGETHER series—served as a reminder to visitors and locals alike of our collective impact through consumption, waste, and pollution. The large installation situated at the base of Aspen Mountain embodied Crown’s commitment to using art to inspire social change and to raise awareness of the climate crisis. Her installation intended to prompt viewers to ask:” What happens to all the plastic we use only once and toss?” “Who cleans it up?” “What are the permanent traces we leave behind?”

Paula Crown Jokester art exhibit: Red solo cups stacked up and blurred, used at the Aspen Snowmass lift ticket art

Paula Crown Jokester art exhibit: Giant red solo cup "melting" into the ground, Aspen Snowmass Gondola in background

Jose Davila

Aspen Snowmass partnered Mexican artist Jose Dávila for the 2022-23 season. Dávila’s works—a mural titled “The fact of constantly returning to the same point or situation,” and a hanging mobile sculpture—appeared in an original installation at Elk Camp in Snowmass and Buttermilk Mountain Lodge. Born in 1974 in Guadalajara, Mexico, Jose Dávila bridges the worlds of architecture and fine art in his compelling practice. With a foundation in architectural training, Dávila has spent over a decade probing the ephemeral qualities of seemingly permanent structures. Dávila's oeuvre spans sculptural installations and photographic works, each piece a dialogue with the giants of 20th century avant-garde art and architecture. Drawing inspiration from a diverse array of visionaries—from the emotional architecture of Luis Barragán to the multidisciplinary innovations of Herbert Bayer and the minimalist mastery of Donald Judd—Dávila's work is a lens through which we can examine the evolution of modernism.

Jose Davila artwork: A series of red squares, suspended in the air and reflecting their surroundings

Jose Davila artwork: A series of multicolored squares, all reflecting the color of the wall they are facing

Mark Grotjahn

In 2012, bright, mask-shaped sculptures were perched atop all four mountains of Aspen Snowmass. Created by painter and sculptor Mark Grotjahn, the abstract pieces were influenced by Grotjahn’s primitive, cardboard sculptures that first appeared at the L.A. Museum of Contemporary Art in 2006. His bronze recreation of his masks were displayed high on metal poles, able to weather the elements throughout the winter season. “They are boxy, cheery, colorfully painted bronze heads with cut-out eyes that look like they were based on cardboard sculptures made by a kid,” described the Los Angeles Times. The masks were also featured on lift tickets throughout the ski season and extended the artist’s focus on the ritual of painting, implementing acrylic and collage to create the abstract faces.

Mark Grotjahn lift ticket art: green background red abstract wooden face

Mark Grotjahn lift ticket art: purple background with aspen colored wood object

The Aspen Series

Featured at venues and locations throughout Aspen Snowmass, a multi-site exhibition of internationally renowned artist, Walter Niedermayr, entitled The Aspen Series was displayed with large-scale photographs and banners. Paula and Jim Crown, partners of Aspen One, commissioned The Aspen Series by artist Walter Niedermayr in 2009 as a demonstration of their passion for both art and the natural surroundings of the mountainous areas and towns in Aspen Snowmass.

Walter Niedermayr has worked in alpine regions around the world since the late 1980s, using his camera to explore the issues surrounding the presence and interference of people in sensitive landscapes. These were the first works produced in the U.S. by the internationally acclaimed artist. The Aspen Series depicts the winter landscape of the iconic ski resort in the Rocky Mountains, on which a highly ambitious kind of tourism has taken a heavy toll.

The exhibition was spread across the resort including installations on Aspen Mountain, the City of Aspen, Aspen Highlands, Buttermilk and Snowmass. See below for specific locations and exhibit information.

LEARN ABOUT THE SUMMER SERIES

Collector's Edition: The Aspen Series

Includes Book + Artwork

In the winter 2009, Italian artist Walter Niedermayr was invited by the Crown family to Aspen, Colorado to immerse himself in the local landscape. The trip resulted in a body of works including a series of photographs, a video work, and a pattern design and Niedermayr provided a contemporary vision that transcends the local with complex and engaging images. The resort guests were able to engage with the works on ski passes, in hotels and restaurants, and other unexpected places. As a result of this collaboration a limited, small-size edition of the photographic two-part work Aspen 89, 2009 and accompanying book including all the works from the Aspen Series was been created and made available in limited quantities.

AUDIENCE PLANT 2024

Aspen ArtWeek reached its apex with AUDIENCE PLANT 2024, a concert of original music by Michael Beharie, Lizzie Fitch, Ashland Mines, Aaron David Ross, and Ryan Trecartin, performed at the top of Aspen Mountain. The live event featured guest performers including Sam Gendel, Matthew Jamal, JK Kim, Jason Moran and the Aspen Music School's Contemporary Ensemble, merging a newly composed score of electronic and orchestral music with rollicking sonic improvisations.